"Equity"--It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

In education, "equity" means equality of outcomes.  We don't insist on that in sports--because sports are important.  Education?  Bah, irrelevant.  At least one rookie teacher sees through part of the charade, though:

“Anti-racist” educators are busy arguing about who owns “equity,” writes Jasmine Lane, a first-year English teacher, on Citizen Ed and Education Post. It has little to do with improving teaching and learning, she argues.

Equity advocates assume that “if you just make teachers more aware of their individual biases and roles in systematic and systemic racism, teachers will teach better and students will learn better,” she writes. “This has yet to be demonstrated.”

Ms. Lane and I probably wouldn't agree on a lot of things (read the entire post), but she and I agree on this.  As a commenter on Joanne's linked post above wrote:

Well, being illiterate, innumerate, culturally incompetent in the world of work and lacking the personal skills and behaviors expected therein is surely a great way to create more poverty and government dependence. Productive, self-sufficient people do not see that as success. I am glad that she wants her students to have the opportunities and choices that being decently educated bring.

President Reagan said the best anti-poverty tool was a job.   If you truly believe that education is the best path to employment, then watered-down, feel-good, victimhood pablum should not be your go-to prescription.  Teach well and aim high.

My recommendations?  Teach reading via phonics.  Ensure students know their multiplication tables (it can be done, Mrs. Barton did it year after year after year).  Accomplish those two things by the end of 3rd grade and you set students up for success.  Fail to do them, and you contribute significantly to the problems in education that we have today.