The Hub
The K12 Research for Equity Hub
What is The Hub?
The K12 Research for Equity Hub (The Hub) is a multi-year actionable research initiative generating evidence to advance policy dialogue on K12 education accountability and assessment systems. Managed by EduDream, The Hub’s first year (cycle) of research launched in Spring 2022. The Cycle 1 research agenda focused on three areas: Alternative Accountability Models; Innovative Assessment Approaches; and Community Experiences, Efforts and Needs.
The Hub’s second research cycle will explore state and local accountability systems’ measures of student achievement and school quality, how families and communities understand and use the measures, and how the systems inform school improvement. Furthermore, the research seeks to understand the context and conditions under which alternative accountability systems are developed and used, developed but abandoned, or viewed as unnecessary. The research aims to understand how the federal education policy, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), encourages or impedes the development and use of alternative accountability systems.
Why The Hub?
For the past 40 years, the standards-based reform (SBR) movement has informed education policy in the United States. Research suggests SBR positively influences student attendance, teacher and administrator responsiveness, and student learning. SBR highlighted racial achievement gaps and began addressing them through federal policy, beginning with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. But the hyper-focus on assessments and accountability had negative and unintended consequences on schools and districts, particularly those primarily serving students who are Black, Latinx, and/or experiencing poverty. Additionally, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to transform our nation’s testing and accountability systems.
Bellwether
Bellwether led an examination of new through-year testing structures piloted in four states: Delaware, Florida, Nebraska, and Texas. They elevate perspectives of assessment directors, district leaders, and parents regarding how the tests work for students, families, and educators.
The Migration Policy Institute
The Migration Policy Institute studied state accountability system implications for English language learners. They examined schools' expectations of English Learners’ language growth in language proficiency and academic content areas.
Choice-filled Lives Network
Choice-filled Lives Network's research focused on human-flourishing design principle accountability considerations. They looked into the correlation between human-flourishing design principles and practices in schools and students' well-being and academic success.
Education Analytics
Education Analytics studied early warning systems in school accountability systems. Their report focuses on gaining an understanding of how incorporating predictive analytics and measures from early warning systems into school accountability systems is helpful to teachers, school administrators, students, and parents.
Advisory Group Members
Diallo Brooks
Schott Foundation
Gloria Corral
Parent Institute for Quality Education
Lindsay Fryer
Lodestone DC
Michelle Odemwingie
Achievement Network
Jill Zimmerman Pinsky
Watershed Advisors
Lyons Assessment Consulting
Partnering with the Wisconsin Center for Education Products and Services and KnowledgeWorks Research Team
This research project evaluates the compatibility of a fully performance-based assessment system with federal assessment requirements related to comparability and alignment. Lyons Assessment Consulting and their partners are studying the Portfolios of Performance Pilot led by the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Educational Assessment (MCIEA) to inform federal policy recommendations as well as develop lessons learned for states seeking to innovate in their statewide assessment systems.
Houston Education Research Consortium
A research center of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University
Through the research-practice partnership between the Houston Education Research Consortium and nine school districts in the Houston region, this project aims to examine changes to the accountability system in the state of Texas around how students are deemed college or career ready. Beyond naming the changes, this study will identify whether particular groups of students, notably those who have been historically underrepresented and underserved, are more or less likely to be categorized as "ready" in this shifting accountability landscape.
Center for Innovation in Education
Partnering with the University of Kentucky
Through extensive co-design processes, Allen County Schools (ACS) in Kentucky has been working with impacted students, families, community members, and educators to design a performance assessment system and a community-facing accountability dashboard that better reflect the knowledge, skills, and mindsets its graduates need to address the unique economic, social, and workforce needs of the community. Their project uses a community-based, mixed methods approach to understand how ACS' processes of "inclusive design" with diverse stakeholders impacts stakeholder understanding, ownership, and ongoing engagement with the new assessment and accountability systems.
Advisory Group Members
Gloria Corral
Parent Institute for Quality Education
Anne Hyslop
All4Ed
Michelle Odemwingie
Achievement Network
Jill Zimmerman Pinsky
Watershed Advisors
Jennifer Randall, PhD
Center for Measurement Justice
Funding
Funding for The Hub is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. Hub research will be conducted in collaboration with EduDream as The Hub’s coordinator and selected research teams. No personnel from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, nor the Walton Family Foundation will participate in the creation of Hub research. The findings and conclusions contained within Hub research deliverables will be those of the authors and will not necessarily reflect the positions and/or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the Walton Family Foundation.
Reimagining the future of K12 assessment and accountability
The Hub research explores the strengths, limitations, and policy implications of reimagining K12 education assessment and accountability systems that improve student learning experiences, and close student achievement and opportunity gaps.