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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1442505
This article is part of the Research Topic Situating Equity at the Center of Continuous Improvement in Education View all 6 articles

Practical Measurement for Equity and Justice

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 WestEd, San Francisco, United States
  • 2 High Tech High Graduate School of Education, San Diego, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    What does it mean and how does it look for practical measurement - a cornerstone of improvement science methods - to support equity and justice in schools? Practical measures are not, in themselves, a “silver bullet” that will make school systems more equitable and just, but we propose that they may support ways of reflecting on and understanding the current system that lead to shifts in organizational routines. This authors proposes 5 measurement routines that may position practical measurement as a resource for more equitable and just organizational processes. These are: (1) Attending to and reflect on day-to-day practices and processes for equity; (2) Identifying instructional moves teachers can test to advance equity; (3) Positioning students to take ownership over the learning environment; (4) Developing interpretations of how identity shapes/ is shaped the learning environment; (5) Surfacing and building on minoritized students’ strengths. These five measurement routines are examined in the context of a practical measurement development effort between WestEd and the CARE Network at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. This collaboration led to the development of a practical measure focused on the experience of status hierarchies in math classrooms. The authors consider teachers’ uptake and use of these tools relative to the five routines of measurement for equity and justice.

    Keywords: Practical measurement, Equity & Justice, Improvement science, Math Education, Organizational routines

    Received: 02 Jun 2024; Accepted: 10 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Takahashi, Sandoval, Jackson, Cunningham and Taylor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Sola Takahashi, WestEd, San Francisco, United States
    Carlos Sandoval, WestEd, San Francisco, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.