Making Equity Count: An Initiative for Equitable General Education Assessment

Abstract

LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York is known for its leadership in assessment practices aimed at improving teaching and learning. Its practices to improve student outcomes include remedial math and composition pathways reforms and establishing signature general education core competencies and communication abilities. Combined together, such practices have helped double the graduation rate over a decade. Until recently, however, assessment data had not been disaggregated for different student demographics. In this article, we describe how we transformed our traditional means of analyzing outcomes data toward one that utilized an equity-driven index for two cohorts of students across major racial and ethnic populations. We examined the data for representational equity and equitable performance. In a key finding, we discovered our ongoing assessment practices do not reflect our student population on both counts, especially as a designated Hispanic Serving Institution. Further, we found other under- and over-representation of racial populations in our general education assessment samples. We conclude by suggesting further areas of inquiry with equity-based assessment and note ongoing challenges to systematizing this approach.