The Classroom Assignment Process: Understanding Data Use Across School Contexts

• In Event: Data Use for School Improvement: Findings From Studies of School Leaders’ Decision Making in Accountability Contexts

Abstract

Given increasing accountability placed on schools to improve student achievement, and on leaders to use data and evidence when making school-level decisions (Mandinich, 2012; Marsh, Pane, & Hamilton, 2006, Young & Kim, 2010), this paper examines how school leaders use data and other evidence to inform a vital area of school operation: the assignment of teachers and students to classrooms. Besides contributing to the limited research on this topic, examining classroom assignment provides an opportunity to explore how data and evidence influence these school-level decisions and how, if at all, different data-use practices help explain varying assignment outcomes across school settings.
Conceptually, this study utilizes ideas associated with Inhabited Institutions theory (e.g. Hallet, 2010) to understand how individual decision-makers, with distinct assumptions, philosophies and preferences, make decisions in the context of schools inhabited by people (teachers, students, parents) and shaped by policies and practices about how to assign students and teachers to classrooms. The framework takes into account the various types of information school leaders consider when forming classrooms, as well as how other unique school-level factors, including responses to broader accountability pressures, influence assignment processes across school settings.
A sequential mixed-methods design was used to link classroom assignment patterns to assignment processes in elementary schools in one large urban district. The purpose of the quantitative component was to examine assignment patterns across grade-level classrooms and to identify schools with varying patterns. Data from a state-level longitudinal warehouse were examined for two consecutive years, 2010-2011 and 2011-12. These data provide detailed student demographic and performance data linked to teacher demographic and administrative data. Based on findings from 139 classrooms in 29 schools, 41% of schools sorted students into classrooms by previous test scores and other observable student characteristics whereas 59% of schools balanced classrooms by these measures. Among “sorting” schools, the least experienced teacher was consistently assigned the lower performing classroom when teachers varied by experience.
To understand how classroom assignment processes, particularly the use of data and evidence, resulted in the observed patterns, principals and teachers were interviewed in 6 schools that were strategically selected for their varying assignment patterns and school-level demographics. Preliminary findings suggest that school leaders draw on similar forms of data and evidence, many of which are not captured in current state-level databases. While most classroom assignment decisions were made by a team of individuals, in schools where teachers were heavily involved in decision-making, decisions tended to include the use of more anecdotal and experiential forms of evidence. In schools where principals made more unilateral assignment decisions, leaders relied on student data and more systematic forms of evidence. Forthcoming analyses examine how, if at all, different data-use practices contribute to different assignment outcomes across the varied school contexts.
Examining data-use in the context of classroom assignment may inform data-driven decision-making practices across school settings. It may also provide a first step in understanding the mechanisms behind inequitable teacher-to-student distribution and potentially inform practices that utilize school resources to benefit all students.

Author

• Elise St John, University of Washington - Seattle