A few years ago, I attended a Village School Zoom meeting that addressed critical race topics…read more Concerned, I later wrote to the school board to question their dedication to equity. They responded, saying that equity has been a core classroom value of theirs for almost ten years.
Historically, the purpose of education was to help students excel. Recognizing that people have different interests, talents, and motivations, different levels of classes--such as GATE, honors, and AP classes--were created to ensure everyone could excel at their own rate. This merit-based system rewarded excellence with the opportunity to take more challenging classes and achieve even greater success.
However, equity, as used by critical race theorists and DEI promoters, means equal outcomes. Equity is antagonistic to excellence because excellence naturally leads to inequities due to differences between individuals. Since educators can only do so much to help students achieve excellence, those who have integrity to values have chosen to handicap those with greater interests, talents, or motivations as a way to achieve equity.
For example, San Francisco removed algebra from the 8th-grade curriculum in the name of equity. Typically, students could progress from Algebra in 8th grade to Calculus by 12th grade. Proponents of equity realized that not everyone could reach Calculus by 12th grade, so they handicapped excellent students by not teaching Algebra in 8th grade, ensuring the highest math level attainable by the end of high school was Pre-Calculus unless students doubled up on math courses in 9th grade. Similarly, Seattle shut down its honors program to achieve equal outcomes.
Given Village's response and my purpose for sending my son there, I told my ex that I wanted him removed from that school. She countered by arguing that the teachers aren't actually practicing equity; it's more of an interest for the administrators, and Village admins give teachers a lot of leeway. As an example, she mentioned that our son is currently learning algebra in 6th grade.
If an Asian boy is being taught more advanced math than his peers, it suggests that his teachers are not practicing equity. This indicates that Village is only virtue signaling equity without actually implementing it--or so I hoped.
However, I am not blind to the effects of ideas. Even if Village's admins give teachers leeway, they are still responsible for setting the organization's culture, hiring, promotion, and firing decisions, and extracurricular activities. When I see DEI book clubs or events for non-whites, I see the writing on the wall. Organizational change may take time, but it happens. If I were a teacher focused on educational excellence, I would find these activities either a distraction or antagonistic to my values and would seek employment elsewhere.
So, while my ex may have found examples indicating that Village currently lacks the integrity to fully implement equity principles, I have two remaining questions:
1. How much better would my son's education have been if they had rejected equity outright and fully embraced the merit system?
2. Given how much I pay each year, should I be satisfied with an organization that lacks integrity?
Fortunately, my son has graduated from this school, so I don't have to deal with these questions anymore.
Here are my reasons for the score. I give them 3 stars for the quality of education he received. The school recently raised tuition, but I don't see these funds being used to help teachers and students focus on educational excellence. Instead, I see them being used for DEI activities, such as dinners for families where one or more members "identify as a person of color."
I give them 0 star for their lack of integrity. I completely reject equity as a value, but I have more respect for educators in San Francisco for taking their ideas seriously and trying to implement them, even to the detriment of their students, than I do for virtue signalers. Virtue signalers don't take ideas seriously. For an organization whose purpose is to convey ideas to their customers, the refusal to take ideas seriously is a betrayal of that mission.
These scores average out to 1.5 stars.
In conclusion, because I disagree with equity, I would not send my child to Village School again as they proclaim it to be a core value. However, even if I supported equity, I would still not send my child to Village School due to their lack of integrity. A business without integrity does not deserve my money or, more importantly, the right to guide my child.