CIVIC CONVERSATIONS: A Conversation about Equity in Education

CURRENTLY ONLINE ONLY: We hope to pick back up with in-person Civic Conversation groups at the Library in the near future. In the meantime, please feel free to utilize our resources for your own in-person or virtual group discussions!

This event features the documentary Teach Us All available on Netflix. You can view the trailer on YouTube. The film also has a Twitter feed. Our conversation will center around the bias that seems inherent in the education systems across much of the United States, the historical roots of the system, and the definitions and differences between equality and equity in terms of education.

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Potential Discussion Questions:

• Did you feel any results of inequity in your own education? Have you seen others suffering because of inequity?
• How do you address equity in education from a racial, gender, socioeconomic, and political standpoint?
• Do you feel that your individual choices for your own family add to the impacts felt by the whole system?
• Have you ever discussed the differences between the ideas of equity vs equality? Or equity vs. equality vs. justice?
• Do you think technology offers real answers for re-balancing equity in education or does it serve to make it worse? What are some examples?
• Consider what obtaining an education entails. Oftentimes, when we think of the word, we think of school: classes, lectures, study groups. But much education also occurs outside of the classroom. Who else, aside from teachers, help to educate?
• What are your thoughts on test taking? Do you feel this is a way to a fair way to assess students? If not, what could be an alternative?

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LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA RESOURCES
Books:

• Multiethnic/Multicultural Materials by Virginia Department of Education Division of Technical Assistance for Equity in Education
• Gender Equity in Education: A Data Snapshot by the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights
• Gender Equity for Educators, Parents, and Community by Pat Boland
• Equity and Adequacy in Education Finance Issues and Perspectives by Helen F. Ladd, Rosemary A. Chalk, and Janet S. Hansen
• Meeting the Equity Challenge in Public Charter Schools by Michael O’Rourke, Marnie Briggs, and Barbara Warren-Sams
• Becoming Less Separate?: School Desegregation, Justice Department Enforcement, and the Pursuit of Unitary Status by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2007
• Resisting Brown: Race, Literacy, and Citizenship in the Heart of Virginia by Candace Epps-Robertson
• A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America’s Schools by Rachel Devlin
• Leading for Diversity: How School Leaders Promote Positive Interethnic Relations by Rosemary Henze
• We are the Titans: A Profile of Diversity at One American High School by Taki Sidley
• Lessons in Integration: Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in American Schools edited by Gary Orfield and Erica Frankenberg
• Celebrating our Nation’s Diversity by the United States Bureau of the Census

Articles and Reports:

• Beyond Description of the Problems: Directions for Research on Diversity and Equity Issues in K-12 Mathematics and Science Education by the National Institute for Science Education
• Diversity and Literacy Development in the Early Years–What Difference Does Difference Make?: Teacher Perspectives on Diversity, Literacy, and the Urban Primary School. Final Report by Anne Haas Dyson
• The benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary education a briefing before the United States Commission on Civil Rights, held in Washington, D.C., July 28, 2006
• Enacting diverse learning environments improving the climate for racial/ethnic diversity in higher education by Sylvia Hurtado

UncommonWealth Blog Posts:

• “We Continue To Become More Interconnected As A Planet” Public Library Spotlight With Cristina Ramirez
• Ensuring Quality Education For All

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EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Books:

• Inclusive Conversations by Mary-Frances Winters
• Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students by Zaretta Hammond
• We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be by Cornelius Minor
• Language Across Difference: Ethnicity, Communication, and Youth Identifies in Changing Urban Schools by Django Paris, Ph.D.
• Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World by Django Paris, Ph.D.
• Educated by Tara Westover
• We Can’t Teach what We Don’t Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools by Gary R. Howard

Articles:
ASCD Articles:

• Leading Together / Educating Ourselves for Equity
• Reaching for Equity article List
• Confronting Inequity / Assessment for Equity
• Why COVID-19 Is Our Equity Check

Articles from The Education Trust:

• Equity and Equality Are Not Equal
• Segregation Forever? Report
• How to Support College Students Aging Out of Foster Care During COVID-19
• Crushed Dreams and Broken Promises, Supreme Court Edition

Articles from Edutopia:

• Equity vs. Equality: 6 Steps Toward Equity
• Creating a Schoolwide Racial and Social Justice Initiative
• How White Educators Can Approach Antiracist Work – includes resource links
• A Guide to Equity and Antiracism for Educators – includes resource links

More articles:

• The Hunt Institute/Duke/Sanford School of Public Policy – An Equity Q&A with Laura Slover, CEO at CenterPoint Education Solutions
• Why Understanding Equity vs Equality in Schools Can Help You Create an Inclusive Classroom
• Equity in Education: What it Is and Why it Matters
• Equity vs. Equality: Eliminating Opportunity Gaps in Education
• Culturally Responsive Teaching: 4 Misconceptions. An interview with Zaretta Hammond on Cult of Pedagogy
• Education Experts Share the Best Books They’ve Read About
• Bookriot: Books About Education
• Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Family Engagement in the Time of COVID-19 and Remote Learning, and Always by NYU Steinhardt Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools
• But That’s Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy by Gloria Ladson-Billngs
• Historically Responsive Literacy, an interview with and article about Gholdy Muhammad, a professor, a former middle school educator, and the author of the book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy