.1 Equity of Resources

We are going to start a new series of four lectures on barriers to effective education. These are four of the most important barriers to effective education. Those four barriers are equity, accountability, mobility, and obsolescence. Today we are going to deal with equity as a barrier to effective education. We need to start with the definitions of equity? There are three kinds of equity. The first kind of equity is equity in time in years of education. Everybody in the U.S. gets thirteen years of education for free. Grades K-12 are free. Beyond that you have to start paying, some people more than others, some places more than others. One would think then that everybody has at least the equity of thirteen years of education. That's not completely correct, because in having twelve years of education and kindergarten free, not everybody finishes. Some kids drop out at the end of grade ten. They are gypped out of two years of their entitlement (if you want to think of equity of education as an entitlement). Even if you think of that as equity you have a hard time, because all of you who are taking this course are having your education subsidized. The in-state people more than fifty percent and the out-of-state people about twenty percent. No one is paying the full cost of education even at the higher education level. So this represents another kind of subsidy and of course the greatest subsidy comes to medical education. Medical education is the most expensive education around and isn't it interesting that doctors who go on to have the highest income of anyone in the society have the most public subsidy of any profession in the society. That itself speaks to the issue of equity.

The second kind of equity is equity of resoures. Equity of resource is how many dollars you are spending on each kid. Not the dollars spent on the facilities and the materials students use, but the equity of resources distributed. The kids who have the most money spent on them are the kids who need it the least. These are the kids from the higher socio-economic households. The kids who need it the most often have the fewest resources available and that is not equitable. It is also shortsighted on the part of society not to provide the resources to the kids who need them because then these are the kids for whom education doesn't work. These are the kids who end
up in jail and on welfare and so we pay for it another way. It really is in the self-interest of the society to make sure that education works for everybody and to have more equity of resources.


What is wrong with the balance of time and years of education ?

Mrs. Sheffield is a high school science teacher who is required by the SOL legislation to assign a science fair project to each of her students. The students are responsible for purchasing and preparing a backboard for their projects that cost $15.00. In addition, the project will be graded on neatness and creativity. How can Mrs. Sheffield ensure that all of her students can successfully complete the project with such a lack of equity in terms of resources?