The Multicultural Student Achievement Network celebrated its 25th anniversary from November 13-16 with a milestone conference that brought together students and educators from across the country. With the theme “Leaving Our Legacy,” the event focused on exploring how school improvement and social justice efforts can lead to lasting, systemic change, according to the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
MSAN, a coalition of multiracial school districts, was founded in 1999 to address racial achievement gaps and expand opportunities for students of color. Over its lifetime, MSAN has grown to include over 20 member districts committed to its mission of equity and inclusion.
Since 2007, MSAN has been headquartered at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, a part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education.
Executive Director of MSAN Latoya Holiday said the goal of the network is to bring school districts together to do research and participate in professional learning.
“Our mission is to learn together and learn from each other how to best overcome the challenges of serving students of color in our districts,” Holiday said.
MSAN’s connection to the School of Education reflects the principles of the Wisconsin Idea — a belief that education should influence lives beyond the classroom.
Through MSAN, UW’s reach can extend beyond state borders, connecting educators across the nation in their shared pursuit of equity.
MSAN project manager Connie Showalter spoke on the intersection of MSAN’s mission and the Wisconsin Idea, a driving philosophy for UW.
“The Wisconsin Idea is all about learning here at the University and taking that out into the world,” Showalter said. “With MSAN, it’s really up beyond that because we’re in nine states. So I feel fortunate that my work here at the university actually reaches across the United States.”
At the heart of MSAN’s mission is student empowerment. Each year, the annual conference serves as a platform for high school students to explore issues of race, identity and leadership while collaborating on actionable plans to implement in their schools.
Upon returning to their schools, the expectation is that students will further develop and implement this plan. The process involves presenting students presenting their plans to key stakeholders, such as principals, superintendents and school boards, as well as sharing it with their broader communities.
Through ongoing refinement and collaboration, districts aim to sustain and build upon these initiatives over time.
“The whole conference itself is about partnering with students, elevating youth voices, so that right there is an equity strategy,” Holiday said. “We believe in order to improve schools, we have to integrate the voices and the perspectives of the people we’re actually serving, which are youth.”
This year’s theme, “Leaving Our Legacy,” highlighted the role of students as change-makers in their communities. Workshops covered topics like combating racial bias, addressing systemic inequities and developing strategies for activism.
Holiday said that mentorship emerged as a recurring focus during the conference, adding that youth teams participated in brainstorming ideas surrounding mentorship programs for middle school students, specifically those of color.
The brainstormed programs were generally on the topic of how to acclimate students to high school, preparing them for time management and a more demanding class load, Holiday said.
For many students, the conference offered a transformative experience of solidarity.
It fostered a sense of belonging and empowerment as students engaged in discussions that emphasized their voices and power in shaping change.
“It’s really powerful to come together in a room of people who look like you, who say, ‘Yes, we’re experiencing the same things — let’s talk about how we can make it better,” Showalter said.
The 25th anniversary marked a turning point for MSAN as its leaders focused the conference on what will come next for the program. The network leadership is in the middle of creating a strategic plan hoping to increase membership and diversify funding streams.
Showalter outlined several long-term goals for MSAN, emphasizing the importance of expanding its reach to include more school districts, strengthening research collaborations and fostering youth leadership in social justice advocacy.
She explained that as a dues-based organization, MSAN relies on contributions from member school districts, but these fees don’t fully cover programming costs. To address this, the network actively pursues sponsorships and grants to sustain and grow its initiatives.
“We hope that connecting with researchers will also help in that fund stream area,” Showalter said.
There is not a direct collaboration between MSAN and the School of Education, Holiday said. It is the students themselves and their local advisors who take the responsibility of working on MSAN’s project both before and after the conference every year.
Both leaders expressed hope to see a more in-depth collaboration between MSAN’s work and UW.
“We do hope to build a partnership with some researchers here at UW and WCER to further build out the action planning part of this,” Holiday said. “But right now the students just work with the staff in their districts.”
Holiday added that she and Showalter, as executive director and project manager, respectively, are essentially UW employees. Still, there aren’t any other WCER staff that are working directly with their districts, she said.
Showalter said that MSAN is actively in the process of creating a Research Practice Partnership with researchers at UW.
“Any research that shows an increase in achievement and increase in graduation rates for school districts would be a win for MSAN, a win for the school districts, and a win for the UW Madison School of Education,” Showalter said.
