Texas Equitable Access Roadmap: a Toolkit to Support Texas Districts to Develop Local Equitable

Texas Equitable Access Roadmap: A Toolkit to Support Texas Districts to Develop Local Equitable Access Plans

Introduction

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education launched the Excellent Educators for All initiative to support states and districts in ensuring that students of color and low-income students have equitable access to excellent educators. All 50 states submitted equitable access plans, documenting the equity gaps that students in their state faced, the results of a root cause analysis conducted to better understand the causes of these equity gaps, and plans to implement strategies to close equity gaps and monitor progress of implementation. In December 2015, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA),[1] which requires states and districts to determine whether low-income students and students of color in Title I schools are served at disproportionate rates by ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers, and take steps to address any identified disproportionalities (i.e., gaps in equity).

To support Texas districts in better understanding and addressing the challenges they face in providing equitable access to excellent teachers for the students who need it most, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has developed the Texas Equitable Access Roadmap: A Toolkit to Support Texas Districts to Develop Local Equitable Access Plans. The Roadmap will take district teams through a series of processes to understand, interpret, and implement an action plan around equitable access.

Step 4. Selecting Strategies

This is the fourth step in the Roadmap—an overview of the five steps can be foundhere, with links to the resources for each step of the process.

Purpose

The resources in Step 4: Selecting Strategies will support district teams as theyuse the results of the data review and analysis (Step 2), and the Conducting a Root Cause Analysis(Step 3)processes to identify strategies that address district equitable access gaps. Step 4guides districts through the process of developing and prioritizing strategies and activities most likely to address the root causes identified in Step 3.

In Step 3. Conducting a Root Cause Analysis, your district team worked with stakeholders to define the root causes of your district equity gaps and organize them into categories and focus areas. As a next step, you need to think about strategies that may eliminate gaps in student access to excellent teachers by identifying actions that directly link to each category.

Interested in learning more about selecting strategies to address equity gaps? Check out these resources from TEA and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center):

Texas Education Agency 2015 State Equity Plan
The GTL Center’s Research-Supported Implementation Tips for Equitable Access Plan Strategies

These strategies and supporting activities must:

Address systemic root causes,

Build institutional knowledge and leadership capacity to support strategies,

Be based on best practices or research,

Be measureable (defined by data or metrics that can be analyzed),

Be viable in your district’s specific context, and

Have a single owner who is a district leader and who is ultimately responsible for implementation of the strategies.

Step 4 organizes the process of selecting strategies into four activities:

Inventory Current Practice: Perform a high-level inventory of current programs and policies related to the root causes identified by stakeholders during Step 3.
Review the Research: Scan recommended strategies related to each category of the root causes.
Build Consensus: Select strategies that are aligned to root causes, evidence-based, measurable, and viable.
Looking Ahead: Consider barriers to implementation.

Inventory Current Practice: What are you doing currently that impacts (or doesn’t impact) the root causes of your equity gaps?

Policy Coherence and Alignment
The process of reviewing existing strategies may prompt some districts to consider a more comprehensive review of the alignment and coherence of their district’s policies and practices. The GTL Center and other organizations have developed several resources to support this process:
Talent Development Framework
Creating Coherence & Alignment Tool
District Self-Assessment Checklist

When reviewing the findings from theroot cause analysis(see the end of Step 3 for the list), consider: Is this the full list? If there is something missing, what would our district team need to add?

After the team reaches consensus that the list is complete, the team should now shift focus to what the district is currently doing in relation to each category of the root causes it has identified (leverage, not layer).This step is important because some of your final strategies may be to continue with a current approach or to expand or improve an existing program.

Using theBlank Strategy Inventory Table on page 5, inventory what strategies, programs, and policies your district already has in place to support categories of root causes of the district equity gaps. Consider the root causes in each area of the talent management continuum—attracting, supporting, or retaining excellent teachers. See page 4 for an example, and use the blank planning template on the following page to record your district’s thinking in the “Current Programs or Policies” row.

Review the Research: What recommended strategies align to our equity needs?

Conducting a Root Cause Analysisand Selecting Strategiesare circular processes.The process of inventorying current practices may prompt you to consider other root causes. These practices (root cause analysis and district practices inventories) can be cycled through several times to fully determine all of your root causes.

