Redefining Equity

Today (12/10/19), the House Education Committee heard a presentation entitled “Why School Choice Matters,” by Florida Department of Education’s Chancellor of Innovation, Eric Hall. In Dr Hall’s words, school choice is “lifting all students.” He suggested choice “empowers equity.”

He went on to completely redefine “equity” (watch at 7:25):

“When we talk about equity… oftentimes equity and equality get misconstrued. When you talk about equality, most people consider that to be “what are you giving everybody? is it the same thing for everybody?” When you talk about equity, which oftentimes gets thrown around a lot, in the context of education, equity is not about giving everybody the same thing, it’s about empowering each individual to make a choice that helps them meet their own individual unique needs.”

Our friend, Marie-Claire Leman, a Leon County parent and advocate for public education, understands the real definition of “equity” in education. Her public comment should be watched by everyone who cares about public education. Watch her comments here at 1:21:00:

“I wanted to bring to your attention that school choice, as described earlier by the DOE, is synonymous with privatization. But, providing access to a marketplace of private education option does not meet the State’s obligation to provide quality education for all. In fact, I worry, and many of my colleagues worry, that it is taking us on a road further and further away from equity.

Equity is actually not about choice and it cannot be achieved through choice, when your alternative is an under-resourced neighborhood public school. Inequity must be corrected by systemic approaches. We will never achieve equity by offering advantages to only some.

And, in addition, by creating a multiplicity of systems, we are diverting public funds to private entities, and we’re spreading our resources very thinly, and we’re creating instability for schools and families and especially for students. What we didn’t see in the presentation, as Ranking Member Antone pointed out, is the data about how many students leave our private and charter schools.

Choice is actually the answer to years of underfunding our public education system; it’s the answer to an accountability system that has tied the hands of teachers and prevented them from meeting the individual needs of students; and it’s the answer to a school grade system that has created inequity between our public schools in the first place, through lack of resources or inequitable distribution of resources and having difficulty attracting teachers to our most underperforming schools. But it is not the answer we are looking for if we are truly looking for equity.”

A question from Rep. Masullo, allowed us to hear more wisdom from Marie-Claire:

• “Choice becomes inherent inequity if you don’t have equitable access to those choices.”
• “Choice is not raising all boats, it’s leaving kids behind.”
• “We will never achieve equity by offering advantages to only some.”

We do not believe our Department of Education should be allowed to change the definition of equity to suit their choice/privatization agenda.

Thank you, Marie-Claire, for standing up in defense public schools and for ALL of Florida’s children.