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What is Equity?

For all of its achievements, the civil rights movement seemed to flounder on the rocks of its most pervasive and controversial goal, the desegregation of public schools....

What should have been the result of the civil rights movement? No doubt the answer begins with equitable access to opportunity and resources in our society, a removal of institutional barriers to progress, and some redress of past injustice. Equity means equality of opportunity, a fair chance to have a seat at the table. Equity is about the widest possible accessibility of the resources and processes that produce desirable outcomes. Above all, equity is about action, action to restore balance where there is imbalance. When you have many problems to solve, you have to start somewhere. If you try, you may fail. But never addressing the lingering issues crying out for decades to be resolved is morally unconscionable, precisely because it consigns generation after generation of children to second-class status.

Equity is not simply wanting to do the right thing. Action is required to redress enduring wrongs. Equity is not consistent with the sustenance of the status quo. Operationally, equity may require a panoply of methods and approaches, a unique strategy for every challenged school or struggling child. What goes in matters less than the outcomes. If you can get more with less, so be it. If you need more to get the same result, so be it. Equity occurs when the learning needs of the individual student are adequate justification for differentiated interventions. The outcome of equity is high teaching and learning performance, even in the face of obstacles and challenges.

Equity is the hope and pride in the faces of children who believe in their futures. Their pride is in direct proportion to their successful accomplishments. Their hope is a reflection of their sense of the brilliance of their possibilities, a sense that drives their focused effort. Their growth is nurtured by both success and failure. Their learning is the best indicator that the system designed to help them learn is in fact working.

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Last modified: 08/22/06

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