As a team, review the resources listed in the callout box on page 2 of this tool as suggested evidence-based strategies for addressing your district’s equity gaps. Think and discuss which strategies and activities may remediate the root causesof equitable access gaps in your district. Then, prioritize the strategies and supporting activities most likely to impact these factors. Highlight approaches that directly align to what you are already doing and those that are not part of district practice. See below for an example, and use the blank planning template on the following page to record your district’s thinking in the “Potential Strategies” row.

Connect and Reflect: As a team, review the results of your strategy inventory before you begin your final round of strategy selection. Remember—some of your strategies may include continuing with an existing program. In the next part of this process, you’ll be further examining these strategies to prioritize a set of strategies for inclusion in your district’s equity plan.

Example Strategy Inventory Table

Overall Problem Statement: / Our highest poverty campuses are served by a larger percentage of inexperienced teachers than campuses serving fewer low-income students.
Attracting Teachers / Supporting Teachers / Retaining Teachers
Root Causes
(from Step 3. Conducting a Root Cause Analysis) / Because financial incentives are minimal, recruitment efforts tend to only work for new teachers who are looking for jobs and not experienced teachers. As a result, more experienced teachers tend to be attracted to neighboring districts with more attractive salary and incentives packages. / The principal supervisor lacks the skills to effectively coach principals on improving their instructional coaching for inexperienced teachers. / Our district does not have systems or practices in place to systematically collect and interpret school climate data so that we can better understand our teaching conditions challenges and aim to actively improve teaching conditions so that we might reduce teacher burnout and improve retention.
Current Programs or Policies That Address Root Causes / N/A. We have a relocation bonus that is paid to teachers, but it tends to attract new teachers and thus does not address the root cause. / Our district has funding set aside for professional development for instructional leadership. / Our district currently administers a school climate survey to all teachers and students. However, at this time there are no systematic plans in place to review and interpret the data to improve climate or teaching conditions at the school or district level.
Potential New or Enhanced Strategies That Address Root Causes / Provide substantial monetary incentives for teachers with 5 or more years of experience who commit to teaching at one of our highest poverty campuses next year. / Provide training to the principal supervisor on how to better mentor and coach principals.
Provide training to principals on improving their coaching skills for inexperienced teachers.
Have the principal support master teachers by providing training and technical assistance where needed. / Conduct a deep data dive into the district climate survey results and share teacher needs with principal.
Create a master teacher position to better support the daily instructional needs of teachers.

Blank Strategy Inventory Table

Overall Problem Statement:
Attracting Teachers / Supporting Teachers / Retaining Teachers
Root Causes
(from Step 3. Conducting a Root Cause Analysis)
Current Programs or Policies That Address Root Causes
Potential New or Enhanced Strategies That Address Root Causes

Build Consensus: Select Strategies That Are Aligned to Your Root Causes, Evidence-Based, Measurable, and Viable

Discussion Tips: When determining which strategies to include in your district’s equity plan, consider the following criteria and guiding questions. Are the selected strategies:

Aligned toroot causes?Is this strategy aligned to a root cause identified in Step 3? How do you know?
Evidence based?Is there evidence or research supporting this strategy? What makes us think this strategy will be effective?
Measureable (defined by data or metrics that can be analyzed)? How will we measure the impact of this strategy?
Viable?Can our district successfully implement this strategy? What are the barriers to implementation? This is a key step that will require significant discussion. See the next section.

Consider Barriers to Implementation

During the strategy selection process, district leaders also must consider and identify barriers to implementing or sustaining selected strategies. Use the following prompts as a team while considering strategies, and note your responses here as you discuss each possible strategy:

What are the barriers to implementing this strategy?
Are there “work-around” solutions to the barriers?
Are there other reasons that prevent the district from implementing a particular strategy?
How would the district approach short-term barriers?
How would the district approach long-term barriers?

Use theProposed Strategy Planning Template to think about how each of your proposed strategies meets the guidance for selecting an equity plan strategy. Based on your answers, in the right-hand column, determine whether the strategy should be included in your equity plan. An example planning template is provided on the next page, followed by a blank planning template for your team to record its thinking.

