Equity in the classroom
Categories: Kids 5-7, Kids 8-11, In the news, Education
I wasn't going to write about it. Really. I was going to write about other things--how I've been missing here for two weeks because sometimes life takes over, and when you're pregnant and teaching and you have a three year old, life can really take over.
But then children came into the classroom this morning bubbling with wonder, with questions, with excitement, and it was inevitable.
"Obama won!" some shouted, giddy.
"My mom cried," another shared.
At morning circle we talked about why this election was historic. About how not so very long ago at all, Martin Luther King Jr. marched on
But for them, history--even recent history--is far away; almost inconceivably far from their present context. They've grown up in the social environment that made this election possible. And our classroom is a testament to this: with its wide sampling of color, belief, disability and economic status. Huge leaps of progress have been made over the past forty years to procure equity in education for all students.
Yet there are still huge discrepancies between schools and districts. The way public schools are funded is inherently unequal-and even while all children are now protected by rights promising equal opportunity in education, individual classrooms, schools and districts are vastly disparate in the ways that they are able to meet the needs of their students.
Classroom equity no longer means race alone. In fact the issue of classroom equity in most schools today is defined more by the inclusion of students with high needs-from Downs Syndrome and Autism, to those severe behavioral disturbances and learning disabilities--than it is by race.
Equity today means meeting the needs of children with all types of learning styles and preferences. It has to do with differentiation, and individualization of instruction.
On paper anyway.
In actuality, equity in education is still extremely limited because of critical thing: funding.
While the children in my classroom can hardly imagine a world where blacks and whites were separated in schools and on buses, they are still being educated within a system that is inherently unequal because of funding.
Many schools do not have the resources to provided meaningful education for all the students who are now legally allowed and required to attend . As a result, children with higher needs often receive a higher percentage of support and services, and children with fewer needs receive fewer services as a result.
The quiet child who never acts out and needs only minimal help learning new concepts, is less likely to get one-on-one time with the teacher than the child who is aggressive, or needs extra support to complete daily tasks.
Hence the question must be asked. Is this really equity?
What do you believe about equity in education? How do you think this new administration might address policies to change the current disparities between high income districts and low income districts? What would your child's school look like if there were really enough resources, and class sizes were limited to under 20? How would it be different or the same?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karen 11-06-2008 @ 8:27AM
I believe we will have equity when we realize that equity does not mean the same thing for all children. Equity means that all children get what they need and that is impossible in a one size fits all school or classroom. It is just impossible to teach multiple learning styles at multiple levels and be the best at all of them in one classroom.
The only way for all children to succeed is for all children to be able to choose the education that best suits their needs. And that requires choice and vouchers. The responsiblity lies with the parents to ensure that their child receives the best education.
One thing we can realize is that children with severe mental and physical handicaps that are literally incapable of learning, take tremendous resources away from other children. While it sounds good to say that all children can go to school, you have to first establish that a school is a place of learning, and children that cannot learn are not entitled to a full day babysitter at such a great expense. They need OTHER resources and funding should come from other sources.
I'm not thrilled with the way schools are funded, but before we can revamp the funding, we need to first recognize the need to revamp so many other aspects of education and realize that it isn't all about funding. Money does not necessarily solve the problems we have in schools.
Class size is important, but legislating it often creates other problems. When Florida added it to their constitution, so much money had to go to bricks and mortar that they started pushing kids out of the public school system and into the community colleges as a way to create space. They promoted this as an opportunity to have dual enrollment as a benefit to the children, but in reality all it did was bring down the community college classes to a high school level and then these students were unprepared to transfer to a university. And that is just one of the problems that was created my mandated class size.
These decisions are best left to the local level where they can address the individual needs of the community and students. Everyone wants small classes and everyone is going to work toward that goal, but when mandated (without funding), what else do you sacrafice instead?
I'm all for funding education and willing to pay a premium to get the best education for ALL children, BUT we need to move so far away from our current models that I am unwilling to increase funding to an already failing system.
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CommaMomma 11-06-2008 @ 9:00AM
We will never achieve total equity of results, but we will get closer when we allow parental choice to promote competition between public schools.
