Successful Education Equity Policies and Community Suggestions

Examples of successful education equity policies

News Asked Aug 17, 2026

✓ Top answer Community-sourced, written up by For Users

Successful Education Equity Policies and Community Suggestions

Users suggest that successful education equity policies should focus on providing targeted resources rather than enforcing equal outcomes. Many feel that policies intended to promote equity sometimes backfire or are misapplied, leading to unintended negative consequences.

Effective practices include creating individualized learning plans for students who are behind and addressing foundational skills early. Users also suggest that providing students with the specific resources they need to succeed is more effective than identical treatment.

Broader societal issues like socioeconomic status often drive educational inequities, meaning school policies alone cannot fix deeper problems. Some users note that many inequities in education are a symptom of these broader issues rather than a cause.

Suggested practices

Targeted support and resources Provide students with specific resources they need to succeed rather than identical treatment.
Individualized learning plans Direct teacher support for students who are significantly behind to target individual areas of growth.
Addressing foundational skills Hold students back in elementary school if they haven't mastered basic skills to provide a stronger foundation.
Addressing behavioral issues Get the 1% of students who cause serious problems under control to keep public schools functioning.

Successful Education Equity Policies and Community Suggestions — infographic

Challenges in Defining and Implementing Equity

Misinterpretation of Equity: Some Users argue that policies often confuse "equity" with "equality of outcome," leading to attempts to level down rather than lift up. "Equity is a fool's errand because it assumes equal outcomes."

Policies that Lower Standards: A common critique is that some equity policies, like equity-based grading (no late penalties, unlimited retests, 50% minimums), can lower academic standards and inflate grades without genuinely improving learning. "The effect of these policies is to lower standards and inflate grades."

Elimination of Advanced Programs: Efforts to create equity have sometimes led to the removal of honors or advanced courses, which can be detrimental to high-achieving students and remove opportunities. "The second is the not as widespread but still fairly common practice of eliminating honors classes because not enough [demographic X, Y or Z] students take them."

Perceived Negative Outcomes of Certain Equity Policies

Driving Away Engaged Families: When public schools implement policies perceived as lowering standards or failing to address significant behavioral issues, families with means often seek alternatives like private schools or homeschooling. "If we want public school to function, we need to get the 1% of students who cause serious problems under control."

Disadvantaging Diverse Learners: Some teachers report that "full inclusion" models, while intended for equity, can sometimes place students with severe disabilities in general education settings without adequate support, negatively impacting both the included students and the general student body. "I work in special education and this is my first year doing full inclusion. I hate to say it but Im watching them mainstream kids who don't belong in gen Ed."

Focus on Symptoms, Not Root Causes: Users suggest that many educational inequities are symptoms of broader societal issues like socioeconomic status, and school-based equity policies alone cannot fix these deeper problems. "Educators and education research have long expressed that many inequities in education are a symptom, not a cause."

Suggestions for Effective Equity Practices

Targeted Support and Resources: Equity should involve providing students with the specific resources they need to succeed, not necessarily identical treatment. "Equity is giving all students equal access to all the resources they need for success."

Individualized Learning Plans: For students who are significantly behind, individualized learning plans with direct teacher support could be more effective than simply pushing them through the system. "The real solution is putting kids that are behind on individual learning plans that involve a teacher directly working with the kids to target their individual areas of growth while providing age and skill appropriate education."

Addressing Foundational Skills: Holding students back in elementary school if they haven't mastered basic skills could provide a stronger foundation for future learning. "We need to hold students back. Especially in elementary school because if they’re not getting the basics, then they certainly won’t get the basics in high school."

Do you think these perceived negative outcomes outweigh the potential benefits of some equity policies?

Bottom line

Users offer mixed perspectives on successful education equity policies, often highlighting challenges in implementation and defining equity itself. Many feel that policies intended to promote equity sometimes backfire or are misapplied, leading to unintended negative consequences.

Community answers 26

What others in the community said:

We need to hold students back. Especially in elementary school because if they’re not getting the basics, then they certainly won’t get the basics in high school.

I was held back in 1st grade. I was an ESL student. It was the best decision anyone ever made for me. It gave me an extra year to catch up and be on grade level. I went to college. Got a masters.

We act like this is no longer an option when some kids just need an extra year to catch up.

I teach newcomers and I have one eighth grader who has absolutely REFUSED to engage with anything in class. He tries to use the excuse over and over that he can’t learn English because he doesn’t already know English which is a ridiculous claim that kids normally only use on me once but he won’t even copy down stuff off the board, won’t click play on Edpuzzles, etc. I tried reaching out to everyone I could with no help. He has an F in all of his classes. He will just go along merrily to high school where I am sure they will wonder why no one has bothered to teach him English yet, bleh. It’s like what are we doing here? What’s the point?

I keep saying that our entire board sends their kid to the private school where none of their policies are followed. They KNOW it doesn't work and that's the point.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is probably the best encapsulation of implementation of equity laws in education.

TRACK 'EM.

1) Competitive college track. AP. Honors. High expectations. Put the damned phone away.

2) state college / community college. Access to AP/Honors if they demonstrate competency.

3) trade school / military / community college.

4) certificate of completion (no diploma).

Rich people went to charters, private schools, or suburbs way before IEPs, PBIS, equity eduation, etc.

I am middle class. Grew up middle class. I see the dire state of public education and chose not to enroll my child in his neighborhood school.

I wish schools were better. I'll vote to fund them. I'll support the unions. But I can't send my kid to that right now.

When people ask me about education, I tell them education isn’t failing. The parents are.

89% upvoted

Recently my school became a 4-star school on our report card! Yay! (whatever that means, and does anyone actually care?) From the conversations we've had at various leadership meetings, essentially the metric that moved over the past couple of years was "gap closing", and specifically it was a piece that the state does in evaluating "equity" and one of the data points is how many [insert whatever nich group you want to look at] is having access to classes.

On paper it looks like students are being excluded from certain classes. On paper when you have a "teacher recommendation" and/or a prior grade requirement (say nothing lower than a C+ ...) to take a course, it is considered "exclusion" under the state rubric. While I can agree that "teacher recommendation" is not necessarily valid and potentially susceptible to unintentional bias, I cannot agree that achievement in certain classes as a baseline gateway into a course is exclusionary, and I think it's bad for kids.

Essentially what this has created is we've gotten rid of "levels" courses. While we still have "Honors" (because there was essentially a riot of parents), anyone can sign up for it at anytime. In chemistry however we used to have two levels of chem; a College-Prep (Pre-AP essentially without the name) and a regular conceptual chem. The major difference was that CP-Chem was geared towards students who were preparing for science in college, and planning on taking AP-Environmental or AP-Chemistry or AP-Bio; where as Conceptual Chem was geared towards those who struggled more in math, but made chemistry accessible. Naturally CP-Chem came with a math requirement of having completed a certain math course with a C or better, which we later lowered to just having completed the math course in general. Whereas Conceptual Chem had no math requirement.

To meet the standard of the state "equitability" rubric, Conceptual chem was eliminated. The philosophy was all kids should be allowed to "try their luck" at a more difficult course. As a department, the "Chemistry" course is simply that College-Prep chemistry course because we would be negligent not to be preparing students for those capstone courses.

Guess whose being left behind? The conceptual kids. As I sit here grading their tests, I can clearly identify who my Conceptual Chem kids where and who my CP-Chem kids are. And it's not because they are lesser people, the math skills just aren't there. The state says this is "equitable" but is it? Is this actually equity? Because now these kids who would have thrived in a different style class, where they had the ability to access a difficult subject at their level of current academic exposure, are now just being left in the dust. And there is absolutely a level of defeatism and learned helplessness (yes, this is a psychologically observable thing) that starts to happen where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But the state considers this "equitable" and "gap closing". Is it? Is it actually? Because it just looks like it is on paper.

84% upvoted

This post primarily concerns the utilization and creation of equitable policies made with poor research. I've been seeing a lot of posts about it lately and I kind of just need to vent.

I am not inherently against equitable policies, however, the amount of material provided to justify them is largely anecdotal. The overuse of anecdotal evidence to justify various poor policies in education is far-reaching and about half the posts on this subreddit are based around poor admin policies that have resulted from such "research". Whenever one of these topics came up during professional development or my teacher education, I felt like I was being gaslit, as there is no way an idea so profoundly stupid was not only thought up but put into practice.

Here are some examples

AA students get away with saying the N-word constantly because of "culture", but other students are not allowed to say slurs related to their demographics. Ae Gay kids can't call each other the Fa word. Girls can't call each other the B word. It really should be none at all.
AA students are allowed to wear durags because it is "as culturally significant as a turban or a yamaka". (No, no they are not.)
Female students should be allowed to go to the bathroom whenever they want due to menstrual cycles. (I'm okay with this one, it just gets abused and there isn't anything we can do about it.)
Supports for ELL and SPED students don't count as support if I do them for all students. "That's equality, not equity".
AA students are more likely to disrupt class because of "culture" and you shouldn't intrude because students of color are disproportionately more likely to be reprimanded.
ELL and SPED students can not receive below 50% on any assignment, even those that have not been turned in.
All students should be allowed to eat food (99% of the time it is hot chips) during class because they may not have eaten at home. (Once again, I'm okay with this one, but it gets abused.)
Student behavior is being blamed on everyone but the students. (The amount of felonies I have seen.)

