Let Us Decide: A Review of Education Equity Indicator Systems and Community Power

• In Event: Decision-Makers at Every Stage: Designing, Implementing, and Reflecting on a Community-Centered Research-Practice Partnership Project

Abstract

Objectives
Our examination of existing educational equity indicator systems sought to understand how equity indicators have been defined, the degree to which community members have meaningfully participated in their development, and their impact on local communities. While standards-based accountability has contributed to deficit positioning of students of color, narrowed curriculum, and brought school closure and other sanctions to communities (Oliva & Martinez, 2021), youth- and parent-led organizing has focused attention on community-based standards for educational equity (CADRE, 2010; Hearing Youth Voices, n.d.; Jackson & Andrews, 2021). Our systematic literature and landscape review combines interests in school accountability, specifically through educational equity indicators which measure progress toward equity over time, and the role of parent and youth organizing for educational equity. We draw on critical participatory action research as an epistemology, and radical community-based research to illustrate the need for indicator systems to privilege community participation at each phase of indicator development. Without this, indicator development projects risk reinscribing existing inequities and power dynamics.

Methods and Data Sources
We used a modified Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) process (Alexander, 2020) to identify relevant sources related to equity indicator system development in local communities. Our process resulted in 13 sources, each representing a unique, locally situated indicator system.

Theoretical Framework
Our analysis is informed by contributions to 1) standards of educational equity (Fiske & Ladd, 2004; Kim et al., 2021; National Academies, 2019); and 2) critical, community-based, and participatory action research (Fine, 2013; Stoecker, 2003). Educational adequacy, equal treatment, and equal educational opportunity (EEO) comprise the three standards of educational equity used to frame our analysis of how education equity indicators are defined (Kim et al., 2021). We pull these standards from Kim et al.’s “self-designed” framework, which encompasses and expands upon Fiske and Ladd’s (2004) standards for analyzing education reform in post-apartheid South Africa.

Results
Using Stoecker’s (2003) definition of community members as those who are closest to the problem, we determined that they played marginal roles in most indicator systems that we examined, often as data contributors or late-stage reviewers. When project leaders sought local expertise, they often looked to professional agency leaders, who frequently stood in as proxy for “the community.” Community members had no decision-making role in indicator development. Despite being presented as community derived, indicators often failed to address systemic inequities or challenge power structures in their development or implementation.

Significance
Findings showed that indicator systems did not involve community members in the leadership of indicator system development; most indicator systems that appear to be community-derived engage community members superficially; and indicator systems appear to have an indirect impact on communities. These findings motivated our efforts to support an indicator development process rooted in community needs and priorities, directed by community members, and likely to result in meaningful change. This work legitimizes our and other projects that reposition community members in partnerships related to school accountability. It also rationalizes changes in researcher and institutional practices related to community-based research.

Authors

• Brenda Santos, Brown University

• Adrienne C. Goss, Clark Atlanta University