What is Education Equity?

What is Education Equity?   In this episode of "Sparking Equity,"  host Pedro Noguera talks with his son Joaquín Noguera to demystify a term that has  become hugely, and unnecessarily, controversial in numerous school districts throughout the nation.  In some school districts, superintendents have become fearful for even using the term for fear of inviting  blowback or fierce criticism

Pedro Noguera is dean of the USC Rossier School of Education in Los Angeles while Joaquín is a professor of education at nearby Loyola Marymount University.    

This is the first of a two part series on equity.  Watch for our next episode in which we will profile the Hacienda-La Puente School District in Los Angeles which has made equity a central focus of its work --  which is paying off in the remarkable success of its diverse, largely low-income student body.  

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Brought to you by the Advancing Education Success Initiative -- Coby McDonald, Producer; Louis Freedberg, Executive Producer and Correspondent

Transcript

Transcript of Episode 5: What is Equity? 

Pedro Noguera: Welcome to this episode of Sparking Equity. I'm Pedro Noguera, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education. In this episode, we'll take a deeper look at the concept of equity, what it means, and what are the essential ingredients for implementing a successful equity strategy. Unfortunately, the term has become a controversial one in numerous school districts throughout the nation.

That's likely to even be more the case during the coming election year.

Joining me today for a discussion about this complex issue,  I am especially pleased to have my son Joaquín Noguera with me in the studio. Joaquín is a professor at Loyola Marymount University here in Los Angeles. And we've written an article together called Creating Clarity on Equity in Schools in Educational Leadership.

Welcome, Joaquin. 

Joaquín Noguera: Thank you, Dean Noguera. 

Pedro Noguera: So it's great to be with you, Joaquin. So in our article, we identified five areas that schools that they need to focus on. We talked about the importance of a coherent. approach to delivering instruction about ongoing support for teachers to build their professional capacity to meet student needs.

We talked about creating a student centered learning climate where students feel supported and have a sense of belonging and trust. We talked about the importance of parents and getting parents and community involved. And then we talked about leadership and the importance of a shared vision. That's where equity's got to show up.

It's got to show up in the classrooms. It's got to show up in the way we conduct the lunchroom, in the culture of the school, in the way we're disciplining students. 

Why don't you start by talking about why you think equity's become a flashpoint now? 

Joaquín Noguera: I'm not sure that it has become a flashpoint, although I understand the question. If we look today at the field of education, it is a controversial topic, and we might argue that when No Child Left Behind  was initially implemented and became law, equity was not as controversial. But I would argue that any attempt to interrupt inequity in a hierarchical society has always been controversial.

As educators and as the non educators, the public have become more clear about what the work of equity consists of. The notion that rghis is a zero sum game,  that some will have their needs met at the expense of others, has been amplified. That perception continues to shape disengagement from education and fuel the controversy around equity.

We live at a time when schools and the work of educators is seen as controversial, even though equity is calling for meeting the needs of each student in our classroom. As we've made more advancements in our understanding of what that means, and what that must consist of, given the social inequity outside of schools, it has ruffled some feathers.

So I don't know that I would agree that it's a new controversy, although it's maybe an inflamed issue. It's more controversial than it has been in the past. 

 The idea of meeting the needs of kids, both the academic needs as well as the non academic, the social, psychological needs shouldn't be controversial because, theoretically,  that's what schools are supposed to do.

Pedro Noguera: There's no school in the country that's not supposed to meet the needs of their students. However, we've known for a long time that there are lots of kids, particularly kids who come with greater needs, kids who are Black, who are Native American or Latino, who are not well served in our schools. And I think in the minds of some, the controversy comes, as you point out, this idea that if you do more for some, it means less for others.

I remember when we were working at Berkeley High many years ago, when you were a student there, everybody in this very liberal, progressive community seemed to be on board about equity, until we said this means is opening up access to honors and AP classes, and getting rid of some of these courses that lead to nowhere.  
That's when the opposition grew.

Joaquín Noguera:    Can you explain a little bit about why we don't just talk about educational equality?  How is equity different from equality?  And is it a term that is easily understood by most people? 

Pedro Noguera:  I think people often get confused by the two terms. And the way I try to break it down so it's most clear is that anybody with more than one child already practices equity, because you recognize the differences in those children, in their needs,  temperament, personality, etc.   I have five kids.  Alll have different needs, and at different ages. Every time we eat a meal together, it's an equity challenge because we have some who are vegan, some gluten-free, some who eat a lot, some eat a little, and we need to figure out how to meet their different needs. What equity is about is not giving everybody the same thing because it wouldn't work. And that's true in school. It's hard in school because instead of five, you're talking about 30 children in some classrooms, and kids are at different places academically with different needs socially and psychologically.

So it is challenging, but the alternative to having an equity focus is just treating everyone the same. And what that means you're going to lose out on a lot of kids. This is what we see in many schools. 

Joaquín Noguera: We also know that we haven't really treated everyone the same throughout our history of schooling in this country.

So where do you think resistance to what you just described, which sounds compelling and reasonable?   We meet the needs of our children. Where does the pushback come from in schools and districts today?

Pedro Noguera: So the one I see a lot is the parents whose kids are perceived as advanced often  feel threatened.   They feel that their kids will not be pushed, not be allowed to excel because we're going to target our attention on the kids who are further behind academically. I think there are also educators who think that kind of teaching is teaching to the middle. Is equity. And I think both of those are off. The real work is differentiation, personalization of learning.

So we can meet the needs of all children. Your son, my grandson, Vicente, is a very eager learner. He loves dinosaurs. He's ready to learn all kinds of things. And he might be in a classroom with another child who is not as exposed and who has a more limited vocabulary, both children. need to be served. And so equity can never mean that we're going to choose one over the other.

We have to figure out how to  serve them all. And that's what makes it challenging, but anything less than that is going to result in parents feeling its unfair.

Joaquín Noguera: And if teachers can center the curiosity about each student in the same ways that you have about your grandchildren or children, then I think we're in a better position to, to be able to meet equity needs.

Pedro Noguera:  I've been doing this work for almost 40 years now, and I still find it so compelling, so interesting, because when I go into schools and I see teachers who are figuring out how to get kids engaged, I know that this can be done. 

Joaquín Noguera: We need to come together, to mobilize to get clarity. That work can lead to shared vision.

That work can lead to shared commitments as we make sense of the patterns that we're seeing and experiencing in our, among our students in our classrooms. If that work is not happening we're mostly hoping for equity to be addressed. And while hope can be a strategy for interrupting hopelessness, it's usually not a sufficient enough strategy to engage diverse needs among diverse learners.

Pedro Noguera: Agreed. I think that when we have a clear focus on what's the most important work, and when we center teaching and learning. Then I've seen over and over again, we can make real progress. I've seen teachers in the Bronx planning lessons together. And I ask them if they do this all the time. . 

They say,  of course we do. Because they recognize that having one teacher in the classroom trying to figure this out by themselves is too hard, too complex, especially if it's a new teacher. So it is about mobilizing our resources working together, not being afraid to say, "I need help" when you're struggling and hopefully having people around who can in fact help you, all that is critical  to making progress.

Joaquín Noguera: So in recent years, we've seen more right wing attacks on equity. Individuals who have titles like diversity, equity and inclusion officer being targeted by the public or districts and school boards being afraid of continuing the work of equity, or  even picking it up,    How do you think leaders should respond to those kinds of attacks on equity work in education?  How  should they approach their work?

Pedro Noguera:  I don't want to minimize the threat here. I know superintendents who have been targeted, who have been threatened, had family members threatened physically. So  I don't want to at all suggest this is not something that we should not take seriously. At the same time, I would lean on the law. The law says every school district, there's not a school district in the country that says you cannot serve the  kids you have.  

What does it mean to serve them? One of the superintendents I work with who's in a very conservative district told his board, "If you don't like the word equity, then let's just talk about educating all kids." And the board said, "OK."   He  said. "That's what we're going to do. We're going to make sure we're educating all kids."

And so he said if the term is what's getting in the way, then let's just focus on the work itself.  In Oklahoma there was a controversy about banning books and not wanting to teach certain parts of American history.  Some superintendents stepped forward and said, "But we have a legal requirement based on state standards to accurately teach our history.  Our kids deserve to learn about the Tulsa Massacre of 1924. It's part of history."

It's a hard to argue with that. It doesn't mean that politics aren't going to make this controversial. But I do think that if you're clear about what matters and you operate with some integrity, that's  better than if you are wishy washy and trying to find a path of least resistance.

