Chapter 9: Equity in Education: Practicing Educators’ Experiences and Perspectives

Equity in education is influenced by several powerful forces, including the implementation of federal, state, and local policies. Also, curriculum, both in intent and actualization, influences equity in education. Further, equity in education is influenced by the daily activities, like assessment, that require teachers to justify their practices, as well as a U.S. society that seems to the authors to be focused on reinforcing national economic power and national security. The tensions between the rhetoric of equity and the reality of the visceral, daily experiences in the world of education clearly demonstrate the power of schooling to disenfranchise, marginalize, and alienate individuals. We believe that educators must weave a fabric of critical narratives (Craig, 2008; White, 2009) that serves to unite the profession, including teachers, curriculum makers, and higher education professors, in a unified push toward social justice and equity for all. By bringing together disparate voices embodied in the critical narratives of practicing educators at several educational levels, this chapter strives to illuminate the issues that hinder educators from providing equitable educational opportunities. Indeed, taking the stance that equity (fair and just inputs) is not the equivalent of equality (homogeneous inputs), we accept and adopt Leventhal’s (1976) notion that a multidimensional approach to questions of equity must be employed. In short, we hope to inspire all educators to engage in self- and programmatic critical narratives that will, as an end result, contribute to a justice model of equity in which the needs of individuals dictate the quality and amount of intervention that is central to righting the wrongs of the past and to the formation of a just, equitable, and morally responsible educational system.