August 10, 2023

I still appreciate the opportunities I had as a small child because my mother was a reading teacher. In kindergarten, Miss Brown ultimately turned over the responsibility for class reading in a circle to me. In third grade, we read assigned books independently, and when I completed the book and worksheet well before my classmates, Miss Beck told me, happily, that I would have the opportunity to read a supplemental SRA story each day. Alternatively, in second grade, we were each called on to read a paragraph in the “Dick and Jane” readers. I was consistently punished because I didn’t know where the previous student had left off. I had already finished the story, infuriating Mrs. Fogg because I would not read at the same pace as the rest of the class. These childhood memories suggest that two of my teachers embraced equity and one believed in absolute equality. The teachers influenced my vision of equity today.

On the surface, this sounds straightforward: equality is about providing the same pathways and materials to each student, regardless of background, ability, and mental and physical health. Public schools, stereotypically, are famous for moving an entire grade level of…