Joaquín Noguera: 

I think you're describing examples of courageous leadership in response to maybe unreasonable or political attacks on  something that shouldn't be so political, right? It's  about supporting students' educational needs. 

What about in places where leaders and school boards have accommodated demands to no longer center equity?What can the community do? What can families and  educators working in those spaces, how should they think about their work of supporting equity? 

Pedro Noguera: In those cases, then it becomes a civil rights violation, and they're going to have to figure out how to involve the courts and challenge, because the courts have ruled that every child has a right to an education.

The opposition is coming from two sources. One is coming from those, we might say on the right, who fear and feel threatened by what equity will mean. But the other side is parents whose kids have not been well served, who are tired of districts that pay lip service, who offer good slogans but don't deliver results.

There's another source of opposition.  Leaders who are unable to deliver results often find themselves under attack. These are leaders who want to do the right thing, but a lot of times they really don't know how. 

What gets in the way of them knowing what to do in terms of implementing an equity strategy?

Joaquín Noguera: I think a big part of it are leaders being out of touch with what's happening in schools and classrooms. This is also part of why we suggest that district and school leaders need more robust ways of  informing their understanding of what equity work means on a day to day level.

They can then develop a vision of what equity means that is responsive, that is relatable to these diverse stakeholder groups, and protect that work. So I think a big part of it is about being in touch with what the work means, what it consists of, and what the people are experiencing. 

Pedro Noguera: So it's not just what they say, it's what they do.  And can they deliver results.   Can they improve outcomes for all kinds of kids?     And that's where I think many of these leaders struggle. 

Joaquín Noguera: The only way a leader can do that and not become overwhelmed is to mobilize. To mobilize and activate a sense of purpose in their community. But to think that it can be the responsibility of one person alone is putting a lot of pressure on that individual.

My hope is that leaders will also see they're not alone. They can't be alone. They shouldn't be expected to do it alone. They should be mobilizing and activating those that they're working with.

Pedro Noguera:  Right schools are bombarded  with test score data which show disparities among students.   How do school leaders move beyond the data to make decisions  to help improve the experience of learning in school for kids? Any sense of that? I know you've worked in hundreds of schools over the years across the country. What are your thoughts about how they can use data as a guide?

Joaquín Noguera: There's an overemphasis on quantitative data. I think leaders need more strategic, qualitative measures too, to inform  their understanding of the current context for learning and teaching. So I think in addition to the quantitative data, the summative data that shows us what's happening from year to year and how students are performing on tests, are important. 

We also need to incorporate the perceptions, the experiences, the attitudes, and the outcomes from diverse stakeholders by listening to them, by observing, by inviting them to share their analysis of what they're seeing in classrooms. What are students actually doing?  How is their time spent? How are teachers experiencing the work that they're doing? What is coming as a result of it?

So I think that's one dimension that needs to be better understood. Part of what I'm encouraging these district and school leaders is to be students of their communities, really to understand what the longstanding barriers to student engagement and  family engagement are,  to directly target those things, but also to develop new partnerships, new services and support in response to more recent patterns.

If we are looking at these communities with an historical lens, we might see that there's a longstanding  issue of unemployment, or we have had maybe increases in the number of migrant families in a district. What are some of the needs of these families? If that is who our students are, if those are the communities that our students are coming from, just as we know schools are microcosms of the larger society, we have to be responsive to these changes, to patterns in their social and cultural environment, 

Pedro Noguera: Thank you for that.  As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking that, like me, and it's probably not surprising since we're related, you're not content with just teaching about this at the university, or reading and researching and writing about it. You're working in schools still. And I think that makes a difference because when you are in schools, when you're working with educators and seeing up close these issues, you have a different perspective than if you're simply working at the university level.

So it's great to hear you and see that you're committed to that work. 

Joaquín Noguera: It's a pleasure to be here with you, and I thank you for the opportunity to be able to think and put our heads together. It's always a pleasure. One of my first teachers, and my daddy, who I'm proud of. Thank you.

Pedro Noguera: And that brings us to the end of this episode of Sparking Equity.  Our producer is Colby McDonald, and our consulting producer is Steven Smith. Louis Freedberg is our executive producer. Thanks to the Hewlett Foundation, the sponsor of this episode. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions. Please subscribe to Sparking Equity wherever you get your podcast. Also, please send us your comments.

I'm Pedro Noguera. Thanks for listening.