Gorski and Swalwell (2023) conclude that “inequity is the accumulative impact of the largely predictable and persistent outcome and experience disparities.” (p. 25) This succinctly summarizes the reality happening in the majority of our schools.

The predictability of educational outcomes for students is maddening to educators who are working hard to help all students succeed in school. With great reliability, researchers and educators are able to predict which students will leave high school as high achievers and which will be ill prepared for success in college and/or career. However, these hard-working educators are up against institutional structures that deny equity to many students and continue to produce these predictable results over and over again for the majority of our students.

The entire structure of public schools must change so that all students are provided with the equity they need to succeed at high levels. Equity in school is providing each student with whatever it takes to ensure they master at a minimum the rigorous standards set by each state for its students in literacy, mathematics and a host of other disciplines.  The hard work that educators put towards changing these outcomes must be focused on changing the institutional structure of schools in order to see significant progress.  Any other focus just results in a good deal of hard work with no significant change. 

These institutional structures that ensure some students are high achievers and other receive a lesser education include tracking students in low, middle and high reading groups almost from the time they enter school; tracking students in math classes ranging from remedial mathematics to advanced mathematics; assuming all students have the connectivity, support and time to complete daily and often excessive amounts of homework; believing all students come to school ready to focus on learning; and using curriculum materials that frequently make many students feel unseen at school and in the larger world. This list is only the beginning, but you get the idea.

However, the most damaging institutional structure is that of deficit thinking. It supports all the other institutional structures that deny equity.  Deficit thinking is “a blame the victim orientation that suggests that people are responsible for their predicament and fails to acknowledge that they live within coercive systems that cause harm with no accountability” (Davis and Museus, 2019). Deficit thinking in schools assumes some of our students and their families are broken and incapable of a rigorous education.

Deficit thinking deprives us of thinking that all of our students are capable of learning to high levels as expected by state standards. Therefore, instead of creating a system that provides them with whatever is needed for them to learn at high levels, we create systems that provides lessor learning for the students that we identify as not being able to meet high expectations: we created various levels of learning remedial, basic, honors, advanced course, etc. and curriculums and systems that fail to recognize many of our students. Deficit thinking punishes many students for who they are.

Common examples of deficit thinking that creep into schools and therefore lower our expectations of students and cause us to create inequitable pathways through school include:

• Their parents don’t care.
• Ther homelife is chaotic.
• They are not read to at home.
• They are still learning English.
• They are poor and have not had the experiences they need.
• They are not motivated to learn.
• They want to be the cool/funny kid.
• They are disabled and life is hard.
• The elementary school didn’t teach them to read.
• They started school behind.

(Holmes, 2023, p. 15)

We must recognize when deficit thinking is present, call it out and then set about to redesign a system where all students, regardless of circumstances, are provided what they need to read on or above grade level, to master advanced mathematics, to succeed in college and career level course work, and to enter the adult world as competent contributors to creating a better world for us all to enjoy.  We must create a system that rewards and celebrates every individual and unique student that enters our doors.

References:

Davis, L. P. and Museus, S. D. (2019).  Identifying and disrupting deficit thinking. National Center for Institutional Diversity. Retrieved March 11, 2024 at https://medium.com/national-center-for-institutional-diversity/identifying-and-disrupting-deficit-thinking-cbc6da326995

Gorski, P. and Swalwell, K. (2023). Fix injustice, not kids: And other principles for transformative equity leadership. ASCD.

Holmes, G. (2023). Equity in our schools: Ensuring marginalized students achieve at high levels. Rowman and Littlefield.

This blog is written by Dr. GwenCarol Holmes, a long-time educator and passionate advocate for all students mastering rigorous standards.