Equitable Futures
CEDER, together with Oakland Schools ISD, develops curriculum that engages students in the history of social justice and inequality in the Detroit metro area, and delivers professional learning to teachers who use the curriculum.
Equitable Futures is a curriculum and teacher professional learning initiative involving a collaboration between CEDER and Oakland Schools ISD. Designers from CEDER and Oakland Schools have developed curriculum and delivered professional learning to teachers who use the curriculum for the past four years, and have engaged with over 40 teachers and more than 2000 students. The curriculum challenges students to examine the continued histories of social justice and inequality in the Detroit, Michigan metro area as a means of igniting their power to create change.
Participating teachers receive 3 to 4 days of immersive, interactive professional development, and then they implement a five-week unit of study embedded in United States history courses. Students actively engage in a process of sustained inquiry on a research topic of their choosing to explore the complexities of challenging, real-world issues. The curriculum culminates in a youth forum where students raise each other’s awareness to the issues facing their generation.