What is Equity in Education

Something has bothered me about teaching for many years.  Everyone is screaming for equity, but few inside the classroom seem to know what the word really means.  Making things accessible to all students is not only essential, it is a moral imperative.  Putting that into practice is really tough.  Between 15 and 25 people all with unique needs in one room with one teacher attempting to meet all of their needs every minute of every day is impossible.  So, what can we do?  Many families have decided to homeschool.  Some school hop.  Some pay thousands of dollars for private, rather than public, and some just give us and drop out.  All of these options are important decisions for families, one that is their right to make.  They are not deserting public education, but doing what they feel is best for their child.  The problem, or one of them, is that teachers end up taking the blame for not supporting children, as if this was a conscience choice, vilifying dedicated, educated, hard-working, caring people.  So what can we do? Here's my philosophy, quite unpopular, believe it or not, with the "boots on the ground" education system:  All students need to be stretched and obtain new information every single day!  If a student is given easy things to do, they end up feeling as if that is all that they can do.  What can we do... make sure ALL students are learning with appropriately rigorous tasks.  Stop ignoring the national and state standards.  If a student is in high school, they need to apply a balanced chemical equation to the quantity of reactants to insure the yield is adequate, then let's teach them how to do this rather than thinking that students can't possibly understand it.  I think this is a cop-out!  It's hard... not only to help students understand how to do this, but to make sure that 100% of students can do it.  If we ask ALL students to do the hard stuff, will they level up and meet us?  There are a lot of variables to think about to answer that questions, but this is equity!  All students can do this!  They can!  Thinking that they can't is criminal (in my opinion).   One big reason why public schools are failing... truly failing right now, is because we don't have a clear and appropriate definition of equity, and we don't have the time to make sure every student knows what they should know.  What if we extended the school year?  Radical, I know!  What if we taught teachers, administrators, district leadership, parents and students what equity really is?  Better yet, what if we showed them? Written by Michelle Gates Blue, BS in Biomedical Science, MAT in Teaching, Owner and Top Mind Igniter for Ignite The Mind, LLC