Understanding Equity in Education

Equity in education has become a common goal and guiding principle for modern school improvement and education reform efforts in the United States. [1], [2], [3] According to Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis, “[t]he achievement gap between racial minorities and whites as well as between the rich and the poor is one of the prominent issues of modern American education” [4].

Promoting equity can involve a wide range of school-based strategies, from creating an inclusive classroom to reducing barriers for students with respect to transportation. But families are just as essential to include in any efforts to create equity within the educational system.

Since equity is at the center of so many educator conversations, let’s define exactly what is meant by “equity in education” vs. equality.

As schools work towards equity, it is important that they formulate and evaluate growth opportunities through two lenses: inputs and outputs. In looking at inputs, we evaluate our curriculum and instruction, the systems we have in place, the opportunities for engagement, and the overall learning environment.

The following questions help us reflect on strengths and areas for growth related to inputs:

• Are resources provided according to individual needs?

• Are families engaged as partners?

• Are we providing culturally responsive learning opportunities?

But inputs alone are not enough. We must also look at what happens as a result of those systems, experiences, and opportunities (those inputs) by evaluating outcomes.

These questions help us understand what happens (what outputs occur) as a result of our efforts:

• Are we closing the achievement gap?

• Are test scores and graduation rates the same across sub-populations?

• Are we seeing all families engaged in student learning?

Equality

• Same resources and opportunities for all students

• Students receive same quality of education as all other students

• Evaluated by inputs

This classic image [15] has been widely used to illustrate the differences between equality and equity or justice. The spectators in the left panel each stand on one box—equality. However, the shortest one cannot see the game at all, the medium-height individual can just see over the fence, and the tallest individual can easily see over the fence. Each person has been given the same number of boxes (representing resources), but not necessarily the right number of boxes to allow someone of their height to see over the fence.

In the right pane, by contrast, the boxes are redistributed in a way that enables each spectator to see the ball game. Even though the resources are not distributed equally, they are distributed equitably because everyone has what they need according to their own situation.

An equitable approach acknowledges that disparities exist and addresses them so that everyone has a fair chance to succeed.

Why does equity matter for student outcomes?

Equity in early childhood education and K12 learning can have a profound impact on student success. When educators and other community stakeholders take an equity lens to their work for students, ensuring equally high outcomes, it makes a difference in students’ well-being, learning and academic achievement.

Here are some examples of equitable practices in education that have been shown by research to improve learning outcomes:

• Diversity and representation in the educator workforce

• Diversity and representation in the curriculum

• Culturally responsive practices

• Trauma-informed practices

• Community Schools

• Addressing racial bias of educators

• Parent education designed especially to reach traditionally “hard-to-reach” groups like low-income families, families of newcomers, and families who speak languages other than English

According to NAFSCE, “High-impact family and community engagement is collaborative, culturally responsive, and focused on improving children’s learning” [16].

Some might think about equity examples in education in terms of fairness in the process of giving students what they need to succeed based on their background (inputs). Others might focus more on what happens as a result, in terms of student achievement or other metrics (outputs or outcomes). It’s important to note that equity is about both.

How does family engagement increase equity?

Decades of research show that equitable family engagement is a fundamental component of student success and school improvement. In fact, up to 80% of the variation in students’ performance in public schools results from home-related rather than school-related factors [19]. When caregivers, schools and communities work together, students’ attendance and grades improve. This has held true for students of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities.

Researchers have found that:

• Parents’ high expectations for their students’ academic performance predicts academic achievement [20].
• Attendance at on-campus meetings and communicating consistently with important school personnel predicts academic achievement [21].
• Children whose parents received texts messages breaking down the complexity of supportive parenting demonstrated a significant boost in literacy skills [22].
• Family engagement improves school attendance [23] and completion [24].

Family engagement can also influence a school to make positive changes, especially for students with minimal economic resources or facing inequity. When schools understand the economic challenges or other barriers to well-being that families face, they can provide better support and resources to help students succeed. The synergy between family well-being and student success is a main reason why community school partnerships are so effective.