Example: Proposed Strategy Planning Template
Proposed Strategy / Aligned to root causes
Is this strategy aligned to a root cause identified in Step 3? How so? / Evidence based
Is there evidence or research supporting this strategy? What makes us think this strategy will be effective? / Measureable
(defined by data or metrics that can be analyzed). How do we define this strategy with data?How will we measure the impact of this strategy? / Viable
Can our district successfully implement this strategy? Are there barriers that will hinder full implementation of this strategy? / Putting It All Together
Thinking about your answers to each question, should you include this strategy in our district’s equity plan?
Provide monetary incentives for teachers with 5 or more years of experience who commit to teaching at one of our highest poverty campuses next year. / Yes.Currently, our financial incentives are too small to attract experienced teachers. / Somewhat. The evidence is mixed. Some studies show that incentive pay helps attract teachers, but others show it does not work. / Yes. We could measure how many teachers decide to move to ourhighest poverty campuses to receive the bonus. / No. At this time, we do not have the funds to pay teachers a large incentive. / No
Create a master teacher position to better support the daily instructional needs of teachers. / Yes. The principal has indicated that he is not able to respond to teacher needs because of limited time. / Yes. Master teachers have been shown to improve teacher support and satisfaction. / Yes. We can add questions to our end-of-year survey asking how helpful the master teacher was, or we can interview teachers. / Yes. We should be able to rebalance teaching loads, and we can identify threeteachers who might be interested. / Yes
Provide training to the principal supervisor on how to better mentor and coach principals. / Yes. Theprincipal supervisor needs to improve her skills in mentorship and coaching. / Yes.We have found a training program that is researchbased. / Yes. We can speak to principals and ask if they are feeling better supported. / Yes. We have funding for this training in our Professional Development budget. / Yes
Blank Proposed Strategy Planning Template
Proposed Strategy / Aligned to root causes
Is this strategy aligned to a root cause identified in Step 3? How so? / Evidence based
Is there evidence or research supporting this strategy? What makes us think this strategy will be effective? / Measureable
(defined by data or metrics that can be analyzed). How do we define this strategy with data?How will we measure the impact of this strategy? / Viable
Can our district successfully implement this strategy? Are there barriers that will hinder full implementation of this strategy? / Putting It All Together
Thinking about your answers to each question, should you include this strategy in our district’s equity plan?

After using the strategy planning template to consider which strategies will be most appropriate to prioritize for implementation through your district’s equity plan, with your planning team to select the three to four strategies for which there is consensus among district leaders that the strategies are highly viable and, based on the research evidence, will have a high impact on eliminating district equity gaps. The results of your “identifying barriers” discussion may prompt you to remove some strategies from your list.

After your team has agreed to the selected strategies,you’ll move forward in your district equity plan, recording the strategies in the reporting template at the end of this tool in the Putting It All Together section. A blank version of this reporting template is included below. Note that the reporting template for Steps 4–5 is in one continuous table, but your team will only fill in the Step 4 reporting at this time.

In the first column, document the root cause that is aligned to the selected strategy. In the middle column, briefly describe the selected strategy. The remaining columns will be completed after your team works through Step 5. Planning for Implementation.

Identified Root Cause
(from Step 3) / Selected Equity Plan Strategies
(Step 4) / Outputs
Benchmark 1(Step 5) / Short-Term Outcome
Benchmark 2(Step 5) / Mid-Term Outcome
Benchmark 3(Step 5) / Mid-Term Outcome
Benchmark 3(Step 5) / Long-Term Outcome
Benchmark 3 (Step 5)
The principal supervisor lacks the skills to effectively coach principals on improving their instructional coaching for inexperienced teachers. / Provide training to the principal supervisor on how to better mentor and coach principals.
Provide training to principals on improving their coaching skills for inexperienced teachers. / N/A—to be filled out after completing Step 5
Because of limited interactions and engagement with staff, the principal is unaware of, and unable to respond to, teachers’ needs. / Create a master teacher position to better support the daily instructional needs of inexperienced teachers. / N/A—to be filled out after completing Step 5

Next Steps for District Equity Planning Group

Now that your team has engaged stakeholders (Step 1), completed a data review and analysis (Step2), conducted theroot cause analysis process (Step 3), and identified equity plan strategies aligned to the root causes (Step 4),you’re ready to move forward to Step 5. Planning for Implementationto begin thinking about how you will design and implement your selected strategies in your district.

First, take a moment to record your key findings from Step 4into the planning template below.

Putting It All Together:Incorporating Your Selecting Strategies Efforts Into Your Roadmap Reporting Template

After completing the processes suggested in this toolkit, consider the results of your Selecting Strategies work, which will be recorded in the Roadmap Reporting Template. You will be able to directly transfer the findings below into the centralized reporting template. Note that the reporting template for Steps 4–5 is in one continuous table, but your team will only fill in the Step 4 reporting at this time. In the first column, document the root causes that arealigned to the selected strategy. In the middle column, briefly describe the selected strategy. The remaining columns will be completed after your team works through Step 5. Planning for Implementation.