Why is equity so emotionally charged?

We can all think of many good and sound reasons why equity is an emotional concept. Nobody likes to be left out. Nobody likes to be given less than others. But when it comes to education, it’s imperative that we examine exactly what we mean by “less”. To my way of thinking, the only “less” or “more” worth discussing are opportunities to learn. Who has more opportunities to learn something new every day? Students in appropriate settings. It’s really not that complicated. Who has fewer opportunities to learn something new every day? Students in inappropriate settings. 

I invite you to view a YouTube video about accelerated gifted students: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4oj-CJMYA. There is much to this short video, but I particularly want to focus on 2:04 - 2:13. “Now everyone can go to school,” this young man says, “and think YES, I get to learn something today.” So here is another reason equity is so emotional: when we have been deprived of it, and then we receive it, it feels marvelous. It feels right, and good, because it is what we deserve.

Later in the video above (4:14), we hear this statement: “Remember when we were a tenth grader and what would have happened if we were forced to be in fifth grade?” This leads us to the specific aspect of educational equity and gifted education which addresses acceleration opportunities. Even if you are familiar with gifted programing in general, it’s a good bet that you haven’t heard much about acceleration.

The authors of A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students  (http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/ND_v1.pdf) , explain academic acceleration this way: 

“Acceleration is an educational intervention that moves students through an educational program at a faster than usual rate or younger than typical age.  Acceleration means matching the level, complexity, and pace of the curriculum with the readiness and motivation of the student. 

We know, of course, that ALL students learn more effectively when the “level, complexity, and pace of the curriculum” is matched with their readiness and motivation. If we’re all doing our jobs right, then the typical scope and sequence of any subject in any public school does indeed offer a curriculum with an appropriate pace and level of complexity for the majority of students in that grade. 

But not all the students. And that’s where gifted education, and, specifically, academic acceleration, comes in. The problem is that, as necessary as accelerative opportunities are, they are often, inexplicably, hard to come by. James H. Borland, in his book Planning and Implementing Programs for the Gifted, makes this statement:

“[Academic] acceleration is one of the most curious phenomena in the field of education. I can think of no other issue in which there is such a gulf between what research has revealed and what most practitioners believe. The research on acceleration is so uniformly positive, the benefits of appropriate acceleration so unequivocal, that it is difficult to see how an educator could oppose it” (p. 185).

So here we have another reason why equity is so emotional: many of us are aware that the reasons for inequity are based on logical fallacies, and yet these reasons and their resultant inequities are immoveable. 

Or are they? If we truly believe that every child deserves to learn something new every day, then we are obligated to look at any and all students--in groups or as individuals--who may not be learning, and then to carefully study their situations. And it is clear that students who are academically precocious fall into the category of students who deserve our attention.

In his article Helping Students Learn Only What They Don’t Already Know, Julian C. Stanley (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10029.aspx) writes: “Students need to be helped to learn what they do not already know, instead of being marched through course materials in lock step, largely regardless of what they knew at the start of the course. That especially hurts the intellectually talented, who tend to be far ahead of grade level.” Stanley goes on to state: “Many teachers seem to assume that their beginning students know nothing about the subject.”

If we connect this statement to Dr. Borland’s comments, it would seem that it is not only the teachers who make this assumption. We are all complicit in one way or another. Where are the parents who want to be sure their children learn something new every day? Where are the community members who want to make sure their tax dollars are being used responsibly? Where, for that matter, are the students themselves? Where are the voices asking the schools to do more, to pay attention to the research, to, if nothing else, at least open the conversation?

This is where the topic of equity becomes emotional to me. When it comes to students who are not properly served in public schools, when it comes to students who languish in inappropriate settings, learning little or nothing, when it comes to parents, teachers, administrators and community members who don’t even bother to explore the needs of those students, I become quite emotional. There is a lot of inequity in the world, and in education, and, sadly, much of it is deeply embedded in our culture and institutionalized in our schools.

But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

If you do indeed believe that every child deserves to learn something new every day, do something about it. No more assumptions, no more misplaced trust. Maybe your school district really is doing a great job. But why not find out, so you know for sure? And if they’re not, do something about it.

Start by reading A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students. It’s right there on the internet, free and available to all. Maybe even organize a group of parents, teachers, community members. Just read this book, one chapter at a time. 

