Solving the Achievement Gap Through Equity, Not Equality | Lindsey Ott | TEDxYouth@Columbia

consider a student that's 19 is a fifth-year graduate and considered to be at risk the student has an extremely low GPA and is what teachers like to refer to as a challenge in the classroom which really means that they're a terror judging by our current education system this student appears to be a failure well in reality the student went on to attend a prestigious culinary program and became very successful as a beginning teacher I thought that I would walk into a classroom and I would have lots of eager students and careful lesson plans and assessments and I would grade all my students based on how well they did on those assessments everything would be based on equality I read all the research on learning styles and how to teach all the way up to the newest instructional impacts what I almost immediately found out is that reality almost never matches the textbooks just like grades almost never match students so let's consider two students that have taught the first is a 15 year old student who is a head of state requirements for graduation the student lives in a two-parent home and the suburbs and drops to school every day right now the student is taking college classes while working to improve ACC scores the student wants to get a full academic scholarship and become an environmental engineer the second student is a bit behind in state requirements for graduation but is very persistent in working towards a diploma the student wants to be a cosmetologist but has faced more than a fair share of adversity the student lives in an extended-stay hotel with multiple other adults and struggles to find transportation so the way I thought I would teach I would have both of these students in my classroom I would give them the same work they would be assessed on the same standards all of this to level the playing field for these two students in reality what this does is it really magnifies the differences in these two students everyone knows the results of equal education you've all heard of the achievement gap an achievement gap occurs when one group of students scores higher than another when they're grouped by gender race ethnicity socioeconomic status equality reinforces that achievement gap by imposing the same standards and norms on really different groups of people equity on the other hand would close that achievement gap by giving the needed support and support structures to those very different groups equality and equity are not synonymous equality is giving everybody a size 10 pair of shoes some people are gonna be really excited about the size 10 pair of shoes unless you don't wear a size 10 equity is giving everyone a pair of shoes that fits in order to close the achievement gap we have to give every student a pair of shoes that fits and that means designing curriculum and instruction for each individual student and their personal challenges so let's go back to my two students the way education works now both of these students are expected to come to school and sit in a class for 120 hours over the course of a year or a semester and they complete coursework that's aligned to a set of standards that are developed by an outside agency on the most basic level of just showing up for school you can really see the difference in these two students for the engineer showing up to school is really easy transportation the hot breakfast clean clothes all of that stuff has already been provided for the cosmetologist just the act of showing up to the building requires a huge expenditure of energy and resources and what's in the classroom those differences get even larger when the students have to start completing assignments Yong Zhao author and professor of Education measurement policy in leadership sites a Yale University study that groups the abilities of high school students all the students are placed into five groups high practical high analytical high creative high and all three or low in all three and the results of this study overwhelmingly show that those students who score high analytical are white middle class and from strong educational backgrounds those who score high practical and high creative are from much more diverse backgrounds in terms of ethnicity socioeconomic status and educational background the problem is the only type of ability that's really valued by our education system is that high analytical ability that's generally correlated with problem-solving in math and languages when I walk into a classroom and hand every student in my classroom one uniform assignment I'm giving everybody in there a size 10 pair of shoes those shoes may fit a few students but it's not going to fit the majority of students what I should be doing is walking into a classroom and giving a student an assignment that supports that students talents abilities and goals that's providing equity in the classroom I have a lot of colleagues who are gonna say oh no absolutely not they have to meet the standard how are you gonna grade them and I certainly do not have time to create 30 assignments in one day I understand that but I also understand that the core business of a teacher is to provide students with the tools that they need to succeed not to provide them grades so in order to close that achievement gap and to promote success for every student those are the steps we have to take young Sal says also that the consequences of equality and education could be a situation where the government has to provide more social services but lacks a revenue stream to do so or tensions between skilled and unskilled rich and poor reach revolutionary levels on an individual level students face this increasing negative self-concept based on the fact that they can't fit into this norms that are being placed upon them self discrepancy happens when your idea of yourself doesn't match the outcomes that you receive so a student that already has a positive self-concept but receives negative outcomes in the form of grades test scores or emotional feedback from teachers it's going to have a discrepancy in their actual and ideal self what happens in this case is that student develops dissatisfaction disappointment and low self esteem right now in the United States twenty-one percent are ten point nine million school children live below the poverty line those students show up to school every day with additional challenges an increasingly negative self-concept because they can't fit into the standards that society expects them to fit into we have to embrace equity and move away from inequality in order to change the situation a Retta status on social media from one of my students it said I'm proud of myself I was expelled from school twice almost three times I'm sad to say I almost gave up it didn't care anymore but something told me to keep going now I'm in a new school I have a 3.6 GPA and I'm starting college classes in the fall I am proud of me students like this student or why I teach providing equity and opportunity for this student and every student like this student or why we absolutely must abandon standardized talent sorting education and immediately embrace individualized talent developing education [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 79,177

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Education, Education reform, Schools, Youth

Id: nOQbu_3M0_Q

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2017