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The equity con game being sold by Montana's leaders – Daily Montanan

['More From Author', 'March', 'Mary Moe']

Date: 2022-03-06 00:00:00

Many years ago I taught high school English. The curriculum was heavy on literature, ranging from “Beowulf” to “Black Elk Speaks” and capped every year with a Shakespearean tragedy.

And every year, another tragedy unfolded: Kids with poor reading skills washed out. We didn’t have reading specialists who could help them. We didn’t have math specialists, either. We didn’t have programs for the gifted or the autistic or the developmentally delayed or the child with leukemia who had to miss school for unpredictable stretches of time.

What we had was a public school system that approached education like baking cookies. Place 20-30 students in tidy rows in a rectangular space, stir in equal measures of curriculum, set the oven at 70-to-pass, and cook for 12 years, checking periodically for doneness. If some fell through the rack or burned to a crisp … well, cookies crumble.

Yes, there were “special” schools for the deaf, the blind, the “backward and feeble-minded,” but these schools simply put an early stamp of approval on what would become a lifelong lack of societal accommodation for people with disabilities. There was nothing special for the poor, for children whose first language was indigenous, or for children experiencing abuse, homelessness, grief, or any of the countless traumas that freeze a child in time.

Today we know all children, including children with disabilities, have abilities that, if developed, will substantially improve their lives. We know children who are hungry or scared or sick have a hard time learning. We know we can project the number of prison cells we’ll need 20 years from now by the number of third-graders not reading at benchmark right now.

In short, we know children aren’t cookie dough.

They come with ingredients more varied than were dreamt of in our “old school” philosophy. Many start school on unequal footing and others encounter challenges that “freeze” them along the way. Without help these children will not reach the “full educational potential” our constitution promises. We should be proud of the steps we’ve taken in the last half-century to face that fact – and to do something about the inequity that existed for far too long in schools purporting to prepare all America’s children for adult life.

The lessons schools learned about inclusiveness and accommodation through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act have benefited not just children with disabilities, but all children, because schools now have the tools, the practices, and the mindset to address every child’s unique – and unequal – needs. The achievement gaps identified by No Child Left Behind have taught schools to provide timely, tailored interventions that lead students to success, rather than passively watch cookies crumble.

Today a high school senior who once thought she was “too dumb” to read is taking Honors English. A little boy with speech delays now uses complete sentences, replete with adjectives and prepositions. An autistic child who has spent the last two years in a transitional pre-K just hit his benchmarks in math. A girl who missed much of elementary school battling cystic fibrosis is now sitting in a middle school classroom with her peers.

Fifty years ago, these children would have been written off as cookies too broken to frost. Today, thanks to the programs in our public schools and the commitment of public school teachers, they have the same shot at developing their potential that other kids have. That is educational equity.

Today, Montana educators have no doubt what equity, inclusion and diversity mean to the students they teach. Unfortunately, Montana is now getting caught up in a nationally orchestrated effort, apparently supported by our governor, attorney general and state superintendent of public instruction, to turn these words into cusswords, especially “equity.”

“Equity,” they say, is a codeword sneaky teachers use to indoctrinate kids with guilt about the sins of their forefathers. “Equity,” they warn, makes smart kids lose opportunities. “Equity,” they insist, reduces standards to the lowest common denominator.

You have to stretch reality to the snapping point to throw shade on “equity.” If in the process you sully public education – schools that are the pride of the nation and teachers who have been saving this nation’s bacon for the last two years … well, there’s a word for that, too: shameful.

Most shamefully, all this ado has nothing to do with equity. Or education. The root cause is in the “E” section, though — elections.

There are only two things you need to know about the “equity” debate playing out in Montana K-12 education meetings of late. First and foremost, the argument is absurd.

It always goes the same way. The pros explain what they mean by “equity” – recognizing challenges that impede some students’ learning and providing programs and practices that address them. “Equity” is the word educators have used for decades to describe such programs and practices. The sky has not fallen.

The cons then tell the pros that’s not what “equity” means. It means indoctrinating students with Critical Race Theory, although nobody can point to anything in the proposal under review that remotely supports that claim.

Or “equity” means lowering standards because that’s what happened in some other state, which may or may not be true, but is once again not the purpose or the foreseeable consequence of the proposal under review.

Or “equity” means depriving smart kids of opportunities in order to keep all kids equally dull.

Anyone who’s been a playground monitor recognizes the dilemma the pros then face. They’re chasing “Chicken Littles” around the teeter-totter. Some, like the school board in Bozeman, appease the critics by eliminating the word “equity,” but keeping the rest of the equity policy intact. Absurdly, this rose by another name really does smell as sweet. Congressional candidate Ryan Zinke lauded the cons’ game in Bozeman as “a big win” and applauded the cons for forcing the school board to knuckle under.

Which segues smoothly to the second thing you need to know about the “equity” debate.

It isn’t really about equity. Or education. It’s about politics. Politicians motivate voters either by inspiring or enraging them; the latter is far easier. With a pandemic heading into its third year, parents’ frustration with the prolonged, unpredictable interruptions in their children’s schooling is highly flammable. With a concerted effort, you can make that flame spread. Thanks to the likes of Tucker Carlson, the Heritage Foundation, and No Left Turn in Education, it’s spread to this “equity” nonsense.

So when Gov. Greg Gianforte and Superintendent Arntzen denounce a state council of educators for “promoting a political agenda … in the name of equity,” you’re seeing one huge, sooty pot calling a shiny little kettle “black.” They are the ones promoting the political agenda. And the hypocrisy doesn’t end there.

As Arntzen knows, the word “equity” means none of the things the cons are claiming. She herself uses it repeatedly on her website and she engaged with it in depth as a member of the last School Funding Commission. That commission was given compelling data that special education programs, including gifted programs, were woefully underfunded, with the result that many students were underserved, if served at all. The commission shrugged.

“Adequacy drives equity,” the majority noted. If you don’t have adequate funding, you can’t provide some programs.

But students with disabilities have a constitutional right to a free, appropriate public education. That education is understandably more expensive than the cookie sheet model, and public schools must provide it. (Private schools like the one the governor founded can turn these students away. And do.) As the federal government has steadily shifted its share of the funding burden to local schools, districts can only meet their constitutional obligation by raiding the general fund. The result is that programs that are nice, but not required – those “opportunities” the Governor worries about – get cut.

The answer? Elected officials must ensure the general fund is adequate to provide all children with the education our constitution promises. Instead, this administration is depleting it. Gianforte has spent the last decade in a concerted effort to shift public dollars to private schools. This year, with Arntzen’s support and his signature, what began as a $150 tax credit for charitable donations to public or private schools in 2020 exploded to $200,000 per individual. You read that right, $200,000!

It gets worse.

Public schools can’t use the money to meet adequacy concerns. Donations must be used for “innovation.” Nor is the credit available to all Montanans. It’s first-come, first-served till the cap is reached. Public school donations hit the cap in less than 15 minutes this year. With a mere 69 donations, private schools hit theirs in 19 days.

That’s $2 million that could and should have been distributed equitably to all public schools in Montana. Let them eat cake, I guess.

Mary Sheehy Moe retired as Deputy Commissioner of Higher Education in 2010. Since then she has been a school board trustee, a state senator, and a city commissioner in Great Falls. She writes from Missoula.

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