This is all I am asking you to do. Read, discuss, open up the conversation. In short, make room for the possibility that not all of the students are indeed learning something new every day, and that you can actually do something about that.

Make room for that possibility and for the ensuing conversations. Make room for the emotion.  Make room for the research. Most of all, make room for the children. Do this by working hard to implement or revise a policy in your school or district that will allow acceleration to be explored as an option.

I began this blog by asking what “learning something new every day” looks like.  I will tell you one thing it looks like--it looks like you and I--though we may ourselves be long-gone from public school--picking up A Nation Deceived, or emailing our district’s gifted coordinator, or even running for the school board. None of our children can possibly learn something new every day if we are not prepared to do so ourselves, and if we are not prepared to act on what we have learned, co-creating a vibrant, complex, and challenging education for all of the children in our schools, regardless of ability.

What exactly is equity?

Last night I was reading the text for my Linguistics class and I ran across this quote: “Phonemic awareness may develop in some children as a result of early literacy experiences. However, other children come to school without phonemic awareness, so the best solution is to teach phonemic awareness directly and systematically.” Excuse me? Some children already have phonemic awareness, and others don’t, so the “best solution” is to teach them all the same thing? 

This may not be exactly what the authors meant to imply, but that actually makes it more dangerous. If a message within a textbook is subtle, is in fact not the main point of the passage, or the chapter, or the entire text, then the class instructor might not feel the need to discuss it. The student may not even realize she has read this message, or that it has joined and reinforced other similar messages within her worldview. And these messages are everywhere, because, the fact is, this is what we do. We learn to read in the first grade. That’s what first grade is for. So if you enter the first grade already knowing how to read, or already having some of the building blocks (such as phonemic awareness), too bad for you. 

Of course, it can also be too bad for you if you enter the first grade before you are ready to do so. But teachers are trained to recognize this, and programs to help struggling readers abound. But what about programs to help advanced readers? 

But what help could advance readers possibly need? How is it a problem to be ahead of the game? Sadly, these questions are asked (rhetorically) by many teachers, administrators, and parents. And it’s not just that these questions are potentially harmful, but that they are actually the wrong questions to ask in the first place. The right question, the most important question any teacher, administrator, or parent should ask is, “Is every child learning something new every day?” 

And, this, I believe is where this conversation really needs to begin. Whether you are a parent, whether you are a teacher, a pre-service teacher, a para, or administrator, whether you are a community member being asked to vote on the latest school bond measure or thinking about exercising your right to send a letter to the editor, think about this: who is in charge of the way you view educational equity? Who is in charge of what you believe it means to learn something new every day?

The discussion of educational equity--the discussion of any complex and emotionally-laden topic--must begin with you. Who do you allow to influence you? Who has credibility with you and why? Are you easily persuaded by emotion? By examples, by stories or hypotheticals? 

What do you believe about equity? What do you believe about what education should do for children on a daily basis? An argument, for example, about No Child Left Behind, really is not an argument about education. It’s simply about No Child Left Behind. When we allow outside constructs--such as legislation, budget concerns, or even the loudest voice out there--to shape our dialogues about our own children, something is wrong. 

In an chapter entitled Equity, Excellence and School Reform: Why Is Finding Common Ground So Hard? (Chapter 8 in Rethinking Gifted Education, edited by James H Borland),  Mara Sapon-Shevin discusses the fact that there is much antagonism in regards to defining educational equity. She writes: “The way in which the debate becomes framed and battle lines drawn can give us a clearer picture of the scope of the controversy as well as areas of both possible reconciliation and intractable difference.” While Sapon-Shevin writes specifically about gifted education, and her deeply-held belief that gifted education is elitist (an argument with which I will engage in later posts), this quote can be applied to not only education in general, but to any point of controversy.

When controversy exists, we have two choices: to jump right in and engage with the controversy as-is, or to sit back, unpack that controversy, and perhaps even avoid it entirely. Controversy is a powerful rhetorical device. Controversy persuades us to get mad, to take sides, to allow our buttons to be pushed and to try to be “right”. But controversy has nothing directly to do with that six-year old who already knows how to read, and who is expected to sit through phonemic awareness lessons and complete worksheet after worksheet, learning nothing for weeks on end.

