Equity
What is Equity
Equity in education means that personal or social circumstances, such as race, ethnic origin, gender, presence of a disability or family background, are neither obstacles nor advantages to access to educational resources, achieving educational potential, achieving personally meaningful academic and behavioral outcomes, and having positive experiences in school. Equity is the absence of bias or favoritism.
Why is it Important
Unfortunately, a wide and growing body of research shows pervasive disproportionallity in the academic and behavioral outcomes in schools.
- African American Students are more likely to:
- Receive an ODR
- Receive corporal punishment
- Be suspended or expelled
- LatinX and Native American Students are more likely to:
- Be punished
- Be suspended or expelled
- LGBTQ students are expelled more frequently than are students who identify as heterosexual
- Poor students are more likely to be suspended or expelled than are students from higher SES families
- Boys are more likely than are girls to be:
- Punished
- Suspended or Expelled
- Students with disabilities are more likely to be suspended
- African American boys with disabilities are 5 1/2 times more likely to be suspended than all other students!
Furthermore, these relationships hold when controlling for behavior and poverty! In particular:
- African American Students are more likely to be suspended for discretionary/subjectively interpreted offenses
- disrespect,
- disruption,
- defiance,
- attendance problems, and
- failure to show for detention
- African American girls are more likely to be suspended for violating white middle class norms of femininity