What is equity and how is it different from equality?  If you’ve been to an education conference or been through a graduate school course in school leadership recently, you’ve probably had at least one conversation framed around this image.  It certainly can inspire some good conversations.

I’m at the iNACOL blended and online learning symposium this week in San Antonio.  The symposium brings together over 3000 idealists, futurists, digital learning advocates, edtech firms and educators, and this year the theme of the conference is “Innovation for Equity + Redefining Success.”  We’re only a few sessions in, and I’ve already seen this equity image three different times.  The underlying assumption is that moving towards competency-based education is inherently equity focused.  Certainly the five core elements, including an insistence on meaningful assessment and timely, differentiated support hint at an equity-focused theory of action for our classrooms and schools.

So, before I go too far, let me reinforce my belief that concepts of competency-based and personalized learning are ideals that I aspire to for my own children and for the education systems I work to transform.  It’s hard to argue that strong, positive relationships with adults and authentic, transparent systems of assessment and feedback aren’t important ingredients of any quality education system.

Yet I think the conversation has to push deeper.

Saying things like “all students will get what they need to succeed” is not, in my opinion, a definitive statement about equity.  Yes, pushing for our most marginalized or impoverished students to have access to competency-based, personalized learning environments is important work.  But isn’t trying to provide the same level of access and opportunity more closely associated with a push for equality?  Isn’t equity about bringing outcomes into closer alignment?

In many ways, privileged, mostly White, students already have access to a competency-based education system.  Perhaps it’s not defined as a user-adaptive content delivery system at the school, but in terms of skills-based, personalized learning, it’s already deeply ingrained.  Need to learn collaboration and teamwork skills?  Afternoon soccer leagues or dance classes probably fit the bill.  Need to build global and historical awareness?  Travel opportunities can’t hurt.  From packed skill-based summer opportunities to ongoing access to enrichment experiences tailored to kids’ interests, personalization is a way of life for kids and families with the means to make it happen.  Resources are often mobilized when gaps in learning present themselves.

Of course this isn’t to say that students of color living in poverty don’t have access to amazing experiences and opportunities for learning or that incredible sacrifices aren’t being made to ensure a quality education for kids.  Whether it’s access to multiple languages spoken in the home or access to role models who personify tenacity, poor and marginalized students bring powerful assets to the table.

I think to foster a real conversation about equity, the entire field of competency-based and personalized learning needs to ask more questions and not assume it already knows what will ameliorate decades and centuries of inequitable practices in schools and society.  We need more sessions about racial identity and the effects of marginalization.  We need more awareness about how poverty and power dynamics influence and drive resource allocation and accountability policy.  Just going back to the conference theme – what do we think “innovation for equity” means?  I want more of that conversation.

“Focus your attention on shaping the work as close to the classroom as you can, not on shaping the decisions above you.”

Whether or not I want the title, I’m sometimes seen as the “charter school guy.”  Of course I loved being the principal at City Arts & Tech High School, an arts & digital media focused charter in San Francisco.  I’m biased, of course, but it’s genuinely a fantastic school.  So having spent time in an innovative, fast-paced charter environment is certainly an important part of my professional narrative, and there are definitely elements of my charter experience that I would like to see more broadly adopted in my new district home. That creates a natural tension, since I’m now working in a large school district that is having it’s own structural challenges from would-be charter operators in the city.  I see myself as part of the solution to creating an organizational culture that is more nimble, flexible, and responsive to adjust to the shifting wants of the community and the more fundamental sea-change in how people are thinking about education in general.

And yet my charter experience often trips me up in terms of doing the work that I really want to do.  I often fixate on the differences in structures and policies that shape a large bureaucracy like the one I work in, attributing those structural differences as the primary drivers of professional culture and improved learning outcomes for kids.  And yet charters experience the same variability in quality as district schools.  And the financial volatility can be even more extreme.  So yes, sometimes I get caught in the trap of assuming that systems level work is about board policies, association contracts, and superintendent fiat, when I should know better.

We all tend to look above us when we want a scapegoat.  An excuse.  A reason something can’t be done.  Whether it’s Ed Code, board policy, contract language, or a person in a position of authority.  Certainly our context and many actions are shaped and governed by these foundational documents and key stakeholders.  But this is where creative leadership is so powerful.  Regardless of where we sit in the system, we can exercise the leadership necessary to navigate the context in ways that improve outcomes and experiences for learners.  If we don’t get creative – then we often get disillusioned or paralyzed – abdicating both our agency and our responsibility.  Perhaps even more humbling is when we remember that to someone else, we’re the potential obstacle in high places.

So sometimes when I get overly anxious in attempting to negotiate the big pieces – I have to be reminded (often by our Deputy Superintendent) that there is already more good work staring me right in the face than I can possibly do.  It’s right there, waiting for me to take it up.  Of course I can focus my energy and righteous indignation at the inertia of the bureaucracy, or I can do the leadership work necessary to transform the practices I can – and allow the collective impact of those changes to shape the bigger forces around me.

As Heifetz & Linsky remind us – “The toughest problems that groups and communities face are hard precisely because the group or community will not authorize anyone to push them to address those problems.”  Leadership is not about clamoring for permission.  It’s about pushing in the right places.