I don't think more funding is the answer. I placed my son in a public charter school where the average class size is larger (22 in his kindergarten class) and the student population is poorer than my neighborhood public school. This school educates kids for ~$1200 less per student per year than my neighborhood school and it gets better test scores. They get those results because they set very high expectations for academic achievement, homework and personal conduct and they follow through with consequences when kids don't take responsibility. They also know that if parents aren't happy with the education their kids are getting, they can take them elsewhere.
I live in an affluent suburb with well-funded and well-rated public schools. But I still believe that my son is getting a better education at the charter school when I compare what he's doing there to what other neighborhood kids are doing at school. The long waiting lists and lottery needed for admission at multiple charter schools in our area are evidence that other parents believe that as well. Competition and choice produce better results for consumers in the marketplace, and they will do it in schools too.
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SKL 11-06-2008 @ 9:40AM
If a child can achieve a high academic level with little one-on-one involvement with the teacher, why is that a problem? Let them do their homework or read a book in class - it will do them more good than having a teacher breathing down their neck all the time.
In the past century, the more they reduced classroom size, the worse educational results got. In countries where classrooms hold 100 kids, they achieve much more than our kids achieve in our little classrooms. We already spend more educating our kids than almost every other country, and our kids are less academically prepared than they were in the days before electricity and furnaces. Let's face it, there's no real correlation between money and learning. That attitude / excuse is pulling our schools (and our children) down.
To me, equity in school means that, to the extent possible, children are allowed to achieve their innate potential in whatever way works best for each. When I was a kid, I read and wrote my way to competence, with very little interaction with my teachers. That is what suited me best. If my classes were smaller and I was constantly distracted by interruptions from the teachers, I believe I would have learned less and hated school more. My niece is just like me, except that even her summer reading list is dictated by her school. She complains that when she'd rather be reading the classics, she has no choice but to read and report on contemporary youth literature. I think that's a shame. There is such a thing as too much involvement in a child's mental development.
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dee 11-06-2008 @ 11:00AM
SKL--I was the kid who could learn without much involvement from the teacher.
It ended up being a very marginalizing experience. A lot of classroom work is about cooperative learning, and when you're miles ahead of the rest of the students, you tend to be ignored or excluded from cooperative learning experiences. (Or, in the worse cases, punished for not dumbing down your interactions.) It grows into longer and longer periods of boredom, and eventually you start figuring out ways to keep yourself occupied, which since they're not part of the approved curriculum of the classroom, get you into trouble and further excluded.
Boredom is hell, especially for a self-motivated learner.
LS 11-06-2008 @ 11:30AM
Wow. Three awesome responses already. It almost makes me think I have nothing to say. Almost. But then, I'm a motormouth...
I believe that "equity in the classroom" means giving students equal resources to achieve their best potential. Flowery words, but what does it mean?
It means taking a long, hard look at how the money is being spent at the top, and examining why it doesn't reach the bottom. So much money is funneled into this system, but by the time it reaches the children, the gushing waterfall has slowed to a drip and a trickle.
It may be an unpopular opinion, but I believe we need more, and smaller, school districts. There is no reason for a "district" to comprise over 600 schools and over 40,000 students (information from wikipedia, on the Chicago Public School System). When a district gets that big, it's a bureaucracy, not a system, and there is plenty of waste to go around.
Split that behemoth into a bunch of little districts - controlled individually and locally - and give parents the power, through vouchers or other means, to choose the best school for their child, and I believe education will improve. Because when you know people - when all the teachers know all the kids, the attention is spread around. Expectations can be higher, because everyone knows what everyone is capable of. Students like SKL will be recognized as 'self starters' - those who don't need a teacher breathing down their necks. Perhaps those kids can even be recruited to help those who are in more need of monitoring - they can serve as tutors when teachers can't be available.
It's community that will fix the system, and provide that equity that is needed. Not "it takes a village" mentality... well, maybe a little, because when everyone in the village knows what's going on, there's more accountability. And those who need a little more help can get it, because there are those who don't need as much. Balance.
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