Additionally, when a school learns more about the family and child through parent engagement, the school can then adjust instruction and class materials to better reflect the child’s identity. As a result, students see themselves in their learning.

Family engagement is also being embedded into state and district equity policies. For example, see section II. A. of this Washington state school district’s Race and Equity Policy [26].

In the end, equity in education is “a shared effort of the entire education community in caring for the diversity of students” [25], so that each and every one can succeed.

Essential Considerations for Equitable Family Engagement

Time

Do families have time to participate in their child’s education?

Materials

Do families have everything they need to follow our recommendations?

Internet Access

Will families need internet access to participate in our family engagement programs?

Language

Will families be able to understand our communications and use the resources we provide? Will we be able to understand their responses?

Culturally Responsive

Are we taking cultural factors into account when reaching out and in how we offer resources?

Another way to advance equity in education is to tailor support to the specific needs of families and children.

For example, ParentPowered Personalized Learning sends facts and tips to caregivers tailored to their child’s developmental level and needs, based on data from the child’s developmental screener results. Research shows this personalized approach is far more effective to improve literacy outcomes [32].

Further, educators can offer ParentPowered Trauma-Informed to caregivers of children who may have lived through ACEs or experienced trauma.

Both of these are examples of providing differential services based on differential needs (equity), rather than the same services to all students and families (equality).

However, family engagement is not just about providing services; it’s a two-way relationship where schools share power with families.

According to APIA Education Leaders, “Community partnership is not the input phase of your planning process. It’s not the rubber stamp or seal of approval once everything is printed and ready to execute. Engaging your community is the beginning, middle, and end of the work” [33].

Inviting families to the table from the very beginning allows them to better advocate for what their child’s needs and to partner with schools to meet those needs. Instead of designing for students and the community, we design with them.

ParentPowered enhances the family feedback loop through providing families with strategies for connecting with supports and curriculum content that offers ideas and encouragement for families to reach out to teachers and administrators. We also survey families every quarter and provide partners with survey results, so they know how their families feel about their family engagement program.

1. Notice and Address Disparities

Even if all students are meeting a minimum standard for achievement, it’s important to check for differential performance of underserved students.

In 2019, the National Research Council’s report “Monitoring Educational Equity” recommended the creation of a national system for measuring educational equity. The 16 indicators that they recommend for measuring equity are related to disparities in access to educational resources of disparities in student outcomes, such as “Disparities in Performance on Tests” and “disparities in Access to and Participation in High-Quality Early Childhood Education” [34]. Any time differences in access or outcomes are found to mirror membership in a minority or vulnerable group (e.g. children experiencing poverty, children of color, children who are dual language learners, etc.), there is a potential equity issue to be investigated.

For example, if a district staff member reviews the list of attendees of family engagement events for the past year and finds that only 10% were low-income families in a school made up of 35% low-income families, it’s an opportunity to improve. There may be barriers to access or something about the way the event is designed that is preventing or discouraging low-income families from attending.

The next step would be to connect with some of these families with a learning mindset to find out how their specific needs could be met in a way that works for them and to better prepare students for success.

Online databases like The Civil Rights Data Collection can provide data to answer questions of equality in education like:

• What proportion of students who were suspended or expelled are individuals with disabilities, compared to overall enrollment?

• What proportion of students who are enrolled in Advanced Placement classes are English Learners, compared to overall enrollment?

• What proportion of students who are in Gifted and Talented programs are Black, Hispanic, Asian, or another racial minority?

Ideally, these proportions should reflect the overall enrollment. These are the types of questions that can lead to the discovery of opportunities to improve equity.

Common areas for equity improvement include:

• Math achievement affected by SES: A student with low socioeconomic status (SES) in the U.S. is almost four times more likely to be a low mathematics achiever than a student with high SES [35].

• Rates of reading failure worse for low-SES and English Learners: Seventy-nine percent of students from low-income families and 90% of English Learners cannot read at a basic level by 4th grade, whereas that number is only 65% over all categories of learners [36].

