Educational Equity and Accountability


Book Description

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.




Using Equity Audits to Create Equitable and Excellent Schools


Book Description

Use the power of equity audits to help eliminate achievement gaps and educational bias! Grounded solidly in theory and the use of data, this resource provides practical, easy-to-implement strategies for effectively using equity audits to ensure a high-quality education for all students, regardless of socio-economic class. Readers will discover how to increase equity awareness at school and district levels and remedy inequalities in teacher quality, program design, and student achievement by using: A set of “inequity indicators” for evaluating schools, generating essential data, and identifying problem areas Nine skill sets for improved equity-oriented teaching Charts, graphs, and support materials that can be customized for specific settings




Holding NCLB Accountable


Book Description

By mandating high standards for all students, the No Child Left Behind Act has promised to close the achievement gap and bring all students up to proficient levels by 2014. The challenge is in connecting the goals of NCLB legislation with the realities of change in the classroom.




The Pedagogy of Standardized Testing


Book Description

Based on a large-scale international study of teachers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Ontario, and New York, this book illustrates the ways increased use of high-stakes standardized testing is fundamentally changing education in the US and Canada with a negative overall impact on the way teachers teach and students learn. Standardized testing makes understanding students' strengths and weaknesses more difficult, and class time spent on testing consumes scarce time and attention needed to support the success of all students—further disadvantaging ELLs, students with exceptionalities, low income, and racially minoritized students.




Educational Equity and Accountability


Book Description

Despite the intense political attention that has been focused on accountability, on standardized testing, and on the equity effects of both accountability and testing, the great majority of recent debate in education policy circles has failed to attend to either the dynamism or complexity of these issues and has, instead, been carried out in a dualistic, good versus evil, fashion. In contrast, the scholarship collected in this important new volume is designed to move beyond the prevailing dualism and to push the discourse about accountability, testing, and educational equity in public schools usefully forward, and to provide a much-needed resource for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners.




Educational Equity and Accountability


Book Description

Despite the intense political attention that has been focused on accountability, on standardized testing, and on the equity effects of both accountability and testing, the great majority of recent debate in education policy circles has failed to attend to either the dynamism or complexity of these issues and has, instead, been carried out in a dualistic, good versus evil, fashion. In contrast, the scholarship collected in this important new volume is designed to move beyond the prevailing dualism and to push the discourse about accountability, testing, and educational equity in public schools usefully forward, and to provide a much-needed resource for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners.




High-Stakes Reform


Book Description

Performance accountability has been the dominant trend in education policy reform since the 1970s. State and federal policies set standards for what students should learn; require students to take “high-stakes” tests to measure what they have learned; and then hold students, schools, and school districts accountable for their performance. The goal of these policies is to push public school districts to ensure that all students reach a common threshold of knowledge and skills. High-Stakes Reform analyzes the political processes and historical context that led to the enactment of state-level education accountability policies across the country. It also situates the education accountability movement in the broader context of public administration research, emphasizing the relationships among equity, accountability, and intergovernmental relations. The book then focuses on three in-depth case studies of policy development in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Kathryn McDermott zeroes in on the most controversial and politically charged forms of state performance accountability sanctions, including graduation tests, direct state intervention in or closing of schools, and state takeovers of school districts. Public debate casts performance accountability as either a cure for the problems of US public education or a destructive mistake. Kathryn McDermott expertly navigates both sides of the debate detailing why particular policies became popular, how the assumptions behind the policies influenced the forms they took, and what practitioners and scholars can learn from the successes and failures of education accountability policies.




Accountability for Learning


Book Description

How to transform educational accountability into a constructive force for improving learning and teaching rather than something "done to" (and resented by) teachers.




Engaging the "Race Question"


Book Description

This book is for anyone who is challenged or troubled by the substantial disparities in college participation, persistence, and completion among racial and ethnic groups in the United States. As codirectors of the Center for Urban Education (CUE) at the University of Southern California, coauthors Alicia Dowd and Estela Bensimon draw on their experience conducting CUE’s Equity Scorecard, a comprehensive action research process that has been implemented at over 40 colleges and universities in the United States. They demonstrate what educators need to know and do to take an active role in racial equity work on their own campuses. Through case studies of college faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals engaged in inquiry using the Equity Scorecard, the book clarifies the “muddled conversation” that colleges and universities are having about equity. Synthesizing equity standards based on three theories of justice—justice as fairness, justice as care, and justice as transformation—the authors provide strategies for enacting equity in practice on college campuses. Engaging the “Race Question” illustrates how practitioner inquiry can be used to address the “race question” with wisdom and calls on college leaders and educators to change the policies and practices that perpetuate institutional and structural racism—and provides a blueprint for doing so. Book Features: Provides concrete examples of policy and practice for improving equity in postsecondary education. Examines the role of individuals and groups in the change process. Includes examples of action research tools from the Equity Scorecard. Offers strategies for professional development and organizational change. “Dowd and Bensimon have been at the forefront of racial equity research in higher education for nearly two decades, and their racial equity scorecard has changed the way higher education thinks about the issue.” —Patricia Gándara, co-director, The Civil Rights Project “Proven strategies that every educator in America can use to develop context-specific solutions for advancing equity while exploring the legacy of institutionalized racism that typically paralyzes reform and hinders change.” —Tia Brown McNair, senior director for student success, Association of American Colleges and Universities “A valuable step-by-step guide to making our colleges more academically inviting and egalitarian.” —Mike Rose, author of Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education




Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education


Book Description

"1. The book offers teacher educators and stakeholders an overview of accountability in the era of education reform and embraces teacher education accountability as a lever for reconstructing its targets, purposes, and consequences in keeping with the larger democratic project. 2. The book introduces a framework, eight dimensions of accountability, for interrogating dimensions of accountability policy and practice by revealing an accountability initiative's operation but also exposing underlying values and principles, theory of change, and relationship to larger political and policy agendas. 3. Using the authors' framework, eight dimensions of accountability, the book deconstructs four of the most visible education reform initiatives relevant to teacher educators and education stakeholders. The book proposes a rallying call to teacher educators and stakeholders to reclaim accountability using a new approach: democratic accountability in teacher education" --




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