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U-46 Board discusses equality versus equity


By Seth Hancock
  The Board of Education in School District U-46 was given an update on the state of “equity” in the district at its meeting on Monday, Jan. 22.
  Ron Raglin, assistant superintendent of support programs and alignment, said there is a new Illinois law surrounding “implicit racial bias training.” Raglin said the district has provided such professional development in the past and from 2012-2014 there were three training sessions that had over 400 combined attendees, in 2016-17 yearlong training had over 400 attendees and the current school year has had over 450 attendees.
  Raglin said the state law addresses “influences evaluations of and behavior toward those who are the subject of the bias,” “understanding implicit racial bias training is needed in order to reduce that bias,” “marginalized students would benefit from having access to educators who have worked to reduce their biases” and “training that helps educators overcome implicit racial bias has implication for classroom interactions, student evaluation, and classroom engagement; it also affects student academic self-concept.”
  Melanie Meidel, assistant superintendent of human resources, said all new hires must watch a video concerning “implicit racial bias,” and Raglin said the district’s plan for the fall of 2019 is to hold an “all means all kickoff” in which “we’re all in one place together, we’re all hearing the same message.”
  Board member Jeanette Ward indicated her opposition to such training, and she has previously indicated her opposition to the district’s continuous push to divide students along racial lines.
  Prior to the meeting, Ward made a social media post honoring Martin Luther King Jr. quoting his “I have a dream” speech in which he said: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
  Ward added: “Dr. King advocated a color-blind meritocracy, where content of character was the basis on which people would be judged. He would be turning over in his grave at those who advocate policy which bases hiring and program inclusion decisions on race instead of content of character.”
  The U-46 administration’s plans and focus was illustrated in an image included in the presentation claiming a difference between “equality” and “equity.”
  “Equality is giving all students the same support,” Raglin said. “Equity is supporting each student according to their need.”
  The image portrays three students including a white boy, a white girl and a black boy. The apparent implication of the photo was that if black and female students are treated equally, the same as all other students, they are not capable of competing with white boys.
  “Isn’t that racist?” Ward asked. “When we portray the idea that certain students, specifically minorities, need special treatment to succeed, how does that affect the student population? Aren’t we sending the message that they are not as good as other students, so they need our help? Isn’t that destructive? And isn’t it destructive to girls to imply that they need additional assistance to compete academically with boys? “
  Ward added: “As a woman, I take from that slide that I need help to compete with men.”
  Raglin said “any of those images that are in that slide, you can easily rotate the images” and “the point is around equity.” He gave an example of one high school in the district where white males were underrepresented in Advanced Placement classes and he told the principal to look into it.
  “I’m glad to hear that,” Ward said about addressing that specific school case, “but I’m sure someone had something in mind when they put the slide together.”
  Board member Traci Ellis later unintentionally affirmed Ward’s concerns saying “sure you can swap it out” in the photo and “this wasn’t just you know ‘oh, let’s just randomly assign something.’”
  “I don’t think we should shy away from calling a thing a thing,” Ellis said and added: “Typically speaking, black children are performing the lowest.”
  During the presentation Terri Lozier, assistant superintendent of secondary schools instruction and equity, said students may have received referrals for being disrespectful or disruptive by moving around in class but “we know that… students sometimes need to move, sometimes students need to wiggle, sometimes students need to respond in a certain way.”
  “Really, this is a part of the environment they grew up in and this is how they work,” Lozier said.
  Ellis said “black male students like to move” and  “that is a culture issue” which shouldn’t be punished, and she said teachers are ignorant of this: “Cultural ignorance has such detriment in the classroom.”
  Ward partly agreed saying that “school is set up to cater to girls” and “males don’t like to sit for 50 minutes at a time,” but she emphasized “males of all races.”
  Asking for evidence that “implicit bias training” has a beneficial effect, Ward quoted Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, who said at a Canadian senate hearing that “the science surrounding the so-called charge of implicit bias… is by no means settled” and “what little evidence there is suggests that it has the opposite effect because people don’t like being brought in front of a re-education committee and having their fundamental perceptions…altered by collective fiat.”
  Raglin had no research available but claimed that’s a “mute argument” because “you can find researchers that will have a whole 180-degree opposite view of that.”
  Board member Phil Costello asked if there was any funding from the state with this law to which U-46 CEO Tony Sanders said no.
  Costello asked for the costs of the training saying “I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying if we’re going to do this” and it takes away from other training opportunities.
  Ellis said that “if we’re going to go down that road, then we need to go down the road of what’s the cost for not doing this” which Costello said that was fine as well to look into.
  Lozier said this kind of “bias” training is imbedded in all training such as math and science professional development and suggested there was no additional cost to it.
  Board member Melissa Owens said “this just isn’t about just discipline or suspensions or referrals” and Sue Kerr that “we have a lot of work to do, and we need to address that,” and both wanted to see achievement gap data.
  “I think as a district that we have a lot to be proud of, but we also have a lot of work to do,” Sanders said and added the district has a “perception problem.”

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