Across the country, pervasive inequities persist in students' academic opportunities and outcomes. To promote more equitable learning environments, districts and schools are investing in professional learning, instructional materials, policy and procedural changes, and student programming. But measuring and monitoring the progress of these equity-related investments can be daunting for several reasons:

1. Valid and reliable survey data can be difficult to collect. Surveys are perhaps the most common and cost-effective way for school districts to determine whether students, families, and staff perceive that their school communities are becoming more equitable over time. However, obtaining sufficiently high survey response rates—especially from families—can be difficult due to survey fatigue.
2. Commercial school climate surveys may not be aligned with the goals and objectives of a district's equity initiatives. School climate surveys are a particularly valuable tool for monitoring the progress of districtwide initiatives and strategic plans. However, many school districts use commercial surveys that are not customized to their local context and do not include survey items that assess perceptions of their equity-related activities. Under this circumstance, reliance on school climate data alone limits what a district can learn about the strengths, weaknesses, and potential impact of its equity initiatives.
3. Measuring changes in belief and bias is complex. Many equity initiatives, interventions, programs, and practices seek to change educator hearts and minds to create and sustain supportive student-teacher relationships. While school climate surveys can assess perceived changes in student–teacher relationships, measuring changes in teacher and administrator mindset is harder. Because educators may answer questions in a way that portrays themselves in a positive light, self-report measures can paint an overly rosy picture.
4. Valid and reliable tools to measure and monitor the progress of equity-related practices within school systems are not widely available. A dearth of instruments to validly and reliably measure and monitor the progress of equity-related initiatives often requires school systems to adapt or develop tools on their own. They may do so despite lacking the expertise to determine whether homegrown instruments are psychometrically reliable and valid.

REL Mid-Atlantic conducted a landscape analysis to better understand how school districts are tackling the challenge of monitoring the progress of their equity initiatives. We found that educator evaluation systems, educator self-assessments, equity audit tools, and listening sessions are the most common equity-related measures school districts employ—to complement their use of school climate survey data. Below are examples of each that school districts could consider using to track shifts in educator belief and bias, student expectations, and practice. The following examples are not necessarily valid and reliable tools that should be used to make districtwide decisions. They provide qualitative data that can help contextualize survey results and provide formative feedback on specific equity-related activities to support ongoing improvements to their design and implementation.

Educator evaluation systems

Boston Public Schools has embedded its commitment to recruiting, hiring, developing, and retaining diverse educators in its teacher evaluation system. Boston's Interactive Rubric of Effective Teaching characterizes effective instruction and provides a framework for educators to continuously improve and reflect on their practice. Among other elements, the evaluation tool outlines expectations for how educators should create and sustain an inclusive learning environment. On a four-point scale from unsatisfactory to exemplary, the rubric assesses instructional practice in equity-related domains such as Meeting Diverse Needs and Culturally Proficient Communication. A school district using a rubric like this can aggregate anonymized data from such equity-related domains to monitor improvements over time at the school, grade, or district levels.

Educator self-assessments

To further its vision for equity and social justice, Atlanta Public Schools offers its educators self-assessment guides. Through a series of reflection questions, the tools help them visualize and adopt the dispositions of teachers and leaders who advance educational equity. School districts can collect anonymous responses to self-assessments at the conclusion of professional learning programs or the end of each school year and aggregate the results at the school, grade, or district levels to monitor shifts in personal belief and bias.

Equity audit tools

To support strategic action planning, local education agencies such as the School District of Philadelphia, Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools and Baltimore City Public Schools have used the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium (MAEC) Equity Audit to self-assess the fairness of their policies, programs, and practice. School districts can use this suite of tools by forming a committee that collectively discusses, rates, and reaches a consensus about a district's performance in response to three questionnaires:

1. Criteria for an equitable school (101 questions)
2. Criteria for an equitable classroom (36 questions)
3. Teacher behaviors that encourage student persistence (59 questions)

Listening sessions and interviews

Listening sessions and interviews are often used to track shifts in perceptions among student, staff, and families. For example, Seattle Public Schools' Office of African American Male Achievement launched Kingmakers of Seattle as an elective program for Black male middle school and high school students. Taught by Black male facilitators, the program provides culturally responsive mentorship. A preliminary evaluation of the program included student interviews and focus groups. Participating students were asked what they found most meaningful about the program, their facilitators' impact on their overall school experience, and how other participating students influenced their overall experience. School districts can use data such as these to understand which and why specific components of their equity programs may be more or less successful to identify ways to strengthen them.

REL Mid-Atlantic can help you measure and monitor equity initiatives in a way that produces reliable and trustworthy data.

If you have not yet implemented measures of this kind but could use support, we'd love to hear from you! REL Mid-Atlantic may be able to help you:

• Identify, adapt, or develop valid and reliable measures of equity-related programs, interventions, and practices in education.
• Identify, adapt, or develop valid and reliable measures of disparities in student outcomes.
• Assess whether specific measures or measurement tools are aligned with a state or local education agency's strategic goals.
• Customize or assess whether specific measures or measurement tools are appropriate for a school or school district's local context.
• Review equity-related measurement tools that local education agencies currently use (such as criteria for selecting instructional materials; school climate surveys; teacher evaluation rubrics; student codes of conduct; and office discipline referral forms) to ensure the ways a school district is defining and measuring equity across tools are aligned.
• Provide coaching to state-, district-, or school-level staff on using evidence to measure and address student outcome disparities.