National Leadership Standards and the Structured Silence of White Supremacy

Abstract

National standards for educational leaders became a prominent discussion in the mid- to late 1980s as the idea of what administrators needed to know to lead schools evolved. This chapter furthers this discussion and includes an overview of both the national standards and national educational leadership standards. The chapter starts with the dominant historical narrative espoused in the field of education about standards and goes on to briefly review that same narrative about national educational leadership standards. The chapter then interrogates the accuracy of the dominant narratives by juxtaposing the historical realities related to the context of the time and challenges the idea that national educational leadership standards are inclusive and objective.KeywordsNational standardsNational educational leadership standardsCritical race theoryWhite supremacyImplicit biasRacism