San Leandro schools Superintendent Christine Lim and a quartet of other top district administrators are in New Orleans today talking about how the district’s anti-racist efforts have contributed to “significant gains on state tests, especially for African-American and Latino students.” They’re speaking at The Summit for Courageous Conversations: Achieving Racial Equity and Excellence in Education, which is sponsored by San Francisco-based Pacific Educational Services.

They are discussing how a five-year equity program, and “courageous conversations about race” have helped to close the racial predictability gap in achievement tests. Teaching strategies, inclusion of the “student voice” and training of under-represented parents are among the methods used.

Oh, and speaking of sensitivity, the summit’s organizers apologized on their Web site (www.summitforcourageousconversation.com) for their religious insensitivity, scheduling the conference at the same time as the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and the Muslim month of fasting known as Ramadan.

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