Putting the Public Back in Public Education: Community Advocacy and Education Leadership under the Every Student Succeeds Act

Abstract

In this article, we argue that ESSA provides a unique policy window for district-level leaders to advance an equity agenda by working closely with local community advocates. Drawing from a larger qualitative, multiple case study on the role of school boards in three U.S. Mountain West school districts, we focus on community advocacy committed to expanding educational equity and opportunity for underserved Black, Latinx, and English learner students Guided by community equity literacy as an organizing framework grounded in the literature on school–community relations, partnerships, and collaboration, we find that community advocates, who in some cases became school board members, identified educational inequities through various forms of knowledge, and then took deliberate actions to dismantle inequities in their respective school districts. We conclude with recommendations for how district-level leaders might leverage community advocacy and education leadership at the local level under ESSA.