District Strategic Documents and Equity: Maintaining or Disrupting Racialized Burdens

• In Event: District Policy Toward Educational Equity

Abstract

A national survey conducted in 2023 showed more than a third of districts include diversity, equity, and inclusion language in their mission statement; this is highly correlated to area politics (Aragão, 2023). Even when districts center racial equity goals in their policies, organizational practices may be decoupled from stated goals. This tension illustrates that K-12 education systems operate as racialized organizations (Adamson & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Ray, 2019; Stewart et al., 2021).  We draw on racialized organization theory to examine how urban districts in the South conceptualize and operationalize equity goals in district planning documents, answering the following research questions:  

1. How do districts frame educational equity in planning documents?  
2. In what ways do districts connect equity frames and goals to resource allocation and outcomes?  
3. To what extent do districts operationalize these understandings of equity in planning documents?  

We focus our study in urban centers of the South. Our sample selection process, shown in Figure 1, begins by defining the South in keeping with the logic of Morris and Monroe (2009). We select those ten states with the highest concentration of Black residents given the correlation of these places with relevant political, social, and economic structures. We select a focal district from each state based on size and demographic composition (Cooperstock, 2023; Frankenberg et al., 2017; Milner, 2012; Welsh & Swain, 2020), and gather district-wide strategic planning documents for each focal district. We collect all public-facing planning documents, bounded from 2021-2024.  

Working within a critical policy analysis framework, we conduct a document analysis of public-district planning documents (Bowen, 2009; Cardno, 2018; Diem et al., 2014). We engage in multiple rounds of analysis, combining inductive and deductive coding to probe conceptualizations of equity and diversity while also exploring unanticipated patterns of language use. Coded data from initial analysis informs the final set of primary and secondary codes, developing a nuanced picture of district language use in policy documents. We collapse codes into themes and develop categories based on our conceptual framework and themes.   

The extent to which equity was integrated meaningfully into planning documents varies significantly. While nearly all districts use the language of equity, districts range widely when defining equity. Some districts discuss equity but fail to acknowledge difference or disparities in the district. In contrast, some documents explicitly discuss current disparities along racial, socioeconomic, and/or linguistic lines. These districts define what equity means, both as a value and in their provision of education. Select documents explicitly connect educational equity to larger issues of structural racism and societal oppression.   

We describe how districts – in their political, social, and historical contexts –represent goals and systems for equity work in public-facing planning documents. While empirical evidence linking strategic plans and outcomes is sparse, findings suggest both the content and process of strategic plans matter for service quality (Lee et al., 2018; Vandersmissen et al., 2024). Describing approaches to equity in strategic plans is therefore an important step towards understanding the role of district policy in interrupting or perpetuating inequities.

Author

• Angela Cox, Vanderbilt University
  Presenting Author