A New Context for Education Policy

• In Event: Rethinking Policies for Justice and Equitable Education Systems

Abstract

Objectives
This paper examines the broader political, cultural, and social context shaping how education policy has been conceived historically to offer a window into how a current changing education, political, and research landscape accelerated by the pandemic, including new research on student learning and human development can inform new ways of conceptualizing local, state and federal policy focused on systemic efforts that prioritize historically marginalized students and families.

Theoretical Framework
The authors introduce essential elements of a new paradigm for education policy and describe the central themes of the session. The analysis for this session is also situated in the broader landscape on the literature of ecological, comprehensive models of policy (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986) centered on race, gender, income and language inequities, acknowledging the distinctive and complementary aspects of the author’s analysis. Additionally, scholars take into consideration the politics of race, diversity, and integration in what we describe as “post-civil rights America,” whereby commitments to equality, opportunity and justice across race and class lines have now shifted toward a focus on anti-racism and anti-racist leadership absent a sufficient grounded in a historical understanding of race and racism in the U.S.

Methods & Data Sources
Authors draw upon mixed methods studies from a variety of disciplines and original analysis to present a strong social context for prioritizing in-school and out-of-school policy analysis and related scholarship.

Results
Scholars present a set of arguments for the role of policy in supporting student learning and the importance of acknowledging the role of systemic and structural racism in order to develop policies that dismantle and don’t replicate existing patterns of inequality apparent by race and income.

Scholarly significance
Despite several waves of reform, many schools throughout the United States continue to struggle in their efforts to bring about meaningful and measurable educational progress. Regardless of rising graduation rates in recent years (US Department of Education, NCES, 2018), serious challenges remain for schools serving the most disadvantaged students who continue to see unchanged or declining student learning for key subjects and grade levels (US Department of Education, NCES, 2020). Throughout the United States, underperformance is most evident among poor students generally, and African American and Latinx students particularly who are more likely to attend racially isolated schools (Reardon et al., 2019). Since the adoption of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001, state and federal education policies have predominantly focused on strategies aimed at reducing racial and socioeconomic disparities in academic performance within schools. However, despite these efforts, large and persistent disparities remain, presenting a window of opportunity for policy efforts and related research aimed at dismantling educational disparities.

Authors

• Sonya Douglass, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Linda Darling-Hammond, Learning Policy Institute

• Channa Mae Cook-Harvey, Learning Policy Institute

• Anna Kushner, Teachers College, Columbia University