How does performance management affect social equity? Evidence from New York City public schools

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• Author: Weijie Wang
• Date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13590

RESEARCH ARTICLE

How does performance management affect social equity?

Evidence from New York City public schools

Weijie Wang

Truman School of Government and Public

Affairs, University of Missouri, Columbia,

Missouri, USA

Correspondence

Weijie Wang, Truman School of Government

and Public Affairs, University of Missouri,

615 Locust Street, #E329, Columbia, MO 65211,

USA.

Email: wangweij@missouri.edu

Abstract

An ongoing tension exists in the relationship between performance regimes and

equity. On the one hand, performance regimes could set goals to reduce disparate

outcomes. However, performance regimes are associated with strategic behaviors,

such as cream skimming, that could worsen outcomes for marginalized groups.

This article contributes to this debate by examining the use of growth measures of

performance on achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged sub-

groups of students in New York City public schools. Using a regression discontinu-

ity design, this study credibly identifies the causal effects of performance signals

on equity outcomes. Results show weak evidence of negative effects on equity,

and the achievement gaps did not increase in most of the cases. The article also

discusses how the incentives provided by growth measures can curb strategic

behaviors. The findings provide measured optimism that the current generation of

performance regimes can be designed to account for issues of equity.

Evidence for Practice

•Performance regimes that heavily emphasize growth, or value-added, measures

of performance incentivize public managers to give roughly equal attention to

all clients rather than focus on a particular group of clients.

•The effect of performance management on social equity depends on the

institutional design of the performance regimes. Using value-added, or growth,

measures of performance may curb strategic behaviors that hurt equity.

•Growth measures do not completely eliminate the incentive to game the

system, and monitoring and adjustments are needed to cope with potential

gaming behaviors.

While robust evidence has suggested that performance

management systems improve the performance of

public organizations (Gerrish, 2016; Han & Moynihan,

2022;Pasha,2018; Wang & Yeung, 2019), distortive

and perverse effects have also been well documented.

Under accountability pressure, public managers may

respond strategically to game the system. For example,

some public managers focus on advancing easy-to-

measuregoalsattheexpenseofthosethatarehardto

measure in performance evaluation. This study focuses

on a type of gaming behavior, namely cream skim-

ming, that is particularly harmful for social equity. In

response to accountability pressure, some public man-

agers may prioritize one group of clients because they

are more likely to contribute to measured performance,

while ignoring other groups of clients because they

require more time or resources to serve (Heckman

et al., 2002; Moynihan, 2009).

The negative impacts of performance management

systems on social equity have long been a major concern

for scholars and practitioners. Empirical research in policy

areas such as healthcare, education, policing, and social

welfare has well documented that accountability pressure

disproportionately hurts the interests of racial minorities

and other disadvantaged groups of clients (Bevan &

Hood, 2006; Booher-Jennings, 2005; Courty & Marschke,

2007; Heckman et al., 2002; Pasha et al., 2021; Soss

et al., 2011). To address the problem, recent performance

regimes have adopted new rules such as holding man-

agers accountable to performance targets of disadvan-

taged subgroups of citizens. These new rules have shown

potentials in mitigating inequity (Courty et al., 2011;

Received: 28 February 2022 Revised: 30 October 2022 Accepted: 18 November 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13590

1136 © 2022 American Society for Public Administration. Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1136–1149.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar