Community-Based Framework for Educational Equity

Scheurich et al. (2017) use Venzant Chambers’ (2009) reconception of the “achievement gap” as the “receivement gap”—the result of inequitable educational, economic, and political leadership and decisions—and Milner’s (2012) now-popular terminology of the “opportunity gap” to develop a framework for educational equity. Scheurich et al. (2017) devised a community-based definition of equity that responds to the failures of White elites in the United States to allow for communities of color to define equity for themselves and what would meet its requirements. The community-based framework highlights that there should not and likely will not be one definition for all communities of color, as each has “ different assets and face[s] different challenges...definitions will change over time as social and historical conditions change” (Scheurich et al., 2017, p. 515). With this in mind, the researchers state 10-year maximums before overall reframing is recommended. 

In considering the collective yet unique needs of communities of color, Scheurich and his colleagues settled on a four-dimension framework, reproduced below: 

1. Community-based: each community of color, by race and/or ethnicity, decides for itself what the focus of educational equity should be.

2. Democracy-based: communities of color through democratic means they design make the decision of how educational equity shall be defined.

3. Context-based: the assets and challenges of one community of color in one geographical area are not the same as those of another geographical area. Thus, since each geographical area has its own unique assets and challenges, each will define for itself the nature of educational equity for its children.

4. Time-based: conditions within a community of color change based on the dynamic challenges and needs a community faces in terms of societal and historical changes. What may be the most important educational equity issue in this time period may not remain that important in another time period. Thus, each community may change its definition as times change.

This allows each community, within time bounds, to “democratically decide how educational equity is defined for its school” (Scheurich et al., 2017, p. 515).

Considering what the National Charter Collaborative (NCC) does as an organization to support predominantly single-site charter schools led by People of Color, the framework described above was a proper fit for appraising where NCC currently stands in alignment with it and plotting a path forward towards stronger goal alignment that could be measured via key performance indicators (KPIs). Goals and KPIs would be scaffolded across short-, mid-, and long-term.

Appraisal Process

Ratings align with the following rubric linked here. 

Since NCC did not begin with the community-based framework in mind, the definition of each dimension was used in place of a more specific SMARTIE (strategic, measurable, ambitious, realistic, time-bound, inclusive, equitable) goal to align with the organization’s overall framing and each of NCC’s four major programs/pillars:

• Advocacy

• Manati Fellowship

• Membership Model

• Professional Learning Communities

Documentation was collected aligned to various segments of the organization and each program/pillar and analyzed through the lens of all four framework dimensions to arrive at an overall score for the segment and the overarching program.

To assign an overall rating to a set of data, each group underwent an analysis of thematic alignment, correlational aligned, and reasonable doubt. The first, thematic alignment analysis, is the most rigorous, requiring the identification and interpretation of patterns across all related data following a three-step process:

1.  identifying all words and/or phrases (line-by-line or sentence-by-sentence) that define the essence/meaning of the line or sentence,

2. looking for resonance/connections between the identified words and phrases and categorizing them either by using some of the available words and/or overarching synonyms to reduce the total and home in on patterns, and 

3. looking for big-picture connections between categories to identify the major themes that encapsulate the essence of and patterns within the data.

The stronger the patterns in available data, the stronger the thematic patterns. The second task, correlational alignment analysis, seeks out whether there are more positive or negative correlations between data and stated goals and to what degree. The third task supplements and clarifies the second: reasonable doubt analysis adapts from legal terms to consider to what degree an average person (i.e. not a specialist) would have reasonable doubt that the reality and patterns shown in the data align with the stated goals. The combined analysis of the three tasks results in 1) pattern and thematic identification (if applicable) within the data and 2) placement on the appraisal ratings rubric based on alignment between what was identified and what was expected based on stated goals.

The thematic, correlation, and reasonable score generated for the community-based, democracy-based, context-based, and time-based dimensions, and the average for each dimension is shared below and disaggregated in the remainder of this report.