1. Outcomes Data and Equity
April 19th, 2016
ACES meeting

2. Objective Provide recommendations to PBC: How will we act on this?
What other data do we need to improve our decision making?

3. Our opportunity:
“How can we expect to challenge old mindsets and deconstruct implicit biases to reach new horizons for students’ success in college and beyond when only a portion of students and educators are engaging in the conversations necessary to do so?”
The Equity Imperative
The Time Is Now: Committing to Equity and Inclusive Excellence
By Tia Brown McNair, Association of American Colleges and Universities

4. Equity Minded look at Data
Color-conscious (as opposed to color-blind) in a critical sense. [Can include criticality toward gender, age, and other socio-economic factors]
Aware that beliefs, expectations, and practices assumed to be neutral can have outcomes that are racially disadvantageous.
Willing to assume responsibility for the elimination of inequality.
Aware that while racism is not always overt, racialized patterns nevertheless permeate policies and practices in higher education institutions.
When policies have a disproportionate impact on students of color, they have the effect of maintaining racial hierarchies.
Color-conscious (as opposed to color-blind) in a critical sense.
Being color-conscious means noticing and questioning patterns of educational outcomes that reveal unexplainable differences in outcomes for minoritized students (Gillborn 2005); it means viewing inequalities in the context of a history of exclusion, discrimination, and educational apartheid.
Aware that beliefs, expectations, and practices assumed to be neutral can have outcomes that are racially disadvantageous.
Racial disadvantage is created when unequal outcomes are attributed to students’ cultural predispositions or when practices are based on stereotypical assumptions about the capacity, aspirations, or motives of minoritized populations (Bensimon 2012).
Willing to assume responsibility for the elimination of inequality.
Rather than viewing inequalities as a natural catastrophe (Coates 2015), equity-minded individuals allow for the possibility that inequalities might be created or exacerbated by taken-for-granted practices and policies, inadequate knowledge, a lack of cultural know- how, or the absence of institutional support—all of which can be changed.
Aware that while racism is not always overt, racialized patterns nevertheless permeate policies and practices in higher education institutions.
When policies have a disproportionate impact on students of color, they have the effect of maintaining racial hierarchies.
From the “Five Principles for Enacting Equity by Design:
By: Estela Mara Bensimon, Alicia C. Dowd and Keith Witham

5. Looking at the ILO data
What are the narratives we have to explain the disparities?
What more information do we need to make sense of this?
What can we recommend to PBC: a representative body of campus stakeholders?

6. Relevant Information about our students
Course Success:
Average is 62%, but closer to 50% for Black, Hispanic, Native and Pac Islander, Vet, FY, Low income.
Transfer/Completion: how many students MAKE it to this level?
Black Students are 3.4% of student body, but 1.7% of transfer cohort and 2% of degrees/certificates.
Hispanic students are 40% of students, but only 11% of transfer and 16% of degrees/certificates.

7. From the ACES conversation 4/19
Data-set:
Self-reporting data has limitations on its own
survey introduces self-selection bias
May not be representative / Small groups may skew certain results
Scales Exaggerate differences: most fall between 3.05 and 3.9
All the averages are within ‘agreement’

8. From the ACES conversation 4/19
Narrative/Assumptions
Women show less confidence with equations (but it’s the least popular overall!)
Black and Latino have lower success/retention, but report high confidence:
Are these students trying to “overcompensate” (pp black, latino, males as most confident)
related to social/cultural pressures to be strong
Stereotype threat: fear of confirming stereotypes (Steele, Shih, Pittinsky et al.)

9. Recommendations
PBC could provide support for college-level discussions of data AND include more than just self-reporting
Surface assumptions and narratives surrounding gaps
PBC could request PD to address disparities
Incorporate Equity-minded data discussions into Program Review and Planning

10. What Does It Mean to Be Equity-Minded?
Equity-minded practices are created through
1. Willingness to look at student outcomes and disparities at all educational levels disaggregated by race and ethnicity as well as socioeconomic status.
2. Recognition that individual students are not responsible for the unequal outcomes of groups that have historically experienced discrimination and marginalization in the United States.
3. Respect for the aspirations and struggles of students who are not well served by the current educational system.
4. Belief in the fairness of allocating additional college and community resources to students who have greater needs due to the systemic shortcomings of our educational system in providing for them.
5. Recognition that the elimination of entrenched biases, stereotypes, and discrimination in institutions of higher education requires intentional critical deconstruction of structures, policies, practices, norms, and values assumed to be race neutral.