Why Educational Equity?
We are well aware of the enormity of the challenge we have embraced. We do this neither as na Pollyannas nor latter-day Don Quixotes. At Teachers College, we view educational inequity as the greatest challenge facing education today and a powerful threat to our country. It is a moral threat: In an age when good jobs require higher levels of skills and knowledge than ever before in history, children are denied the education to acquire them, simply because of their parents’ skin color or income. It is an economic threat: In an era in which employers cross national borders in search of talented workers, the children in our cities lack the skills for gainful employment. It is a social threat: As the numbers on the previous page illustrate, inadequately educated children are more likely to be arrested, become pregnant, use drugs, experience violence and require public assistance. And it is a civic threat, because our children’s overall enfranchisement-their personal stake in society-so clea
