Examining School District Costs Associated with Designing, Implementing, and Operating Equity-Centered School Leadership Systems

• In Event: Educational Resource Allocation for Recovery, Renewal, and Restoration

Abstract

Research has shown that effective and equity-centered school leaders have a significant impact on student, teacher, and school outcomes (Diem & Welton, 2020; Liebowitz & Porter, 2019; Quinn, 2002), which is crucial for addressing systemic inequities. Motivated by these results and the need to address systemic racism and the educational debt, several initiatives have emerged to support the design and implementation of educational leadership systems in school districts (Gates et al., 2019). These leadership systems typically span multiple domains of work (Aladjem et al., 2021), including developing leadership standards, training leaders, hiring, recruitment, and retention, professional development, supervision, data systems, and sustainability. Both within and outside of early initiatives, questions have emerged among district and state leaders about the costs associated with designing, implementing, and operating district-level leadership systems equitably, effectively, and efficiently. While past studies have estimated costs related to the operation of leadership systems (Kaufman et al., 2017), these early studies have often focused on operational costs and the accounting costs associated with operation. A focus on operational costs limits estimates as it fails to consider “startup” costs, which may be substantial regarding personnel and resources needed to design and implement new programs and systems. Moreover, a focus on accounting costs, which typically reflect costs reported in budgets and financial reports, fails to consider opportunity costs, which capture the time spent by individuals who may not be compensated financially but whose contributions matter for effective program design and implementation (Levin et al., 2017).

In this study, we extend prior work by focusing on the multiple phases of program and system design, implementation, and operation, considering both accounting and opportunity costs. To conduct our analysis, we relied on primary financial and social network data collected from districts participating in an equity-centered principal pipeline initiative, as well as a modified ingredients approach to conduct our cost analysis (Levin et al., 2016). In estimating the costs of equity-centered principal pipelines, we draw on traditional aspects of the ingredients approach to identify key aspects (i.e., “the ingredients”) of program design and personnel needs reported in financial documents, while also drawing on social network data and analysis to inform patterns in network participation and development that may not be captured by reports and budgets. Preliminary analysis of district domain-related financial expenditures offers early evidence of the costs of principal pipelines and supports earlier cost analysis. Our analysis also shows significant variation both in where, with respect to domain, districts spent funds and how they spent them (e.g., one-time expenditures versus on-going expenditures). In addition, preliminary analysis of expenditure and network data offer interesting insights into expenditure and human resource allocation choices. We find both alignment and misalignments between reported domain-related per pupil expenditures and social network data, offering findings that potentially help to understand how districts allocate resources (financial versus human) across multiple domains of work and phases of educational change, why they do so, and what these allocation practices mean for the “startup” and on-going operational costs of equity-centered programs in schools.

Authors

• Christopher Saldaña, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Yi-Hwa Liou, National Taipei University of Education

• Daniella Molle, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Xinyu Guan, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Matthew A. Clifford, WestEd

• Aziz Awaludin, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Joshua Childs, University of Texas at Austin

• Richard R. Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Laura Davalos, Wisconsin Center for Education Research

• Sarah Volk, University of Wisconsin - Madison