I’m currently teaching persuasive writing to adult students in a college Composition course. They have marvelous examples of ways their children have tried to persuade them. My favorite is a mom who was confronting her son about his poor grades. “Well, he said, “I could do better in school if I had a better mom.” How many moms would allow this to push their buttons? Many would become angry, while others would feel guilty. Either way, the son would be off the hook for the moment, the real issue lost in a smokescreen of emotion.

This is, I believe, exactly what happens within the complexity of educational equity. We allow ourselves to become lost in that smokescreen, in the emotion, in the rhetoric. We allow ourselves to be bullied by the carefully-crafted arguments of others, instead of thinking for ourselves. These carefully-crafted arguments are sometimes built on solid research, sometimes on personal experiences, sometimes on projections for future consequences, and sometimes on logical fallacies, manipulative language, and so much hot air. 

To persuade you to believe my assertion that we all have to be careful about what we allow to influence us, I offer this (probably) true story as a metaphor. Harry Houdini died in 1926, of a ruptured appendix. While he had already been suffering from appendicitis, it was concluded that the appendix ruptured after several punches from a fan. Houdini had publicized the fact that he could take hard punches to the stomach, and one afternoon a young man dropped by and asked permission to give Houdini a punch or two. Houdini was sleepy, so even though he gave permission, he did not steel up his stomach muscles before the punches began. Had he taken the time to sit up, to say, “In a few minutes, after I prepare myself.” instead of simply, “Yes”, he may not have been killed.

So, as you think about that first-grader who can already read, or about the first-grader who never will learn to read; as you think about your own childhood experiences with educational equity, or those of your children, your students, or  the children in your community, think about this first: are you letting yourself be punched in the stomach by rhetoric? Or are you willing to take the time to prepare yourself, to reflect on what you truly believe, to read serious research and other primary materials, to listen carefully to various viewpoints, to swallow your pride if someone accuses you of being wrong, to refuse to take sides or allow your buttons to be pushed? 

In other words, what and who do you allow to shape your dialogue about your own children? If you truly want to be the one in charge of your children’s or your students’ educational opportunities, make sure that you really are. Borrowing the rhetoric of others is giving up your control, and, in the end, offers no help whatsoever to your children.

So, what exactly is equity? You decide. You think about it, you discuss it, you reflect on its complexities and implications. Then let me know what you think and we'll continue the conversation, not rushing to any too-quick definitive.

Next: Why is equity such an emotionally-charged concept?

What does it look like?

"Every child deserves to learn something new every day." This statement was made in 1998 by Del Siege, the National Association for Gifted Children Program Chair and President. Actually, Del's entire quote was: "Every child including those who are gifted and talented deserves to learn something new every day. Every child - including high ability learners - deserves to be challenged, and to receive guidance and support in the development of his or her potential." I like the shorter version, though, because it makes the core of the sentiment more clear. Every child means every child.


I have been an educator for 25 years. I have worked with many different populations, many different ages, and with many different content areas. My commitment is to the marginalized, the underserved, the kid in the corner who no one pays attention to because he's too smart, too shy, too slow, too sad. Or the other kid in the other corner, who everyone pays attention to, because he is loud and annoying, because he is distracting, because his attempts at making friends are ham-handed, and he has no idea why they are not successful.


In my life as a teacher, this marginalization has always been the great equalizer when it came to deciding which students to advocate for. As a college freshman, I chose special education as the topic for my "big" research paper in Composition and Rhetoric. This was in 1984, and PL94-142--the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)--was not ten years old. I went on to work with special education students, with at-risk students, with English-Language Learners, with adult college students, and with gifted students. 


Within all of these populations, I found two striking points of commonality. First, marginalization crosses all boundaries. Being a part of a certain population does not define a student as marginalized, but nor does it insulate any student from marginalization. Secondly, when a student--no matter who, no matter where--learns something new, it looks exactly the same.  A high-school senior with an IQ of 160 and a nonverbal seven-year-old with Autism? Yes, exactly the same. The joy, the gain, the almost audible click inside the brain and "aha!" inside the heart are exactly the same, no matter what. 


Every child does indeed deserve that experience, at least once a day. Not every day may see the big, transformative, "I finally figured it out!" moments, but the opportunity must be there. Teachers and administrators must provide the open spaces, the challenges, the questions without easy answers, and the concepts almost-but-not-quite out of reach. I can't imagine any teacher or parent that would disagree with this statement. But the trick is that not every child's reach is the same, and that is where the conversation becomes murky.


Next: What exactly is equity?