Equalize Our Education!

My students have just wrapped up a unit on examining education and the story of equity. They first went back into the past of public education and created a timeline of major equity and equality events in education. They heard for the first time about how schools were set up at a local level, when the Freedmen's Bureau started black schools after slavery ended, when schools were integrated by the Supreme Court and then in the real world with the story of the Little Rock Nine, they moved into the 1970s and learned about Title XI and the Disabilities Act. This lead us into the more present day story of education. I wanted to make the context personal and also continue on our exploration of equity in education. Thanks to my amazing teaching partners our students have explore equity is a variety of formats and context.

The students examined the choices offered by their own school system, Chicago Public Schools. Many did not know the choices they had beyond attending a neighborhood high school, as they all attend a neighborhood elementary school. After determining the many choices and options, they then began to notice not only the difference in type and enrollment requirements but the drastic differences in graduation rates, attendance rates, test scores, demographics and special programs offered by the different schools. There were many comments around the exploration of schools from the amazing special programs from sports to the arts and rigorous advanced placement programs at some the best schools and the disappointment at the limited options offered at some neighborhood and smaller schools. The students worked with partners to create "school profiles" using a keynote slide, researching the statistics and adding a photo of the school.

More important than the technology and great slides they took a look for the first time what their choices and their futures as Chicago Public School students could and would be in a few short years. We had a very revealing conversation about what aspects they "wanted" in a high school, what would be equitable in a high school and many of them came to the realization that only a handful of the high schools in our city offer those to students, and even more worrisome those were the schools that were the most selective and hardest to gain entry into. It seems my students came a conclusion that finding the right school for what they want did not always mean they were able to attend it. Which begs the question of our unit, is this system equitable? Is this providing a fair and free education to all?

One thing I do know is by providing my students access to the information and having them examine it critically I think they see the importance of equity and how far we still need to go to have a better version of it in our local school system. They realize that some of the inequity starts with access to the pertinent information to make an informed decision. They have realized the true impact of education both formal and informal when it comes to their own lives. I am so proud of their work, see it here!


We have a QR map created to share with our community: