Historicizing School Improvement Planning Policy

• In Event: Critical Educational Policy Analysis: Attending to Equitable Power Analysis in Scholar-Practitioner Knowledge Co-Creation

Abstract

Objectives: An integral part of CPA is interrogating policies, their origins, and evolution over time (Diem et al., 2019). Currently, policies mandating that school leaders engage in the school improvement planning (SIP) process serve as prevalent policy levers for improving schools through motivating and organizing schoolwide improvement efforts (Duke, 2015). However, the punitive measures associated with these policies (e.g., state takeovers, school closures) have been shown to disproportionately impact students of color and Black students in particular (e.g., Anderson & Dixson, 2016; Green, 2017). Given that these SIP policies have served as justification for these harmful punitive measures, it is necessary to understand how SIP policy became such an integral part of school improvement efforts as this understanding can offer insight regarding its present day implementation (e.g., Blount, 2008).
Theoretical Framework: This study is grounded in BlackCrit which articulates how Black bodies (i.e., students and educators) have historically been and continue to be dehumanized through education policies and practices (Dumas & ross, 2016). BlackCrit is a helpful lens particularly for interrogating SIP policy as Black bodies are often the targets of school improvement efforts, from school desegregation (e.g., Dumas, 2016) to school discipline (e.g., Coles & Powell, 2020) to diversifying the educator workforce (e.g., Carver-Thomas, 2018). Further, grounding this work in BlackCrit, allows for the examination of the ways in which SIP policy reinforces rather than redresses inequities based on how antiblackness is at play in the origins and evolution of SIP policy.
Methods and Data Sources: This study applies an approach to critical policy genealogy called historicizing (Brewer, 2012) to situate SIP policy within its historical context to better understand the problems SIP policy has been positioned to address which, in turn, informs how educators make sense of and implement current SIP policy (e.g., Blount, 2008). As is common with this method (e.g., Winton & Brewer, 2014), I collected and analyzed a range of documents including newspaper articles, government documents, reports, and journal articles. The analysis focused particularly on “how power is exercised” through the origins and evolution of SIP policy.
Results: Preliminary findings indicate that SIP policy shifted from an organizational improvement strategy for all schools focused on identifying and working toward school and district priorities to a punitive measure focused more narrowly on state-designated underperforming schools increasing academic achievement. These findings suggest that SIP policy may reinforce antiblackness and, in turn, inequities through reinforcing deficit notions of students of color in general and Black students in particular.
Significance: While the SIP process can still be a useful mechanism for improving schools, this study problematizes SIP policy’s use of the SIP process as justification for punishment. Further, this study is among the first to examine SIP policy’s role in reinforcing or redressing inequities. 

Author

• Latrice Marianno, Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville