Educational Equity and the Blind Side of Education

Williams, C. (n.d.). Fighting for Educational Equity: Equity Vs. Equality. Retrieved June 8, 2018, from https://www.csas.co/fighting-for-educational-equity-equity-vs-equality/

The photo above shows what is referred to today as the educational achievement gap. Educational equality is when one curriculum is designed for all students regardless of external factors. Educational equity is when curriculum is designed for individual students taking into consideration heir personal challengers. The achievement gap is created when students have different academic performances when evaluated by their race and socioeconomic class. Throughout various structures of the socioeconomic hierarchy, students in the middle and lower class may not have access to the same resources and tools that allow students to thrive in educational environments. Students affected by achievement gaps are often racial/ethnic minorities, english language learners, students with disabilities and students from low income families. Due to this gap, these students usually will have high creative and practical skills which are less valued when compared to the analytic problem solving math and language skills that students not affected will learn. 

This clip from the movie The Blind Side showed that student Michael Oher who was perceived as lazy, unwilling and unable to learn in fact did know the information that he was being tested on. Due to his background, he had poor reading skills which lead to him having poor test taking skills. This however, did not mean that he did not know the information. After one of his teachers worked with him to do a verbal test, he did significantly better on his graded assignments. Although creating an equitable educational environment can be difficult and take a lot of time, this kind of individualized support may very well be the difference between success and failure for these group of middle to lower class students affected. 

Course Reference: Ladson-Billingns, G. (2006). "From the achievement gap to the education debt." In Andersen, M. L., & Collins, P. H. (2019). Race, class, and gender: intersections and inequalities (pp 303-308). Boston, MA: Cengage.