Education Policy Equity And Effectiveness

What has been done to achieve fairer and more efficient education systems, and what more can be done in the future? Stephen Gorard provides a comprehensive examination of crucial policy areas for education, such as differential outcomes, the poverty gradient, and the allocation of resources to education, to identify likely causes of educational disadvantage among students and lifelong learners. This analysis is supported by 20 years of extensive research, based in the home countries of the UK and on work in all EU28 countries, USA, Pakistan and Japan. This approachable, rich text brings invaluable insights into the underlying problems within education policy, and proposes practical solutions for a brighter future.

What has been done to achieve fairer and more efficient education systems, and what more can be done in the future? Stephen Gorard provides a comprehensive examination of crucial policy areas for education, such as differential outcomes, the poverty gradient, and the allocation of resources to education, to identify likely causes of educational disadvantage among students and lifelong learners. This analysis is supported by 20 years of extensive research, based in the home countries of the UK and on work in all EU28 countries, USA, Pakistan and Japan. This approachable, rich text brings invaluable insights into the underlying problems within education policy, and proposes practical solutions for a brighter future.

This book aims to make a contribution to the theory, research and practice on quality and equity in education by providing a comprehensive overview of these two dimensions of educational effectiveness and proposing a methodological instrument that may be used to measure the contribution that each school can make to promoting equity. The importance of using this instrument is demonstrated by analysing results of various effectiveness studies conducted over the last decade. The book draws upon research across the world, especially research conducted in the Europe, the United States, and Australasia. It is shown that promoting equity has no negative effect on the promotion of quality. The importance of using this methodological instrument to identify factors that promote both quality and equity at different educational levels (i.e. teacher, school and educational system) is stressed. The book also demonstrates how we can measure stability and changes in the effectiveness status of schools over time in terms of fostering quality and equity. In addition it underlines the importance of identifying factors measuring changes in the effectiveness status of schools in terms of equity and points to the alternative strategies that can be used at school and system level. In our attempt to encourage the further development and use of this methodology for school improvement purposes, we demonstrate how experimental studies can be conducted to discover whether and under which conditions the proposed methodology can help schools promote both quality and equity. Finally, implications for school evaluation, research, educational policy and practice are drawn. In this way, the book contributes significantly to the debate on how quality and equity can be achieved and encourages policy-makers and practitioners not to view these two dimensions of effectiveness as being in competition with each other but as constituting the major objectives of any reform policy and/or improvement effort at school and/or national levels.

This second volume from the National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education examines the connections between school choice and the goals of equity and efficiency in education. The contributors—distinguished university professors, high school administrators, and scholars from research institutions around the country—assess the efficiency of the educational system, analyzing efforts to boost average achievement. Their discussion of equity focuses on the reduction of racial and religious segregation in education, as well as measures to ensure that "no child is left behind." The result is an authoritative and balanced look at how to maximize benefits while minimizing risks in the implementation of school choice. The National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education was established to explore how choice works and to examine how communities interested in the potential benefits of new school options could obtain them while avoiding choice's potential harms. In addition to the editors, commissioners include Paul T. Hill and Dan Goldhaber (University of Washington), David Ferrero (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Brian P. Gill and Laura Hamilton (Rand), Jeffrey R. Henig (Teachers College, Columbia University), Frederick M. Hess (American Enterprise Institute), Stephen Macedo (Princeton University), Lawrence Rosenstock (High Tech High, San Diego), Charles Venegoni (Civitas Schools in Chicago), Janet Weiss (University of Michigan), and Patrick J. Wolf (Georgetown University).

Quality and Equity in Education draws attention to the importance of developing and testing theories of educational effectiveness and using these theories for improvement purposes. It makes a major contribution to knowledge and theory building in research on promoting quality and equity in education. The book presents an improved version of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness based on the empirical data emerged from studies testing its validity, claiming that the proposed theory can be used for establishing links between educational effectiveness research and school improvement. Towards that end, the book presents the Dynamic Approach to teacher and school improvement, demonstrating its impact on quality and equity in education. The book not only proposes an agenda for further research on developing and testing the dynamic theory of educational effectiveness but also refers to research methods that can be used to test the assumptions of this theory and search for relevant cause and effect relations. The agenda also refers to the need of identifying the conditions under which the dynamic approach to teacher and school improvement can have an effect on student learning outcomes. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in education research and the area of quality and equity in education. It will also be of interest to policymakers, school advisors and other stakeholders in education.

