Class Warfare

The disastrous drive for ‘equity’ in schools

THE War on Merit in America’s schools is spreading — and threatening to take an ever-bigger toll on kids’ education. Last week, California’s Department of Education rolled out a draft framework for teaching math to K-12 students. The framework contains 13 chapters, most focused on (no joke) achieving “equity” through mathematics instruction. It would no longer group kids by ability, teach algebra to eighth graders or calculus to high schoolers or refer to gifted children as “gifted.”

California isn’t the only place, of course, that has tried to dumb down school curricula in an effort to treat all kids the same in order to pretend there’s no differences between them.

Every year in New York City, thousands of parents register their kids for the Gifted & Talented test for admission into a G&T program or school. The test is necessary to see if kids will be able to handle the more challenging curriculum.

Yet this year, the city’s Department of Education scrapped the test; kids apparently will be judged on less objective measures. And Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter similarly wants to ditch the admissions test for the city’s top high schools.

Look: Parents don’t have their kids apply for these programs because they are racist; they do it because they know the regular curriculum their kids get in regular city schools is weak. Math is usually a joke; reading and writing often even more so. A G&T program might mean their kid has to actually try to succeed, instead of just coasting through classes. Yet parents clamoring for more difficult work for their kids get called “racist.”

Not content with removing the G&T test, the DOE is now pushing to get rid of G&T programs themselves. Middle schools have already scrapped “screens,” such as test scores and grades, for admission this year in favor of lotteries. The city’s most competitive (and often best-performing) high schools constantly fear they’ll be forced to water down their standards.

Bad ideas may start in places like New York and California but don’t necessarily stay there. Seattle’s school board has begun the process of discontinuing its gifted programs. Denver’s largest high school has done away with tracking students into honors classes. In Stamford, Conn., they’ve dropped Advanced Placement exams. Discussions on whether to end accelerated programs are taking place in school districts in Virginia. This trend is spreading faster than COVID.

And all in the name of racial equity. As California’s potential new framework laments, “In California in 2004-2014, 32 percent of Asian-American students were in gifted programs, compared with 8 percent of white students, 4 percent of black students and 3 percent of Latinx students.” The idea that because students don’t represent the right racial mix, programs need to be scrapped is noxious. What message does that send black or Hispanic kids in advanced classes? That there aren’t enough people who look like you taking these classes, so you don’t deserve curriculum appropriate for your level?

Ironically, “inequity” between the rich and poor is likely only to grow if accelerated programs are dismantled. Rich parents will get

their kids supplemental education, ensuring they have access to subjects like algebra and calculus. Those kids will be challenged and end up more successful than children without those lessons.

Inequity is baked into a dumbed-down system. Advanced classes in public schools give poor kids opportunities they otherwise would not have, yet now they’re being stripped of them.

Beyond that, the story of success in America has long been that competition is good, striving is healthy. Working hard leads to accomplishment. There’s something deeply unAmerican about telling kids they’re all the same. And even if you do, they’re not likely to believe you. Kids are aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses and don’t pretend they don’t exist, like adults do.

In any event, this quest for equity will wind up to be a drive for kids to be equally bad —at math, writing and other subjects. That’s backward: If equity is the goal, raising the bar would be far wiser. Why not make school harder, not easier? Stop giving out passing grades to everyone. Change curricula to be more rigorous, not less.

Demand kids work to succeed, and we’ll see better results than anything this fake equity could achieve.