The Multiple Meanings of (In)Equity: Remaking School District Tracking Policy in an Era of Budget Cuts and Accountability

Abstract

How do school district administrators make sense of educational equity as they undertake reform? This study examines tracking policymaking in two urban school districts. Using case studies and an interpretive approach, the study highlights school district leaders’ shifting ways of making sense of tracking and (in)equity while facing achievement gaps, accountability pressures, budgets cuts, and support for tracking. Even after the emergence of powerful opposition, we find that district administrators continued to rethink the meaning of equity in relation to tracking and they pursued policies that expanded access to high-track classes and gifted education. While potentially widening educational opportunity, these moves fundamentally reinscribed the inequity of tracking in their schools.

Constraints, Values, and Information: How Leaders in One District Justify Their Positions During Instructional Decision Making

“…Finally, a growing body of research investigates the intersection between district leaders' reasoning and race, class, and language (Turner, 2015(Turner, , 2020Turner & Spain, 2016). In a study of districts' responses to changing demographics, Turner found that district leaders' reasoning about problems and solutions was laden with explicit and implicit racial discourse.…”

“…Reasons may be layered with discourse related to race, class, and language (Turner, 2015(Turner, , 2020Turner & Spain, 2016). Deliberators may evoke individual or cultural deficit discourses.…”

“…But public meetings between senior district leaders and elected or appointed citizens are quite different settings than meetings between education professionals that take place outside of the public eye. Finally, a growing body of literature investigates ways that district leaders discuss race, class, and language in their work (Turner, 2015(Turner, , 2020Turner & Spain, 2016). This literature does not fully investigate how this discourse informs deliberations.…”

Using Instructional Time and Race/Ethnicity to Predict Social Studies Accountability Test Results

“…Poverty is another variable under scrutiny when discussing student achievement gaps in state-mandated tests (Alexander & Jang, 2020;Baker, 2016;Clotfelter et al, 2009;Fernald et al, 2013;Harwell, 2018;Murnane et al, 2006;Olszewski-Kubilius et al, 2018;Phillips et al, 1998;Turner & Spain, 2020). This, according to researchers, is because Black and Hispanic students are more likely to experience the negative effects of poverty (e.g., low household income and unemployed family members) than White students (Reeves et al, 2016).…”

“…Results of the Games-Howell post hoc test revealed there were significant mean differences (p = .000) between all the combinations of the four instructional time configurations with the exception of the difference between the 61-79 minute block all year and the A/B 80-90 minute block all year instructional time configurations (p = .083). Then, because poverty has been identified as a variable with potential to significantly impact student achievement (Alexander & Jang, 2020;Anderson, 1993;Baker, 2016;Clotfelter et al, 2009;Fernald et al, 2013;Guo & Harris, 2000;Harwell, 2018;Kuhfeld et al, 2018;Murnane et al, 2006;Olszewski-Kubilius et al, 2018;Phillips et al, 1998;Turner & Spain, 2020), an ANCOVA was conducted on the interaction between instructional time configuration and social studies accountability test results using a covariate, Poverty Index, to control for student poverty level. Table 2 shows the result of this analysis.…”