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2014 APS Equity Audit Report (Click to Download)
Executive Summary
In order to conduct this equity audit, we reviewed recent literature related to the practice of equity audits and compiled data from a variety of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, administrative data on schools, principals, teachers, and students across the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system, recent APS reports, and financial reporting data. Products known as equity audits vary widely in the information contained within them and in the thresholds for determining whether or not conditions within a system are equitable. The aim of this report is to convey information about the state of the system at the region, cluster, and school levels using a variety of indicators. These indicators include community characteristics, financial data, and the characteristics of schools. School characteristics are represented by measures of school leadership, classroom and teacher characteristics, and student characteristics. In addition, the appendices further describe some school characteristics while limiting data to specific subgroups of students. The data for this report are largely restricted to the 2012-13 school year.
Equity audits are a relatively new tool for school systems and there are large variations in their thresholds for determining whether or not characteristics are substantially different across schools. Simple percentage difference cutoffs or using standard error calculations to generate confidence intervals of means both avoid complex questions of whether or not differences across schools are practically meaningful. This report finds substantial variations across schools on numerous characteristics, but leaves questions of whether and how to address these differences to the broad group of stakeholders concerned with educational outcomes for the students of APS.
While the report in its entirety may appear overwhelming, we hope that this report will serve as a resource document for those concerned about variations across schools within the district. The main report provides a narrative description of a variety of tables and graphs to guide the reader in understanding and interpreting the information contained within the main report and the appendices organized by school level.
Conducting this equity audit also revealed some additional important themes. There exist substantial variations across schools in the APS system in all of the areas where equity was examined. These include differences in indicators of teacher quality, academic programming, financial resources (particularly represented by PTA and foundation funds), playgrounds, student
academic achievement, and classroom instruction. Also, while numerous sources of data on personnel, students, and facilities are housed within APS, there are no systemic mechanisms for the compilation of these disparate data sources into information tools to guide decision-making within the district. Additionally, it should be noted that the time constraints involved in this analysis required a restriction to a single year of information. This single year ‘snapshot’ does not allow an examination of the trends of the indicators compiled. We cannot speak to whether or not these measures represent positive, negative, or no changes over recent years. Finally, should policymakers within APS respond to the information in this report with specific actions intended to alter the characteristics of schools, a plan must also be developed that will allow the district to monitor the changes that occur due to these actions.