Because everyone from policymakers to classroom teachers has a role in achieving greater equity for children from poverty, this book provides a sweeping chronicle of the historical turning points—judicial, legislative, and regulatory—on the road to greater equity, as background to the situation today. It provides succinct policy recommendations for states and districts, as well as practical curricular and instructional strategies for districts, schools, and teachers. This comprehensive approach—from the statehouse to the classroom—for providing children who come to school from impoverished environments with the education in which they thrive, not merely one that is comparable to others, truly enlists everyone in the quest for opportunity and performance. The next step toward equity may be taken by a governor, but it may also be taken by a teacher. One need not wait for the other. Press Relaease Redding, S. (Ed.). (2021). Opportunity and performance: Equity for children from poverty. Information Age. Copyright: Academic Development Institute • historical and legislative background for understanding current situation • analysis of poverty’s impact on learning from multiple perspectives • likely effects of COVID pandemic on learning and what to do about it • proximal (classroom) and distal (system) levers for change • actionable steps for teachers, schools, districts, states • what can be done to disrupt poverty’s impact on learning, "right here, right now” • disproportionately positive effects (DPEs) of high-impact strategies • goalposts for measurement of progress by schools, districts, states • glossary of terms and discussion prompts Last year, 2021, saw a host of books and articles addressing aspects of “equity,” some mounting the bandwagon of advocacy and some arguing what the term itself actually means. But where were the clear-eyed analyses and practical solutions for educators? After more than a year of focused attention to equity by five education scholars, their book, Opportunity & Performance, entered this stream of publications. The team is associated with the Academic Development Institute and their collaboration was supported by the National Comprehensive Center. This book is unique and distinct from others in several ways. First, the authors agreed early on to put boundaries around a topic that could otherwise run loose with ambiguity. As they were all educators, the book would focus on equity in education. As equity could be viewed from the perspective of a variety of groups that seek it—racial and ethnic groups, children with disabilities, and English learners prominent among them—the team of authors chose to devote the book to the one historically underserved group that most pervasively suffers in terms of academic achievement and that includes the other groups. That group is children from poverty. The five authors are not only researchers, their careers bristle with experience in schools and agencies that work with schools. From different disciplinary fields within education, they have all created and implemented strategies to improve learning and to measure that improvement. The authors were determined to logically and persuasively link their conclusions from the research on poverty, on learning, and on the nexus of the two. They wanted the book to be useful. They sought a respectful tone that would encourage common ground and constructive action to open doors of opportunity and achieve greater learning for students from impoverished environments. The book’s authors and external advisors brought to the work a diversity of professional background and expertise on historically underserved students, children from poverty, effective instruction, systems change, and methods for evaluating progress. Equity of opportunity: Each student—despite family income, race, ethnicity, gender, language, or disability—has the opportunity to attend schools, access courses and programs, and be taught by teachers that meet standards of quality on a par with schools attended by their peers. Equity of performance: The schools, courses, programs, and teachers that serve students from historically underserved groups reorient their curriculum, instruction, and support services to ameliorate disadvantages these students may disproportionately bear, optimizing learning results for these students. The Book's Authors Linda Cavazos, Ph.D., is a researcher and technical assistance provider with more than 25 years of experience in education supporting the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse learners and directing projects in the areas of equity, diversity, inclusion, literacy, and cultural and linguistic competence, responsiveness, and sustainability. Allison Layland, Ph.D., is the Chief Education Strategist for the Academic Development Institute (ADI) with projects in several regional centers. She has con¬sulted with 11 state education agencies on effective implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and has more than 20 years of teaching and leadership experience in general and special education at the school, district, and state levels. Sam Redding, Ed.D., is Chief Learning Scientist and a consultant to three regional centers. Dr. Redding also served as the Associate Director of the Center on School Turnaround (WestEd) and as Senior Learning Specialist for the Center on Innovations in Learning (Temple University), and Director of the Center on Innovation & Improvement. As a Senior Research Associate at the Laboratory for Student Success, he headed the Lab’s research and implementation of comprehensive school reform. Janet S. Twyman, Ph.D., BCBA, LBA, Dr. Twyman is a consultant for the Academic Development Institute. Throughout her career as a preschool and elementary teacher, school principal and administrator, university professor, instructional designer, distance learning architect, and educational consultant, Dr. Twyman has been a proponent of effective learning tech¬nologies that produce individual and system change. She has presented to and worked with education systems, organizations, and institutions in over 50 states and countries, including speaking about technologies for diverse learners and settings at the United Nations. Bi Vuong, MPA, is the Managing Director, Education Practice with Project Evident. Before joining Project Evident, Bi was the Director of Proving Ground at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. She also launched the National Center for Rural Education Research Network. Prior to Proving Ground, she served as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the School District of Philadelphia. Bi serves as a consultant for the Academic Development Institute with project assignments for several regional centers. The Book’s External Advisors Patricia Edwards, Ph.D. is professor of language and literacy at Michigan State University, a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, with research and publications on multicultural literacy, parent involvement, and related topics, especially among poor and minority children. Sheneka Williams, Ph.D. is professor and chairperson of the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University with a outstanding body of research on educational opportunity for African American students. T. V. (Joe) Layng, Ph.D. is a behavioral scientist with a distinguished career in research and practice, advancing learning through effective instruction for diverse students; Dr. Layng’s work focuses on the integration of technology with instructional design and systemic behavior interventions. Contact: Dr. Sam Redding at [email protected]

This volume offers a critical examination of educational policy in Ontario, Canada, and critiques the success of such policies in ensuring diversity and equity of access in teacher hiring. Providing comprehensive coverage of historical marginalization in the Canadian education system, the book explains the rationale and objectives of policies enacted with the aim of ensuring "bias-free", or "colourblind" hiring. Drawing on qualitative data to illustrate how educators’ lived experiences often sit at odds with the inclusivity that such policies claim to achieve, the book presents the "Equity Hiring Toolkit" as a practical framework enabling educational administrators to recognize how unconscious biases and relative positions of power can implicate hiring decisions. This text will benefit researchers, doctoral students, and academics in the fields of teacher education, educational policy, and multicultural education more broadly. Those interested in the school leadership and management, as well as race and ethnic studies will also enjoy this volume.

This open access book examines the interrelationship of national policy, teacher effectiveness, and student outcomes with a specific emphasis on educational equity. Using data from the IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) conducted between 1995 and 2015, it investigates grade four and grade eight data to assess trends in key teacher characteristics (experience, education, preparedness, and professional development) and teacher behaviors (instructional time and instructional content), and how these relate to student outcomes. Taking advantage of national curriculum data collected by TIMSS to assess changes in curricular strategy across countries and how these may be related to changes in teacher and student factors, the study focuses on the distributional impact of curriculum and instruction on students, paying particular attention to overall inequalities and variations in socioeconomic status at the student and country level, and how such factors have altered over time. Multiple methods, including regression and fixed effects analyses, and structural equation modelling, establish the evolution of these associations over time.