When equity work is voluntary, does it survive the person who started it?
Why the question matters
Everything I have learned about public systems suggests that obligation outlasts people: a district still files the same tables whether or not anyone new wants to. In a school where nothing is required, the work depends on whoever currently cares about it — and caring is not a structure. The question that keeps me up is not whether my school believes in equity. It is whether the school will still be doing the work in six years, after the people who wrote the statement have moved on.
What I currently think
A commitment that lives in one person's energy leaves when that person does. So I want to know what makes a commitment survive: a board policy, a standing committee with a budget, a published number that gets updated whether or not it flatters anyone, a hiring practice, a schedule that assumes some students need time and does not make them ask for it. I suspect the answer is boring and administrative, and that is exactly the point — the durable version of equity looks like paperwork, and paperwork is what outlives enthusiasm.
What I am reading & learning
- —Barth (2016), Educational equity: What does it mean? How do we know when we reach it?
- —Kumashiro (2015), Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice
- —Lewis & Diamond (2015), Despite the Best Intentions
- —U.S. Department of Education (2025), The impact of civil rights laws
Related journal entries
- Fair is not the same as equitable
My whole career has been about growing in my understanding of fairness versus equity. Fair treatment is not necessarily equitable treatment — students need scaffolds that help them reach their best potential — and I want to understand what that requires in the elite school where I teach.