Equity and Diversity
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Building on Progress: Ensuring Opportunity for Every Child
This Depatment of Education article examines the progess of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), a crucial civil rghts law, that embodies the expectation that all students will learn at hgh levels, and that all schools will receive vitally needed resources. The data within the article shows in recent years, America's students have grown overall and narrowed achievement gaps. However, our nation has much further to go to ensure opportunity for all.
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Educational Equity: The Theme of the FY 2015 Budget
U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, addressed Educational Equity in April 2014 stating, "Despite the educational progress we have made as a nation, large opportunity gaps remain, at a time where education is more important than ever to accelerating economic progress, increasing upward mobility, and reducing social inequality. The opportunity gaps start with our youngest learners and early childhood education as America is 25th in the world in our enrollment of 4 year olds in preschool. These opportunity gaps in early learning continue all the way through high school, as new data from our Civil Rights Data Collection show today, students of color, students with disabilities, and English language learners simply don't get the same opportunity as their white and Asian-American peers to take the math and science courses that figure so importantly in preparing for careers and college. Nationwide, black and Hispanic students are close to 40 percent of high school students, but just over a quarter of students taking AP classes, and only 20 percent of those enrolled in calculus classes. This dummying down of expectations is devastating to students, their families, their communities, and ultimately to our nation."
Higher Education in a Global Society Achieving Diversity, Equity and Excellence: Advances in Education in Diverse Communities
This website states, "The 'problem of the 21st century' is rapidly expanding diversity alongside stubbornly persistent status and power inequities by race, ethnicity, gender, class, language, citizenship and region. Extensive technological, economic, political and social changes, along with immigration, combine to produce a global community of great diversity and interpenetration. Unfortunately, this global community continues to be fractured by extreme disparities in wealth and power, divided into 'haves' and 'have-nots', as different communities interact, overlap, exchange, and compete for scarce resources."
The Multicultural Pavilion
The Multicultural Pavilion is an internationally-recognized web site full of resources for artists and activists dedicated to social justice and equity in schools and society. It was conceived and developed by Paul C. Gorski in 1995 and exists as more than one single project. Multicultural Pavilion projects include:
- The Teachers Corner (curricular and pedagogical tools for educators at all levels)
- The EdChange Research Room (original articles and essays about education, diversity, equity and social justice)
- A Multicultural Awareness Quiz
- Printable lists, tools, fact sheets, quips and quotations as well as exercises and activities that can be adapted for classroom use
- SoJust.net is the only document history of social justice, civil rights, equity, peace and activism to be found online.
