Educational (in)Equality Part 1

Last Thursday, we heard from Deputy Mayor for Education De'Shawn Wright, Dr. Liliana Garces, a GW professor, and Art Coleman of Education Counsel, LLC at George Washington University. Their talk centered around GW receiving the papers of William Taylor, a education activist during the Civil Rights Era and a co-author of No Child Left Behind, and eventually evolved to talking about race and education. The talk was very open and honest, to the credit of the panelists. But what it had in honestly, it lacked in substance; the great elephant in the room was the inequity that exists here in DC! There was not a single, single mention of it!

Now, we know DC has the greatest gaps in educational equity compared to other urban school districts. The achievement gaps between the rich and poor and between white and children of color is enormous! You can check it our for yourself here: nation's report card or can look at a broken down version here: gaps in dcps. So that you know, these score cards are based on 4th and 8th graders for math and reading.

Now, where was this talk last week? Where was the urgency, the state of "now!" to address these issues? Wright certainly liked the idea of appearing as a Civil Rights crusader; we would like to see that put into action.

A deeper question, for ourselves and for policy makers, why aren't the programs we have promoted working? We have done a lot, in the name of education reform, and yet nothing has changed. What do we make of this?

Stay tuned for the next two weeks as we detail much of the inequity that exists here in DC - from school closures, to resources, and to us releasing our data on equality in education.