Ensuring equity in education is a necessary component in narrowing the achievement gap. Teachers and school leaders ensure equity by recognizing, respecting, and attending to the diverse strengths and challenges of the students they serve. High-quality schools are able to differentiate instruction, services, and resource distribution to respond effectively to the diverse needs of their students, with the aim of ensuring that all students are able to learn and thrive.
Resources
Tools
- A Promising Path Toward Equity
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This article describes a project that was completed to offer tools developed for professional learning for principals, teachers, and support staff to lead with social emotional learning, implement restorative practices, and move toward equity. - The Social Justice Standards Facilitator’s Guide for Professional Development
The Social Justice Standards Guide provides all the materials required to facilitate professional development that introduces educators to the Social Justice Standards. The package includes step-by-step procedures, terminology, slides and handouts. - Time to Reclassification: How Long Does It Take English Language Learners in the Washington Road Map School Districts To Develop English Proficiency?
Local educational agency leaders may use the six primary findings from this report to examine the different levels of support that English learner students (ELs) need to achieve reclassification when entering school at different grade levels with differing levels of English proficiency. This knowledge may also help educators identify specific programs and practices that help ELs gain English proficiency quickly and effectively. - English Learner Tool Kit for Local Education Agencies and State Educational Agency
The tool kit produced by the Office of English Language Acquisition at the United States Department of Education includes legal obligations, checklists, sample tools, and additional resources to ensure that English learners have equal access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to achieve their full academic potential. State, district, and school administrators, as well as teachers and stakeholders should use this tool kit to provide English learner students with the support they need to attain English language proficiency while meeting college and career-ready standards. - Coalition for Educational Equity for Foster Youth Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP)
The Coalition for Educational Equity for Foster Youth has developed a sample LCAP with action steps and accountability measures that school districts can use to assist foster youth. The members of this coalition are former foster youth, advocates, service providers, and representatives from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and the juvenile court. The sample LCAP addresses three main goals: close the achievement gap between foster youth and the general student population, promote school stability and prevent push out of foster youth to alternative schools, and ensure foster youth are promptly enrolled in school and in the right classes.
Note: While the LCAP template used in the sample is not current, the information contained within the sample does provide sound guidance. - Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Achievement for Low-income Students and Students of Color
This research provides effective strategies that would close the achievement gaps by elevating the low-performing low income students and also accelerating the middle and higher performers. - Falling Out of the Lead: Following High Achievers through High School and Beyond
This resource reviews national data on high achieving students of color and/or students from low socioeconomic levels.
Promising Practices
- Summer Learning and Beyond: Opportunities for Creating Equity
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This report offers ways of designing summer learning experiences and creating ways of teaching that inspire and support young people to reach their full potential and to be thinkers, learners, and critically engaged community members. - Broadening the Benefits of Dual Enrollment: Reaching Underachieving and Underrepresented Students with Career-Focused Programs
The authors provide recommendations for effective dual enrollment practices and public policies. The authors provide tools, processes and procedures to improve educational outcomes for a broader range of students including at-risk, low-income pupils and those who are historically underrepresented in higher education. The authors collected and evaluated data from eight sites including 10 colleges and 21 high schools which generated a quality resource. Kindergarten through grade twelve (K–12) and college teachers and administrators may use these concepts, strategies and findings in dual enrollment classrooms, programs, schools and districts.
- Effective Instruction for English Learners
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Educational leaders may read this article about a comprehensive model of implementing high-quality instruction for ELs. Based on research, the authors provide detailed components that can be used in school reform, instructional planning, professional development, parent outreach, and monitoring outcomes. - Learning Hubs: In-Person Learning for the Whole Child
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In this brief, local policymakers, schools, and expanded learning partners will learn best practices for implementing the learning hub model. Included is guidance for the design and operations of learning hubs, and the policies that support the model. - The Lasting Benefits of Early College High Schools
American Institutes for Research has conducted a rigorous impact evaluation, and presented key findings from this work and indicates implications and gives recommendations for federal and state policymakers. Early Colleges offer students the opportunity to earn an associate’s degree or up to two years of college credits toward a bachelor’s degree in high school at no or low cost to the students.
Research
- Students Experiencing Homelessness: The Conditions and Outcomes of Homelessness Among California Students
This report highlights the multilayered challenges that students experiencing homelessness face, and suggests multiple levels of policy, strategies, and practices that are needed to improve educational outcomes. - Technology for Equity and Social Justice in Education: A Critical Issue Overview
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The authors of this research article demonstrate what it means to interrogate our assumptions about technology in broader ethical contexts and critically engage technology specifically for transformative educational goals of equity and social justice. - Closing the Gap: Creating Equity in the Classroom
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Hanover Research highlights classroom strategies, tips, and approaches to close the equity gap. - Exploring the Foundations of the Future STEM Workforce: K–12 Indicators of Postsecondary STEM Success
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This is a review of 23 research studies on K–12 indicators that significantly predict students' postsecondary STEM success with a specific focus on Hispanic students. Education leaders who seek equity in schools and strive to engage Hispanic students in STEM may find evidence of what engages and motivates Hispanic students in STEM in order to implement interventions at their schools and/or community.
- The School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System
This report of over 400 pages includes an executive summary that explains the focus of the report and findings over the current practice where millions of students are being removed from their mainly middle and high school classrooms for overwhelmingly minor misconduct. A disproportionately large number of disciplined students are youths of color, students with disabilities, and youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. This is a comprehensive report, consensus-based from many professional groups, and a practical guide with real-world approaches. - Identifying and Supporting English Learner Students with Learning Disabilities: Key Issues in the Literature and State Practice
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This document is intended for Education policymakers who want to develop and revise procedures for referral and identification of English learner students who may have learning disabilities. There are a set of guidelines to identify English learner students and then direct them to services they need to succeed in school. - An Early College Initiative in an Urban, High-Poverty High School First-Year Effects on Student Achievement and Non-Academic Indicators
While the Early College High School movement gains momentum, further alignment of K through grade sixteen curriculum is paramount for developing student capacity across the system. This research document supports partnerships between high schools and post-secondary institutions that facilitate at-risk students earning a high school diploma along with college credits. Secondary and post-secondary administrators may use the study as research-based evidence to initiate plans for incorporating an early college high school model within a high –poverty school district. - Dear Colleague Letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline
This federal guidance letter, translated into six languages, provides an overview of the Civil Rights Data Collection, summarizes schools' obligations to avoid and redress racial discrimination in administration of student discipline, explains the investigative process under Title IV and VI, and includes examples of school practices and policies that may violate civil rights laws. - Thriving, Robust Equity, and Transformative Learning & Development: A More Powerful Conceptualization of the Contributors to Youth Success
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This paper presents a research-based formula and rationale for addressing thriving, equity, and learning and development. The descriptions and conditions from the research ensure “equitable learning outcomes and development opportunities” created are powerful and inclusive.
Excerpted from California Department of Education's (CDE’s) External Linking Policy: The CDE is providing these external links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any external link does not imply endorsement by the CDE or any association with the sites' operators.