School Autonomy and School Discipline: Contradictions Between Innovation Plans and Implementation

• In Event: 54.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Advocates for innovation policies argue that devolving educational decisions to the school level will improve students’ educational opportunities by empowering those working closest with them to make important educational decisions. Innovation advocates aim to close opportunity and achievement gaps by using these policies, however research has yet to examine the implications these policies have for issues of equity. The purpose of this study was to understand the equity implications of innovation schools by studying how school leaders approached a long-standing equity issue: school discipline.

Author

• Kathryn Elizabeth Wiley, University of California San Diego