I dealt with both of these often when I was doing my student teaching and first year, and honestly, this is one of the major reasons I moved to the private sector. My new school is much more intelligent with how we implement our policies and it just comes down to focusing on student needs rather than lumping them into groups. I'm not against equity, but I am against these idiotic policies made by people who don't actually work at the schools.

68% upvoted

I would consider myself fairly progressive but I find some education policies to be downright unfair. For the sake of staying anonymous, let me present a made up condition.

100 people have $1.00.

Person A has only $0.50.

In an effort to make person A not stand out, everyone must then give up some money so everyone has $0.50 like person A.

That's what I'm dealing with and I find it to be absolutely unfair. In order to make 1 person not stand out, everyone else loses something that they personally have a stake in. I can't get into specifics but this involves some essence of time and money that they're giving up.

Thinking about it, this kind of sums up education in a nutshell. A lot of times policies are created for a handful of kids with a majority taking a backseat to the repercussions. I find it to be the easy way out; a half ass approach to a complicated problem.

Equity is a fool's errand because it assumes equal outcomes.

Equality of access should be the baseline.

Then, as OP stated, making sure each student has a path available that maximizes their potential.

The world needs ditch diggers just as much as doctors and programmers. That is not a knock against ditch diggers.

81% upvoted

Obviously school-to-school differences have their explanations, however one San Diego* school has taken on making each classroom more equitable by cutting advanced, honors and gifted education courses

Curious as to everyone's thoughts on this?

1) is this a valid achievable goal?

2) is this a way to accomplish it?

3) is this a good way to accomplish this?

75% upvoted

I'm a member of my school's Equity Leadership Team, and I've volunteered to present on "10 practical ways to improve the equity of your classroom". Do you have any practical ideas for the presentation? Specifically, I'm looking for ideas to help ethnic minorities, students in poverty, LGBTQ students, and students with difficult unique home situations at a public high school. Here's a few of my ideas:

1) Posters and videos featuring ethnic minorities

2) Discuss holidays and cultures other than your own

3) Don't require students to stay after school, since many can't get ride home without the bus.

4) Grade understanding rather than assignments

5) Create a seating chart where there's more students in the front row (like the horseshoe or double horseshoe)

6) Hire more minorities

I appreciate your help coming up with ideas! This could really help my colleagues.

100% upvoted

I guess the Department of Education may be different now but I wonder how people work there and impact education policy issues or how you can even become the Secretary of Education

I have been a teacher and counselor across K-12 and higher ed for 20 years but how do I work at a higher or broader level

Do I need a PhD?

Do I need to run for some local office on an education platform and become a politician

Do I need to actually be some Dean/VP and actually be a business manager who just happens to work in an education organization

100% upvoted

My Title I middle school has started discussing how to make our school more equitable. Part of this is going to be looking at other schools'/districts' policies to compare and find how we can make ours better. Our student body is approximately 65% white, 16% Black/two or more races, and 16% Hispanic/Latino.

Does anyone know of a school or district that I should look at their policies to see an example of how we can be more equitable?

100% upvoted

So, I am a trainee getting trained on technical and trade skill teaching and assessing with 4 years of teaching experience in this teaching profession; going through the Competency Based Learning Materials of Promoting Inclusivity in a Technical Education. While reading, I came across this chapter which felt very counter-intuitive to me.

According to the CBLM,
To enhance equity

we need to implement policies for fee reduction

To enhance access
we need ensure the selection criteria do not discriminate against learners

To me it seems totally the opposite in reality. To enhance equity should we not ensure that selection criteria is not discriminatory and to enhance access should we not reduce fee so that more people can get trained?

Am I misinterpreting the author? Or is it something else?

leading to attempts to level down rather than lift up.

The effect of these policies is to lower standards and inflate grades.

The second is the not as widespread but still fairly common practice of eliminating honors classes because not enough [demographic X, Y or Z] students take them.

If we want public school to function, we need to get the 1% of students who cause serious problems under control.

I work in special education and this is my first year doing full inclusion. I hate to say it but Im watching them mainstream kids who don't belong in gen Ed.

Educators and education research have long expressed that many inequities in education are a symptom, not a cause.

Equity is giving all students equal access to all the resources they need for success.

- Addressing Foundational Skills: Holding students back in elementary school if they haven't mastered basic skills could provide a stronger foundation for future learning.