#StopCommonCore Latest Word-to-Watch: EQUITY
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that HR5 has been tabled for now. I put out a call to action a couple weeks ago to write, call, or email your representative and senators and ask them to not support this bill.
Anyone who is aware of how these things work knows that we cannot assume we have won and relax. No, now is the time to polish your armor because there will be another round, guaranteed.
As the congress was weighing HR5, also known as the NCLB/ESEA re-write, some groups were desperately trying to get mandated funding for early childhood programs and pre-school added to it.
This is an extremely important issue to the White House who wants children in “high quality pre-schools” as early as age 3.
The groups proposing this addition to the bill include both national teachers unions, a national principals association and groups that advocate for education equity – and on March 16 they are releasing a proposal to add funding for early childhood education to the title of the ESEA re-write. The Center for American Progress, the Children’s Defense Fund, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Center for Learning Disabilities collaborated on the proposal.
The word “equity” stands out to most people who are up to date on the reform issue. Equity is basically a really pretty word they use to say that white people are at an unfair advantage and more money needs to go to the minority groups to bring them up to a level where the white folks are. And who could argue with that? That would be racist, after all.
That’s a very oversimplified explanation. Equity is also seen as a civil right and an essential obligation of the federal government. The government needs to steer the economy and education and that is what makes this collectivism necessary.
Watch your legislature and watch congress to see the word “equity,” and know that it isn’t as fluffy and wonderful as it sounds.
Under the reformer’s version of equity, we will all be equally poor, equally controlled by the government, and equally miserable.
