When Education Secretary Miguel Cardona outlined the Biden administration’s education priorities in a major speech last month, he didn’t mince words when he told state and district leaders that they needed to do more to put equity front and center.
“We need our states and districts to take a hard look at their own ways of funding schools, and for those leaders to make the difficult decisions to fix broken systems that perpetuate inequities in our schools across the country,” he said.
“It is our moment to finally make education the great equalizer,” he continued, “the force that can help every student thrive, no matter their background, ZIP code, circumstance or language they speak at home.”
Addressing inequity in the K-12 system, Cardona added, will be the education community’s “hardest and most important work” – work that they will be judged against.Of course, all administrations talk a big game when it comes to education equity. But for President Joe Biden, who assumed the White House amid a pandemic that exacerbated long-standing achievement gaps and locked low-income students, students of color and those with disabilities out of classrooms longer than their wealthier, whiter peers – and for Cardona in particular, who ascended to the country’s top education post after growing up in public housing and navigating public school as an English language learner – the focus is rooted in urgency and intimate understanding of the implications.
That’s why it looked so bad when mere days after the secretary’s speech asking state and district leaders to “level up,” the school board members of Darien, Connecticut – Cardona’s home state – voted down a program designed to address racial and economic disparities that exist between cities and neighboring suburbs by allowing kindergarteners from neighboring Norwalk to attend their schools.
Under the plan, 16 children from Norwalk would have the opportunity to enroll in schools in Darien, where the median family income is $230,000 – roughly three times that of Norwalk, where 30% of students are Hispanic and half of students are still learning English.
The program was backed by the superintendent and head of the school board, but opponents voiced concerns about class sizes and challenges related to the ongoing pandemic.
“It just wasn’t the time,” said Jill McCammon, Darien school board’s vice chairwoman.
While Darien is just one of more than 13,000 schools districts across the country taking Cardona’s marching orders with varying levels of sincerity, the example begs the question, if a district in the secretary’s home state won’t make room for 16 children, then who will?
“It’s a big question,” Allison Socol, assistant director of P-12 policy at The Education Trust, says. “I have to believe it's not completely falling on deaf ears.”
To be sure, there are plenty of examples of states and districts heeding Cardona’s big ask.
Several states are boosting funding for their K-12 systems, including California, where lawmakers included $3 billion to transform schools in their most impoverished neighborhoods into community schools – schools that provide wraparound services like physical, dental and mental health centers, food and clothing banks. They also help parents find stable housing and jobs.
In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker’s budget proposal includes nearly $500 million in new K-12 spending that prioritizes low-income students, English learners and those with disabilities. And in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this week proposed an 8% increase for K-12 funding in the state’s 2023 budget.
Tennessee is underway on a major effort to hire more teachers of color by adopting a statewide policy that requires school districts to submit diversity goals and annual progress reports to its education department to close gaps between its teaching force, which is 80% white, and its student body, 40% of whom are students of color.
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