K12 360° Conversations: Equity Series, Part IV

To Achieve Educational Equity, Here’s What We Need to Do

Home has become the primary learning environment, so it’s time to reassess the traditional definition of “school.” Schools are no longer brick-and-mortar buildings - they’re wherever kids access the internet. If we can’t provide connectivity at “school” where kids are on equal footing, we’re no longer able to teach. Considering this, here are two takeaways for education:

1. To conquer education inequalities, we must redefine schools.
2. Internet connection must be considered a utility.

Redefining our schools with a more flexible understanding of how and where kids learn naturally supports the shift to the internet as an expected - and standardized - resource. Innive has advocated for converting internet connectivity from an informally regulated service to a fully-regulated utility. By requiring regulation and for schools to provide an acceptable minimum standard, there would be equitable access to instructional materials. It’s the foundation of educational equity: equal access.

We wouldn’t send kids to school in the cold - they’d be unsafe and unable to learn. It is our responsibility to ensure kids are able to contribute, access equal resources, and be able to perform on the same level as their peers.

The pandemic has revealed how far we have to go to reach equitable access, but there’s a positive side: it’s provided much-needed traction to the issue in education. Let’s advocate— as a community, individual, or company— for both the redefining of schools and internet connectivity as a utility. Our kids deserve it.

Resources

K12 360° Conversations Equity Series:

• The Pandemic and Educational Equity
• Equity Through Community Coalitions
• Insights into Equity through Data
• To Achieve Educational Equity, Here’s What We Need to Do

K12 360° Conversations

have an incredible team of experts at Innive who meet weekly to discuss current events and relevant subjects facing the education industry. The K12 360° Conversations are a blog series pulled from these conversations with the goal of providing an in-depth look at tough subjects and encouraging advocacy.