Enacting excellence policies in schools: School actors' deliberation of values and pressures under varying socioeconomic and school choice conditions

Abstract Student tracking is widespread and has lasting relations with educational inequality. Tracking policies are usually centralised, but there is considerable school‐level variation in their implementation and design, with important implications for students. The considerations determining how schools enact tracking policies are currently understudied. We addressed this gap by examining a new STEM tracking programme in Israel with two distinct models: one involving a separate, rigidly tracked classroom, and the other offering a STEM acceleration programme after school while keeping classes heterogeneous throughout the rest of the school day. Building on the policy enactment framework, we examined the factors that shaped schools' decisions about which model to enact. Drawing on a nationwide survey of the programme and interviews with administrators, teachers, and programme coordinators from one school district, we found that the enactment of the programme was shaped by the school actors' perceptions of the school's socioeconomic composition, of parental pressures at the school, and of the school's competition environment. School actors also considered values related to tracking and inequality, but external pressures often determined whether these values were reflected in enactment. The findings show how schools decide whether to enact flexible or rigid tracking and heterogeneous or homogeneous classrooms, a decision with significant implications for broader patterns of inequality within schools. We contribute to the literature on tracking and excellence policies, as well as to the literature on policy enactment in schools. Context and Implications Rationale for this study: We studied variation in how schools enact tracking policies to understand the factors that shape school‐level enactment decisions. Why the new findings matter: This matters because school‐level tracking design has implications for students' learning experiences and opportunities. Our study highlights how school‐level decisions about excellence programmes are shaped by local contexts, particularly socioeconomic composition and competition. Implications for practitioners, researchers, and policy‐makers: Policymakers should consider how programme flexibility can unintentionally reproduce inequality. Practitioners and school leaders require support to resist external pressures that may compromise their efforts to achieve equity goals.