Education is the Great Equalizer
At the National Education Summit in November, Governor Bush tells us, "Education is the great equalizer. A math problem doesn’t care whether you were born into privilege or poverty. A great piece of literature doesn’t know if readers went to a fancy college. The periodic table of elements doesn’t worry whether you spoke English, Spanish or Haitian Creole at home.
If you learn something, it is portable wealth - and nobody can take that away from you.
But if we buy the excuses, if we let kids struggle, if we herd them into failing schools, how can we expect young people to grasp those first rungs of opportunity? That is why the challenge of fixing our schools must be among the most urgent of national priorities."
I share this quote with you as a reminder of why all of us do what we do in education. I recall when I first graduated college, I read the book Savage Inequalities (1991) by Jonathon Kozol. I was positive I could change the world, and I continue to believe in equality through education. I recently worked in an urban district with a multitude of challenges, and left inspired by the high level of teaching that I witnessed- both from a first year teacher and from teachers of our very earliest language learners. These teachers, like myself, know that education is the answer.
With education, lives change.
And so, as 2014 comes to a close, let's remember how fortunate we all are to be in the great field of education .... sharing the gift of knowledge with the learners who are with us daily.
Happy Holidays,
Susan Looney, Ed.D.
President - Looney Math Consulting
I invite your comments and conversation on this topic.
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