Developing Metrics

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for  Civil Rights conducts the Civil Rights Data Collection to obtain information on:

• Enrollment demographics
• Prekindergarten
• Math and science courses
• Advanced Placement
• SAT/ACT scores
• Discipline
• School expenditures
• Teacher experience

Users can search for district and school reports to consider patterns and potential barriers to equitable access at a local level.

To ensure consistency in data collection, work with local education agencies and state educator effectiveness advisory bodies to implement high-quality educator evaluation systems that are approximately comparable across local education agencies.

Leverage federal resources, such as your regional educational laboratory or regional center, to develop a summary of the research and related policy requirements on issues of equitable access in your region and distribute to partners during in-person meetings or webinars. 

Work with partners to produce maps using your state and district metrics of choice. These maps can be great communication tools to use when working with policymakers and stakeholders. 

Develop protocols for sharing data across stakeholder groups to broaden understanding of the state context of student access to excellent teachers and leaders.

Develop partnerships with key stakeholders (e.g., in an equity workgroup) to determine what metrics should be used to measure student access to excellent teachers and leaders.

Access to important educational resources in California’s middle and high schools is not equal among schools that serve different student populations. Overall, the most disadvantaged populations of middle and high school students are likely to have the least access to the resources necessary for learning.

New York rural schools and districts have a high percentage of core teaching assignments filled by highly qualified teachers; there are only small differences across key factors such as poverty and the need for school improvement. Urban schools—particularly those in New York City—have fewer core assignments filled by highly qualified teachers.

As part of their 2006 equity plan, state education agency personnel in Delaware sought to conduct an in-depth analysis to understand the reasons behind the teacher access patterns in the state. Staff from the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality supported the development of research-based protocols for this analysis. A webcast presentation describing the work and options for regional centers is available.