Equity Principles

Educational Equity A strategy designed to provide differentiated educational responses to students who are different in important ways so that comparable outcomes may be achieved. “All learners cannot be treated the same because their different learning, social, cultural, emotional, psychological and physical needs or characteristics naturally give rise to varying interventions for them to achieve comparability.” Bradley Scott, 1995

Shift A focus on comparable outcomes, Intentional strategies to level the playing field, and Unequal treatment of unequals

Equity Principles 1. A shift from Equality-based principles to Equity- based principles

Equity Principles 2. A shift from identifying “at-risk” students to acknowledging a broken system

Equity Principles 3. A shift from color-blindness to self examination and understanding our own racial identities

Color-blindness We often hear educators say that they “don’t see color”, they just see children. It is an impossibility... Color is immutable and unavoidable; it’s the first thing you notice about someone, whether you register it consciously or not.

Color-blindness It is offensive... It blurs the real problems that communities of color struggle with i.e., low expectations, achievement gap, etc.

Color-blindness It is an illusion... Used as a tool to deny the importance of race. The understanding of race and its construction in our culture is necessary for addressing the inequities in our schools.

Self -examination Deeply explore all dimensions of our own identities: race, gender, religion, etc. What impact does my race have on me or others? Have the courageous conversations that allow us to lift the unconscious veil of color- blindness and silence. Then we can develop the color consciousness needed to help all students reach their potential.

Adolescents of color really begin to think about their identities during adolescence. That’s an important time to explore racial and ethnic identity. While White youth are also exploring their identity at this time, they usually aren’t exploring the racial aspects of that identity. So, it’s not uncommon to find adolescents of color actively exploring identity, which manifests itself in styles of dress, patterns of speech, music, and who they hang out with in the corridors of their schools.

All of this is happening in the presence of White teachers who have no personal history with that type of identity exploration, nor have they given much thought to their own identities, even in midlife. If one person is having an experience that another has not shared or even thought about, it’s easy to see where there can be misunderstanding and conflict.

This is particularly true when adults respond by telling youngsters not to do the things associated with their identity exploration: Don’t wear those clothes, don’t listen to that music, don’t talk that way, don’t sit together in the cafeteria. -Beverly Daniel Tatum (Sparks, 2004, p. 49)