AERA 2022 Presentation

1. Presentation
Title Goes Here
Subtitle of
Presentation
School Choice and Equity-
Oriented School Leadership:
Mutually Exclusive?

2. Background

3. Equity-Oriented Leadership

4. Educational Markets
• School districts are increasingly utilizing educational market
systems (aka school choice) in which schools compete for
students
• Markets are meant to improve educational offerings and
opportunities within a district through competition
• These systems may be oppositional to equity and social justice
in schools and communities
• Segregation, winners and losers, etc.

5. School Leadership within Markets
• School leaders face immense pressure to promote student
enrollment
• Leader responses may include substantive change, mimicking
competitors, filling a niche, advertising, selecting students, and
more (e.g., Bagley’s typology)
• Some of these responses are inequitable, such as selecting students
• Other practices may not be inequitable but may divert school resources
from students, such as advertising

6. The Study

7. Purpose
Examine the intersections of school choice policy with equity-
oriented leadership, in particular.
Pragmatically, markets seem to be here to stay so we need to
understand how to support equity-oriented leadership in these
challenging contexts.

8. Research Questions
1. In what ways, if at all, do educational market contexts
constrain or otherwise shape equity-oriented leadership
practice?
2. What role do equity-oriented school leaders see equity
practices having within market contexts?

9. Method
• Seven school districts across the U.S. using various market
designs
• Sequential exploratory design
• Interviews with 26 school leaders in winter 2020/2021
• Collected survey data were but these are not used for this particular
paper
• Still finalizing data analysis and writing (my dissertation!)

10. Findings

11. Constraints to Equity-Oriented
Leadership within Markets
• Dependent on school context, some leaders reported
experiencing pressure to enroll students
• When directly asked, leaders reported that this pressure did not
constrain their equity-oriented leadership practice
• Leaders did not feel pressure to enroll high-achieving students
• Leaders did not feel pressure to pander to white parents
• Leaders did not feel pressure to spend substantial time advertising or
recruiting (although leaders did sometimes engage in these actions,
such as via open houses)

12. Instead, Equity Dispositions Grounded
Leaders in Equity Work
Leaders’ equity orientations helped them stay strong in
continuing on an equity-centered path in the face of pressures
that shape other leaders’ work (per the literature)

13. If you're doing the work, then it's
going to show, no matter what it's
going to show. So, I kind of just
come at it from that lens. I don't
necessarily need to keep [parents]
happy. And I had a mom last year
who was not happy with me. And I
told her like, you know, your child
can go back to their homeschool or
you request to transfer somewhere
else, but this is what we're doing
here. (Liz)

14. So you have to really handle it as it
comes, but I think we keep marching
ahead with the equity work and
eventually some of these people, and
there's been two already who don't
like maybe some of the work we're
going to do, won't stay. Kind of like
get on the train or get off. I mean, the
train’s moving, so I think that we
continue to do the work. (Miranda)

15. Meagan: I’m wondering what motivates you to really be putting
effort into those kids rather than trying to encourage them to leave
or anything like that.
Rita: Part of it is our geographics and part of it is personal. Our
geographics because of where we're located, our kids that have
the most needs, they don't have anywhere to go. They have no
way of getting there. So, they're our kids. On a personal level, this
area of town is where I was born and raised. And I have a strong
sense of I've always wanted to serve the community in which I
live in. To me, it's a community thing and, you know, somebody
felt that I was worth it enough and our kids deserve everything
that our kids that are on the other side of town get.

16. The Role of Equity-Oriented
Leadership within Markets
Leaders cultivated a reputation of equity as a brand
for their schools

17. Meagan: If you were going to give advice to another
school leader who was struggling, to get students in the
door, how would you recommend they do that?
Erica: Think about your brand, think about how you want
to package and brand your school and follow through
with that. I knew coming in that I wanted [my school] to
be seen as an international high school that prides itself
on diversity and we changed our success statements.
We've made all kinds of minor changes, whether it's
introducing a newsletter that's in multiple languages, just
gone out of our way to really brand itself as the unique
school that it is.

18. Yeah so that [inclusive] community
and that brand of strong
community is definitely a lever in
terms of how we message.
(Anthony)

19. And when you when you really message well and you
understand that that's now part of our role, like our role
is profoundly political at school leaders. There's
instructional leadership, there’s managerial pieces, but
there's also an element that is very much related to
finance. And the way that we address finance is to get
students in the door. And I think when you believe in
your product, when you believe we can provide this
quality experience for students, then morally you're kind
of comfortable with that the whole student recruitment
piece because it's not like I’m doing this and I don't feel
comfortable doing it ethically… (Anthony)

20. The Role of Equity-Oriented
Leadership within Markets
Leaders believed that their equity-oriented work would lead to
families choosing to enroll in their schools

21. Meagan: Do you think that is an asset to school choice
at your school in terms of getting people to want to
come?
Betty: Yes. Because I have a lot of staff too, that live in
the community and so they can speak to the things that
are happening and the ones that live in the community,
it's a really good staff. They speak very highly because
they own it. Um, and it's also a lot of my staff that has
been here for a little while that are very invested. They're
very involved in the community. And so, you know, they,
it does help because they do that positive PR as, okay.

22. [The equity work] does help. The biggest thing that it does
is it helps my families feel like their kids are safe and it
helps them recognize that we are not out to get them. So
that part changes the reputation because when parents
know their kids are safe, they keep them in the school.
And then I don't have to open enroll other kids, or I don't
have to lose people. So I that's how equity has us keep
people, because again, parents can still open enroll to
other schools. Um, but they choose to stay. (Beatriz)

23. Meagan: And do you think the equity work can also lead
to things like higher accountability scores, which
obviously a lot of families are looking at when they're
choosing schools?
Layla: Oh, absolutely. Because when we come from a
place of what can we do and what are the opportunities
and what's in our boat, how can we influence this? We
think about that when we plan for kids and when we
structure our activities. And so, yes, I definitely think
strong equity work will help to improve student
achievement.

24. Other Ways Leaders Leveraged Equity-
Oriented Practice within Market Contexts
• Leaders who established new programs (which can help to
attract students in market environments) opened access to
those programs to ALL students
• Leaders also sought to ensure there were programs for all
students within their schools
• Leaders fought against selecting high-achieving students

25. Conclusions

26. Implications
• Equity-oriented dispositions can re-orient leaders around equity
within contexts that can discourage equity
• Leaders can leverage equity work to respond to competitive
pressure in markets
• Findings within this study diverge from findings related to leaders who
may be less equity-oriented
• While markets do perpetuate injustice, perhaps equity-oriented
leaders can help to undo some of that harm

27. Future Research
• How else can equity work be used to prevent or repair the
harmful impacts of market policy?
• How can preparation programs support leadership candidates’
ability to leverage equity work within market contexts?
• Leaders in this study felt that equity work attracted families; do
families support this belief?

28. Thank You
Meagan Richard, mricha44@uic.edu
@MeaganSRichard
College of Education | Policy Studies in Urban Education