Sharing Web Resources

Education Week

I have been subscribed to Education Week for quite some time, but never truly explored the site until these blog assignments. This week's issue has been eye opening, so I wanted to see what articles were on the site that dealt with equity issues. Came across the title, "Oregon's 'Equity Lens' Frames Schools' Take on Bias." Immediately I was intrigued, because quite honestly I don't think of Oregon as being a place where diversity would be on the rise. However, I was wrong.

In the article, "Oregon's 'Equity Lens' Frames Schools' Take on Bias" talks about the rise of number of children of the African American race, immigrants and hispanic students are growing rapidly in schools. They noticed a difference in achievement with children of color vs white students. "What they saw was sobering but not surprising: Despite attempts to close achievement gaps between students of color, immigrant students, and low-income students and their more affluent white peers, wide disparities persisted in student performance on state tests, graduation rates, school attendance, and college-going rates" In efforts to increase this achievement gap they adopted an "equity lens" "public policy statement explicitly acknowledging the salience of race and ethnicity in contributing to disparate student outcomes and committing to narrow achievement and opportunity gaps from cradle to career through a focus on race and ethnicity." While I do applaud the effort in Oregon and I want to see the positiveness int this article, it sits a little uneasy with me. It could be the wording.

I encourage you all to read the article and give your feedback. It is quite informative.


Resources

Superville, Denise. Education Week: Oregon's 'Equity Lens' Frames Schools' Take on Bias. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/06/01/oregons-equity-lens-frames-schools-take-on.html?qs=equity