Macro Issues Influencing Education Policy & Equal Educational Opportunity: Some Interpretations
1. As is evident in the 'culture of poverty' and 'culture of policy', individuals, especially those viewed as deviant, tend to be blamed in place of the larger, broken system for their deficiencies.
1.1. Whereas traditional liberalism values individualism in a manner that places oppression and disadvantage solely in the hands of the individual with the thought that free-will shall determine their fate, contemporary liberalism promotes an ideal in which individuals and social beings are inextricably bound up; as a result, the responsibility for social injustices lies with the dominant societal structures.
1.2. Kumashiro posits that when trying to understand a problem, we usually further perpetuate it by asking the wrong questions. This leaves many questions unasked that could ultimately provide the solution: 1) Who's winning and who's losing? 2) Who made the rules? 3) What is the story we're all buying into that keeps us playing the game?
1.2.1. With equal access, we're asking the question of how do we provide all students with the metaphorical opportunity to have a chance at the plate; unfortunately, this does not change who's making the rules, only how we can keep these students stuck in a system that perpetuates inequities.
1.2.1.1. In actuality, the people in power making the rules (i.e. corporations and philanthropies) are taking advantage of schools being modeled after businesses to influence education in ways that benefit them politically and economically.
1.2.2. A compensatory interpretation has us believe that the playing field is being leveled by providing certain advantages to disadvantaged groups; the issue still exists, however, that those students are being forcefully subscribed to a dominant ideology to which they can't relate nor have agreed to.
1.2.2.1. This dominant ideology, a lot of which is based on 'common sense', does not align with modern brain science and is being maintained and perpetuated to the detriment of marginalized groups who do not align with or subscribe to many of the outdated practices that still exist in schooling today.
1.2.3. The danger of asking the wrong questions is evident in misguided policy reform that seeks to remedy a problem but in doing so, ends up having the exact opposite effect of what it was intended to do (i.e. policy backfire).
1.2.3.1. Dual language bilingual education programs may actually perpetuate racial hierarchies in ways that complement the broader political and economic systems.
1.3. A merging of policy and activism includes a focus on both the individual and societal factors, especially as it pertains to the efficacy of bilingual education in promoting language maintenance.
1.4. If, in fact, there were a fair system that equalized and distributed resources according to need that is duly established in accordance with ideals of the populations being directly impacted, then there would be no need for a participatory interpretation of equal educational opportunity. As it stands, however, the systems in place do not account for these shortcomings and as such require a substantial overhaul in order to offer an array of 'good' and 'fair' educational opportunities to ensure self-respect and self-determination amongst marginalized groups.
1.4.1. It can be argued then that education is at least partially responsible for combatting social problems, because in doing nothing, it would actually serve to perpetuate injustices. This is not to say that education is solely responsible, only that it is a piece of the bigger puzzle that needs to actively engage in writing and implementing policy that challenges dominant society.
1.4.2. "A just and democratic society ought to cultivate self-determination among its people. This way, their choices, made in relation to their historical, cultural, and social contexts, represent who they are and who they want to become, rather than who they cannot be due to unjust societal limits."
1.5. It's critically important to understand the way in which policy is framed and constructed: "The frames used are at least as a significant as the argument we make about the policies themselves, because frames have consequences for the way we think about policies, propose potential solutions, and identify root causes."
1.6. At all levels, students of color and those born into poor economic circumstances are losing out within our failing public education system, as they are forced to assimilate, are left out of the curriculum, and are steered away from pursuing higher education.
1.6.1. "Within a context of increasing segregation and income inequality, there is an increasing push for neoliberal educational reform policies which are exacerbating these inequalities."
2. Legend
2.1. Synthesized Ideas/Concepts/New Arguments
2.2. Howe - Equality of Educational Opportunity and the Criterion of Equal Educational Worth
2.3. Moses - Embracing Race: Why We Need Race-Conscious Education Policy
2.4. Dr. Kevin Kumashiro's Keynote Speech @ Oregon University
2.5. Farley et al. - Perpetuating Inequalities: The Role of Political Distraction in Education Policy
2.6. Flores & Chaparro - What Counts as Language Education Policy? Developing A Materialist Anti-racist Approach to Language Activism
3. Race-conscious education policy (e.g. bilingual education, multicultural curricula, affirmative action in higher education admissions, remedial education) is essential to ensuring that all students, especially those that have been historically marginalized, have access to a meaningful education.
3.1. Students of color and of low socioeconomic status consistently receive a deficient education as a result of oppressive societal structures, but race-conscious policy has been proven time and time again to be an effective combatant against these injustices.
3.1.1. Herein lies a common argument, especially as it pertains to leftists and critics of such an interpretation, as "underlying economic structures must be the focus of change," as opposed to fixing or correcting individuals' behavior or circumstances to mimic the dominant group's ideals.
3.1.1.1. One such ideal centers on English linguistic imperialism, which can be defined as when "the dominance of English is asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages
3.2. There is the concern, however, that certain policies such as affirmative action, are a “serious distraction in the ongoing efforts to achieve racial justice.” It's argued that by focusing on diversity, a broader set of opportunity-limiting barriers give “undeserved legitimacy to the heavy reliance on grades and test scores.”
3.2.1. These politics of distraction “dictate, with little accountability, how crucial social problems and issues are named, discussed, and acted upon... and ignore the dynamics of power and privilege, which can, in turn, reify and perpetuate unequal structures."
3.2.2. These grades and test scores are how we determine who's winning and who's losing, and ultimately, how we can fix the losers by narrowing the achievement gap, which is really an opportunity gap. Test scores are also currently driving all school reform and major initiatives in education.
3.2.2.1. Ladson-Billings (2008) advocates that we abandon the apolitical framing of the achievement gap. By constructing differences in performance between white students and students of color as a gap, policymakers focus narrowly on educational outcomes, while ignoring a diverse collection of forces or causes related to those results, including the history of unequal and segregated education, lack of access to education and opportunity, unequal funding, and voter disenfranchisement.
3.2.2.1.1. Instead, we should conceive of inequalities in student outcomes as an education debt, which “requires us to think about how all of us, as members of a democratic society, are implicated in creating these achievement disparities.”
3.2.3. Larger societal inequities between communities prevent well-intentioned programs from serving their socially transformative function.
3.2.3.1. "Critical scholars have pointed to the ways that linguistic inequalities are products of larger societal inequalities that must be addressed in order to truly improve the lives of language-minoritized students."
3.3. These policies play a huge role in developing self-determination amongst students who are otherwise left with a deficient education.
3.3.1. "Self-determination is required for justice. Race-conscious education policies are thus critical because they systematically foster the ideal of self-determination through the support of authenticity and favorable contexts of choice."
3.3.1.1. "Thus one's schooling can serve to enhance or it can serve to harm one's developing sense of oneself and consequently one's ability to imagine options and possibilities for one's life."
3.4. This follows a compensatory approach to providing equal educational opportunities, where "treating individuals as equals is closely aligned with the notion of showing equal respect for them, and this requires that they be treated differently, in accordance with their needs, interests, and capabilities.
3.4.1. As part of a compensatory approach, and for educational opportunities to have worth, they must be conceived of in terms of 'educational careers'. To enhance or expand the worth of these careers, children must be provided with special or missing educational opportunities with respect to education's inherent and enabling value.
3.4.2. This interpretation is prominent in both liberal political theory and in the educational policy arena and underlies much federal law as well, which leaves it open to intense criticism.
3.4.3. "Mere unequal treatment in the name of responding to special needs, interests, and capabilities - i.e., compensation for disadvantages - is insufficient or objectionable if it is not also rooted in equal respect for different views on what worthwhile needs, interests, and capabilities are, particularly when self-identity and self-respect are at stake."
4. In order for educational opportunities to truly be of equal worth, it requires that a participatory approach is taken as opposed to or in conjunction with equal access and/or compensatory interpretations.
4.1. Whereas an equal access interpretation focuses primarily on the formal structure of educational institutions and a compensatory interpretation accounts for characteristics of individuals that disadvantage them in educational institutions, a participatory approach is grounded in equality as equal respect, which seeks to ensure that educational opportunities have equal worth.
4.1.1. A major issue with equal access to educational opportunities is the inability, or lack of accountability, in equalizing resources amongst schools. This, in conjunction with the fact that removing formal barriers does little to remedy the social factors that exist outside of education, means that meaningful educational opportunities of equal worth are rarely attainable.
4.1.1.1. Inequitable funding, as a result of school resources being based on local property taxes, is perpetuated by the fact that the wealth gap continues to expand and is currently worse now than it was during the Great Depression.
4.1.1.1.1. "Efforts to ensure that language-minoritized students receive adequate educational resources will always be undermined by the institutional racism that ensures schools in more affluent areas receive more funding than schools in less affluent areas."
4.1.2. The notion of educational opportunities of equal worth, which can be defined in terms of the interaction between individuals and educational institutions, requires that a participatory approach be taken where individuals involved in the educational process help to shape the practices and curricular content in the vein of being educationally relevant and worthwhile.
4.1.2.1. "Oppressive societal structures may constrain individuals' contexts of choice and thus limit individuals' real choices in such a way that their nominal choices do not reflect their potential talents, abilities, and aspirations." Herein lies the importance of involving students and educators in the decision and policy-making process to ensure that their ideals are appropriately reflected.
4.1.3. Amongst autonomy, self-respect, and self-determination, identity is hugely impactful in the way that students interact with and in their educational setting. "Identity develops properly within the context of things that matter to individual people. So, to exclude a person's history, heritage, community, and cultural particularity, as antiparticularists would have it, essentially would be to ignore all those things that matter."