Running head: EQUITY AND EQUALITY 1

The Difference Between Equity and Equality

EDLP 200A

October 12, 2016

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The Difference Between Equity and Equality

The educational system today is faced with a shift in its paradigm. Districts and

individual school sites are consistently battling with the notion of equality versus equity. School

Districts have yet to accept this shift that equality is not equity. School sites have progressed

with this paradigm shift, and are now faced with a battle against their own district offices to

receive equitable resources for their students. Pushing further with this notion, equality and

equity look different inside the classrooms from student to student.

However, one of the major concern facing school sites is the division of resources for

their district office. Currently working in a school district that is the minority school in the

district, resources are not equitably divided amongst the district’s school sites. The district office

is trapped in an outdated line of thinking that all schools in the district are equal and should be

treated equally. The district office is not taking into consideration the population that each of

their school sites serves, falling victim to the notion of color blindness. This particular district is

certainly not alone in this line of thinking either. This is a critical issue that all school sites and

school districts are currently being forced to dispute in today’s educational field.

The division of district office resources has historically been divided equally amongst the

schools within the given district. In a study conducted by Iatarola and Steifel it is noted that there

are three different styles of equity; vertical, horizontal, and equal opportunity (2003). Many

school districts employ an equal opportunity style when dividing up their resources between their

schools. However, school sites can often serve very different populations. A school site located

in Antelope, CA serves a population of students that are culturally diverse and diverse with the

socioeconomic classes on just the one campus. Inversely, within the same school district, a
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school located in Roseville, CA is significantly less diverse both culturally and in socioeconomic

class. Both school sites are receiving equal funds and resources from their district office.

The official reasoning behind the motives from the district office revolves around the

belief that they need to show each school equal support because they just see students, they don’t

see anything but students. The school district has adopted a view of, “cultural blindness, the

belief that color and culture make no difference and that all people are the same” (Lindsey,

Robins, & Terrell, 2003, p. 89). The school district falls on the cultural proficiency continuum in

one of the most preliminary stages. The district needs to evolve and progress through the

continuum to the culturally proficient stage. Cultural proficiency can be explained as, “having

the self-awareness to discern what about themselves may be offensive to others” (Lindsey,

Robins, & Terrell, 2003, p. 91). The school district needs to work towards the end achievement

of cultural proficiency. The steps to get there can be difficult.

One of the first steps the district can make is by moving forward in the continuum to the

cultural precompetence stage. In this sage individuals understand something needs to be done,

but they don’t know how to do it (Lindsey, Robbins, & Terrell, 2003). The school site in

Antelope is at this stage on the continuum. They understand that something needs to be done to

bring equity to their individual school site, they understand that the equality model in their

district is failing not only them but their students. Yet, they aren’t sure what to do or how to fix

it. Studies have shown that an inequity in the division of resources exists, “intradistrict disparities

are present in New York City and are common in other large school districts” (Rubenstein,

Schwartz, Steifel, & Amor, 2007, p. 543). Stemming from a study conducted by Rubenstein,

Schwartz, Steifel, and Amor, it is noted that, “the level of funding and number of teachers

allocated to individual schools” is within the districts control (2007, p. 543).

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Conclusion

Equality and equity are two very different ideologies. School districts need to make a

change that places equity at the top of their priority list. Until school districts accept this shift in

their paradigm, the low performing culturally diverse schools will always remain just that.

Research and case studies need to still be conducted on how best to help districts make this

change, however the first step in making the change is recognizing there is a problem.

Recognizing there is an inequitable division of resources and it is affecting our students and their

success.
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References

Iatarola, P., & Stiefel, L. (2003). Intradistrict equity of public education resources and

performance. Economics of Education Review, 22(1), 69-78. doi:10.1016/s0272-

7757(01)00065-6

Lindsey, R. B., Robins, K. N., & Terrell, R. D. (2003). Cultural proficiency: A manual for

school

leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Rubenstein, R., Schwartz, A. E., Stiefel, L., & Amor, H. B. (2007). From districts to schools:

The distribution of resources across schools in big city school districts. Economics of

Education Review, 26(5), 532-545. doi:10.1016/j.econedurev.2006.08.002