Schools

VP Harris position on Equity vs Equality So there’s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, “oh everyone should get the same amount.” The problem with that, not everybody’s starting out from the same place. So if we’re all getting the same amount, but you started out back there and I started out over here, we could get the same amount, but you’re still going to be that far back behind me. This represents a concept which cannot be instituted or enforced. Take one common example. Johnny comes from a middle income family where reading at home is the norm and his parents are strong for education, typically a situation you might find in a home where one or both of the parents are teachers. Jimmy comes from a single parent home where there are no books and his mother works two jobs to keep her head above the poverty level. These boys are 6 years old and entering first grade and Johnny's reading skills are two years ahead of Jimmy's. Johnny thinks school is important and Jimmy sees school as interfering with his play time. It's too late. The problem started years ago when his mother had him when she was 16 and her mother had her when she was 16 and grandma and had mom when she was 16. It is the cry for help that Bill Clinton had when he said welfare should be a helping hand not a way of life. The governments plan to help poor families blew up as single Black mom's went from 25% in 1965 to 75% in 1995. Black students are stuck in the rut of poor grades, low graduation rates and high drop out rates. There has got to be a way to get inner city student into the suburban schools. The biggest stumbling block is transportation. Even if Jimmy's mom is pushing the importance of education Jimmy is stuck in a school that has lots of discipline problems which interferes with learning. He is in an environment where education is not important even to the extent in some schools that getting good grades means being White.