Teachers interpreting data for instructional decisions: where does equity come in?
| Published date | 03 July 2017 |
| Date | 03 July 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-09-2016-0106 |
| Pages | 407-426 |
| Author | Brette Garner,Jennifer Kahn Thorne,Ilana Seidel Horn |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Teachers interpreting data for
instructional decisions: where
does equity come in?
Brette Garner, Jennifer Kahn Thorne and Ilana Seidel Horn
Department of Teaching and Learning, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Though test-based accountability policies seek to redress educational inequities, their underlying
theories of action treat inequality as a technical problem rather than a political one: data point educators
toward ameliorative actions without forcing them to confront systemic inequities that contribute to
achievement disparities. To highlight the problematic nature of this tension, the purpose of this paper is
to identify key problems with the techno-rational logic of accountability policies and reflect on the ways in
which they influence teachers’data-use practices.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper illustrates the data use practices of a workgroup of sixth-
grade math educators. Their meeting represents a “best case”of commonplace practice: during a full-day
professional development session, they used data from a standardized district benchmark assessment with
support from an expert instructional leader. This sociolinguistic analysis examines episodes of data
reasoning to understand the links between the educators’interpretations and instructional decisions.
Findings –This paperidentifies three primaryissues with test-basedaccountability policies:reducing complex
constructsto quantitative variables, valuingremediation over instructionalimprovement, and enactingfaith in
instrument validity. At the same time, possibilities for equitable instruction were foreclosed, as teachers
analyzed data in ways thatgave little consideration of students’cultural identities or fundsof knowledge.
Social implications –Test-based accountability policies do not compel educators to use data to address the
deeper issues of equity, thereby inadvertently reinforcing biased systems and positioning students from
marginalized backgrounds at an educational disadvantage.
Originality/value –This paper fulfills a need to critically examine the ways in which test-based
accountability policies influence educators’data-use practices.
Keywords Teacher learning, Decision making, Accountability
Paper type Research paper
Test-based accountability policies place pressure on teachers and schools to increase test scores,
particularly for students from historically marginalized groups. Educators and policymakers
use results from standardized assessments to identify potential problem areas –content that
students have not mastered, students who are underperforming, schools and teachers deemed
ineffective, and so forth. In theory, the purpose of these policies is to detect such problems and
find solutions, thus creating more equitable outcomes in schools.
However, policymakers underspecify the deta ils of data-use processes. Despite
accountability policies’stated intention to reduce educational inequity and improve the
academic standing of students of color, emergent bilinguals[1], and students from
low-income families, the underlying theory of action treats inequality as a technical problem
rather than a political one: Data will point educators toward ameliorative actions without
forcing them to confront systemic inequities that contribute to achievement disparities.
To imagine another tack, efforts advocating for increased data use could instead address
how teachers recognize and respond to the racial ideologies and injustices that operate both
in the data and within teachers’own data literacy practices (Philip and Garcia, 2013, 2015;
Philip et al., 2016). Using this counterfactual as a point of contrast, this paper identifies key
problems with the techno-rational logic of accountability policies and reflects on the ways in
which they influence teachers’data-use practices. To illustrate this argument, the analysis
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 55 No. 4, 2017
pp. 407-426
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-09-2016-0106
Received 23 September 2016
Revised 18 April 2017
Accepted 19 April 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
407
Data for
instructional
decisions
critically considers the data-use practices of a group of middle school mathematics
educators examining the results of a district benchmark assessment to plan instruction in
the weeks leading up to the high stakes, end-of-year state test. The analysis seeks to reveal
the ways in which issues of equity intersect with their work as they interpret student
assessment data for instructional decision-making.
A critical take on test-based accountability policies
Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) is a common strategy for school- and district-level
improvement in many countries (Ah-Teck and Starr, 2014; Datnow and Hubbard, 2015;
Lynch et al., 2016). In the USA, DDDM is shaped largely by test-based accountability
policies. Beginning with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, US states have
implemented annual high-stakes standardized assessments in mathematics and reading;
similar policies have continued through the Race to the Top initiative of 2009 and the
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015. Under these policies, schools and districts
are held accountable to students’performance on end-of-year exams that primarily
feature multiple-choice questions. Students’scores are disaggregated by subpopulations
(including categories for race, ethnicity, poverty, language, and special education status).
This allows policymakers, educators, and the general public to identify and monitor
differences in performance of subpopulations (“achievement gaps”). To avoid sanctions,
schools must demonstrate sufficiently high passing rates for each subpopulation as well as
the overall student body. By specifying achievement goals for students from various
groups, accountability policies seek to encourage “continuous and substantial academic
improvement for all students”(NCLB, 2002).
These accountability policies share the following underlying theory of action: by shining
a light on students’performance, examining differences across groups, and maintaining
high expectations for all, schools can provide more equitable outcomes for their students.
Considered in the context of social stratification and historical disenfranchisement, the logic
of this theory quickly unravels. As critical scholars have noted, policies that emphasize the
test scores of historically marginalized subpopulations often reinscribe existing power
structures by reinforcing deficit-oriented perspectives toward non-dominant communities
(Milner, 2013). Framing differences among groups of students as an achievement gap –
instead of as an education debt (Ladson-Billings, 2006) –pathologizes students who fail
state tests, without acknowledging or redressing underlying reasons for performance
differentials. As Ladson-Billings (2006) notes, the USA has a well-established history of
limiting educational opportunities for students in marginalized communities through
policies that supported segregation, unequal school funding, differential school staffing
patterns, and related differential distributions of resources. Accordingly, describing the
academic underperformance of marginalized students as an “achievement gap”highlights
students’failure to learn grade-level material rather than society’s ongoing failure to provide
adequate resources, opportunities, and civil liberties for students and their families.
Through this techno-rational logic, test-based accountability policies focus on the
present-tense outcomes, rather than historically rooted causes, of educational inequities.
Student learning is measured by standardized tests, which hold all students to the same
metric, regardless of the educational debt owed to them and their families. Scholars have
found that schools facing higher pressure from accountability policies –often, schools with
higher populations of students of color and students from low-income families –turn to
more intensive test preparation strategies (Diamond and Cooper, 2007; Horn, 2016).
The most charitable reading of this trend is to view it as an attempt to prepare students to
engage in the “culture of power”that governs schooling (Delpit, 1988); that is, by explicitly
preparing historically disenfranchised students for success on consequential metrics,
teachers give them greater access to the knowledge and skills that will allow them to acquire
408
JEA
55,4
To continue reading
Request your trial