• The pandemic exacerbated reading achievement gaps: Elementary students at the end of the 2020-21 school year were on average four months behind in reading compared to pre-pandemic scores. Students in majority-Black schools and students in predominantly low-income schools both ended the school year six months behind in reading [37].

2. Build a strengths-based mindset

Equity is as much about mindsets as it is about outcomes. According to the University of Southern California’s Center for Urban Education, equity-mindedness means “the perspective or mode of thinking exhibited by practitioners who call attention to patterns of inequity in student outcomes” [38].

The idea is that outcomes will change if systems and processes become more equitable. As non-profit advocacy organization Education Trust puts it: ”Beliefs and language about students and their families shape how adults view and teach their students and interact with their families” [39].

One important mindset is the strengths-based, also known as asset-based, mindset. According to NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, “[a]n asset-based approach to education is key in achieving equity in classrooms across the country” [40]. This is in contrast to a deficit-based approach, which focuses on what is lacking or needs improvement.

In working to support students and families through an equity lens, it’s important to think about the contributions, strengths, and lived experiences of those with whom we work. Using words like disability, disadvantaged students, under-resourced families, even time-pressed to describe students and families may seem harmless. But this framing keeps the focus on what they don’t have or how they’re not enough.

Shifting language like disadvantaged to traditionally underserved invites us to ask: What can educators and other adult stakeholders do to better serve all students? Changing the way we speak can change the way we think, and what we think affects what we do.

From Learning Loss to Accelerating Learning

As educators began to grapple with the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, the term “learning loss” became commonplace to describe what students missed due to school closures and illness. However, while the normal trajectory of learning was certainly interrupted, it’s not the case that students stopped learning completely. According to an article from CityYear [41], “…students honed other skills, including flexibility, resilience and creativity. They mastered online classrooms and chat boxes. They figured out how to access homework assignments and ask questions during distance learning. Some students discovered they liked online learning even more than in person instruction.”

Learning is a dynamic, complex, process. To focus on what was “lost” can undercut the value of what students accomplished during a period of disruption and change. Instead, many strengths-based mindset advocates encourage using the phrase “accelerating learning” to avoid negatively describing a whole generation of students.

As Ron Berger of EL Education and Harvard Graduate School of Education put it in his article for The Atlantic [42] about a year after schools closed, “If districts focus too much on remediating “learning loss”—holding kids back a grade, categorizing students according to their deficits, and centering lesson plans on catch-up work—the students who have experienced the most trauma and disconnection during the pandemic may be assigned to the lowest level and most stigmatized groups. They will be viewed as deficient, and the inequities in place before and during the pandemic will be further amplified.”

Another important aspect of equity that’s related to the strengths-based mindset is rethinking sources of knowledge. Expertise lies within families and communities, as well as with education professionals. Wisdom and even solutions to equity-related issues can come from the experiences and stories of families.

4. Embrace More Sources of Knowledge

Educators are responsible for extensive subject matter expertise, which can make it easy to overlook other voices and resources when working to solve challenges in a classroom setting. Two under-utilized sources of knowledge are families and community based organizations.

Families have an incredible wealth of knowledge about the students your team serves. Whether its identifying the root cause of a child’s behavioral issue or understanding why a student is negatively responding to a learning activity, families are often the first and best source of essential information. Cultural, emotional, physical, or psychological barriers may be invisible to an educator or school leader but easily identified by a caregiver.

However, strategies for engaging with families can be a barrier to success when seeking collaboration. Investigating how schools approach families, what feedback opportunities are created, and whether schools are unintentionally signaling that family knowledge isn’t valued are important steps to ensuring educators get the information and insights needed.

Similarly, community based organizations can often provide a wealth of information and resources when serving specific sub-populations. Ilana Steinhauer, Executive Director Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) shares, “It’s easy to forget the importance of collaboration because everyone is so busy and so overworked and we just miss out on this huge opportunity to be one community working together.”