Recasting the Vision for Achieving Equity

Abstract

This article explores past and current education testing frameworks as a pretext for constructing a policy platform with the efficacy to transform systems and structures that hinder opportunities and resist equitable practices. The rise of accountability in education public policy has brought about intended and unintended outcomes. As prescribed, it has facilitated a significant measure of uniform clarity regarding standards of learning and mechanisms for measuring teacher and leadership impacts on student outcomes. However, perverse incentives, such as persistent or widening group outcome achievement disparities, demonstrate the need for policy work that extends beyond the identification of expected performance to address the execution of deliverables. More recently, scholars have suggested the need to move from a standards-based reform agenda to a supports-based reform agenda. The policy exploration in this study articulates the presence of an expectation gap—a disconnection between accountability expectations and support availability, identifying and analyzing the components necessary to transform a system of public education, which prioritizes accountability for results to one that also emphasizes the implementation of sound processes, which align the support structures and practices necessary to achieve results.