Uplifting ALL learners starts with YOU.
AMA is for school and system leaders deeply committed to fostering inclusive communities and equitable outcomes for all students but who may feel overwhelmed or without a clear path. Our 15-month leadership development cohort experience uniquely builds both adaptive and technical skills with relevant tools, high quality training, and context-responsive coaching – providing a thoughtful, rigorous, and transformative approach to building better overall schools while closing disproportionalities for students with disabilities and other intersectional identities that have been historically marginalized.
Why This Matters
Right now, the learners most often left behind and underserved even in the most equity-centered organizations — learners with disabilities, over-age and under-credited learners, learners involved in the justice system, and learners who are two or more years behind grade level — dramatically underperform not only their peers without IEPs and at grade level, but also the scientifically proven measures of their own potential. According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, learners with learning and attention disabilities:
Enroll in college at half the rate of their peers
Complete college at less than half the rate
Are three times less likely to be employed
Have a 1 in 2 chance of involvement in the carceral system
Who Is Impacted
This trend is most acute in schools serving low-income and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students with disabilities.
Black students with disabilities are 1.5 times more likely to drop out of high school
Black Americans with disabilities currently have the lowest employment rate
More than half of Black, disabled Americans have been arrested by the age of 28 (double the risk of their White disabled counterparts)
This is reinforced in schools where students with disabilities face disproportionate outcomes compounded by race.
Students with disabilities consistently lag behind all students on the NAEP, where Black students with disabilities fare the worst
Black students with disabilities are disciplined at a higher rate than white disabled + non-disabled peers, and suspended and restrained at higher rates
Students of color are often identified for special education and placed outside of general education classrooms at a higher rate than their White peers
True equity exists through intersectionality
1 in 5 learners in our public education system has a disability. Out of 7.3 million students with disabilities, only 15% identify as White and 11.4% identify as English Language Learners.
Why We Do This Work
These disproportionate outcomes are not sustainable, nor are they destiny. Research suggests that 90% of students with disabilities can and should achieve at the rate of their peers. When schools do try and address this they typically fall short in two ways:
They invest only in training and support for special education teachers, special education leaders or language specialists, which fails to address alignment at the school and system level, often reinforcing traditional silos and missing the support the full staff needs to help all kids thrive
They focus solely on technical solutions and support, missing the critical work needed to build key mindsets, adult culture and to manage change.
At All Means All, we focus on school and system leaders to build a whole school culture of investment, knowledge, skill and belief. We teach adaptive skills as much as technical skills to build the mindsets and belief for durable change that pushes beyond barriers and bias and builds a team’s ability to collaboratively problem solve.
How We Do This Work
We start by honoring the unique contexts of each school, supporting you and your team to build inclusive structures with a full continuum of support that enables students with disabilities and all learners who seek to be a part of your community to thrive socially, emotionally, and academically.
While we center on students with disabilities, the muscle, mindsets, and habits you will build can transform your outcomes for all learners in your community including learners with disabilities, learners who have been historically marginalized, and learners often left out of the educational experience. Partnership with AMA provides sustained transformation of leadership, mindsets, and structures to ensure disproportionate outcomes are eliminated – where ALL learners are seen and valued for their assets and have a viable path to achieve their dreams.
Our Theory of Action for Lasting Change
If we train, coach, and support school and system leaders and their teams to build strong cultures with inclusive mindsets and apply technical problem solving tools that remove barriers to learning, these leaders will create school spaces with revolutionary growth for even the most disadvantaged students and become proof points and exemplars for their networks, school systems, and societies.
Stories of Impact
All Means All is a multi-faceted program that revolutionizes your ability to lead in a way that supports all learners. Explore what it looks like when we truly commit to supporting all learners.
It starts with you. We’re here to help. Ready to be part of a community helping all learners succeed?
