The movement towards “equity and excellence” in education can be a challenging endeavor in the United States. This movement is underscored by the pursuit for academic success of all students—regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, culture, neighborhood, or home language (Ferguson, 2007; Ishimaru & Galloway, 2014; Scheurich & Skrla, 2003). Although the emerges of equity has only been emphasize during the last few decades (Wallace Foundation, 2013), equity has now become a significant debate (Castelli, Ragazzi, & Crescentini, 2012) among policy analyst, policy-makers, government officials and scholars (Espinoza, 2007) and is the new mantra in educational policy (Fullan & Boyle, 2014). In fact, the issue of equity has become a
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In the United States, discussions on school leadership and equity were raised as early as the 1970s during the “effective school movement” (Edmonds, 1979) and gaining a stronger footing with the focus on the human dimensions of schooling taking place during the 1990s (Murphy, 1995). Today, the prominence of equity in our contemporary school leadership practices is evident in the new Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) leadership policy standards. In the ISLLC’s original publication in 1996 and its subsequent revised edition in 2008, the practice of equity appears in only one of the six standards. Now, in a recently published ISLLC’s (2015) policy standards, four of the ten standards discuss issues of equity. For example, according to the new ISLLC (2015) standards, school leaders must safe guard and promote equity, address matters of equity and cultural responsiveness, and develop and administer systems for fair and equitable …show more content…
The search for equity by school leaders, then, can be an overwhelming objective. Researchers suggest that school leaders who pursue social change will experience conflict (Foster, 1986; Karpinski & Lugg, 2006; Riehl, 2000) because often times it becomes politicized (Noguera, 2001; Skrla & Scheurich, 2001). Also, Espinoza (2007) argues the problem with “equity” theory is that it is based on the one-dimensional goal of providing a fairness of distribution that favors marginalized groups, leading to its attack by others. Likewise, researchers Blankstein and Noguera (2015) argue that equity in education is both controversial and confusing because of people associating equity with a “zero-sum game.” In his influential book, A Place Called School, published in 1984, researcher John Goodlad describes the challenge in leading towards
In the United States, discussions on school leadership and equity were raised as early as the 1970s during the “effective school movement” (Edmonds, 1979) and gaining a stronger footing with the focus on the human dimensions of schooling taking place during the 1990s (Murphy, 1995). Today, the prominence of equity in our contemporary school leadership practices is evident in the new Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) leadership policy standards. In the ISLLC’s original publication in 1996 and its subsequent revised edition in 2008, the practice of equity appears in only one of the six standards. Now, in a recently published ISLLC’s (2015) policy standards, four of the ten standards discuss issues of equity. For example, according to the new ISLLC (2015) standards, school leaders must safe guard and promote equity, address matters of equity and cultural responsiveness, and develop and administer systems for fair and equitable …show more content…
The search for equity by school leaders, then, can be an overwhelming objective. Researchers suggest that school leaders who pursue social change will experience conflict (Foster, 1986; Karpinski & Lugg, 2006; Riehl, 2000) because often times it becomes politicized (Noguera, 2001; Skrla & Scheurich, 2001). Also, Espinoza (2007) argues the problem with “equity” theory is that it is based on the one-dimensional goal of providing a fairness of distribution that favors marginalized groups, leading to its attack by others. Likewise, researchers Blankstein and Noguera (2015) argue that equity in education is both controversial and confusing because of people associating equity with a “zero-sum game.” In his influential book, A Place Called School, published in 1984, researcher John Goodlad describes the challenge in leading towards