Abandoning the piecemeal approach to meeting the needs of targeted students, we can restructure our schools to make them places of excellent learning opportunity for all.

Incorporating the following ten principles permits schools to achieve equity in excellence as an integral element of their structure:

1. School governance and administration are committed to the integration of equity and excellence. All decision-making considers the potential Impact on the learning opportunities of all student groups. Publicizing disaggregated school data regularly permits comparative monitoring and evaluation of learning opportunities and outcomes by race, national origin, language background, gender, disability and soclo-economic status.

2. Every school program is accessible to any student who can benefit from participation and is not based on race, national origin, gender, disability or socio-economic status. All students have equal opportunities to make informed choices about program entry and to prepare adequately for program participation. Schools and feeder schools meet their shared responsibility to plan for and to prepare students to participate in challenging classes.

3. All students attend school in a climate of respect, trust and regard that is safe and free from discrimination, bias and harassment. Curriculum content, instructional materials and teaching methods acknowledge and value all students cultures and languages.

4. The school has resources adequate to provide all its students with meaningful opportunities to meet the highest learning standards established by the school its district and its state. The resources provide for a satisfactory physical plant and match the needs of the students. All students have equal access to learning equipment and technology.

5. The curriculum provides a progressive sequence of interdisciplinary, multicultural content aligned with the highest district, state and national content standards. It is active, cumulative and inclusive of all cultures and both genders; it reaches beyond understanding content to the development of skills for evaluating and using Information; It includes exposure, instruction and experience in the fine and practical arts of diverse cultures.

6. The school involves all students in a variety of active, student-centered instructional methods. Instruction fosters independent and cooperative learning, mastery of learning skills, higher order thinking and second languages; it recognizes and responds to variety in learning styles, including those which may reflect culture and gender.

7. The school assesses student learning on a frequent and continuing basis for the primary purpose of improving teaching and learning. Assessments are aligned with learning opportunities, are conducted in a variety of formats, involve the student in self-appraisal, reflect understanding of multiple domains of intelligence and academic learning, and have equal consequences for all students assessed.

8. The school provides a variety of co-curricular and enrichment activities to meet the academic, vocational and personal interests and needs of all students. It actively encourages the participation of all students and all groups of students and is active in identifying and removing barriers to students involvement.

9. The school makes effective partners of the parents of all student groups. It informs parents of education rights, student progress and options; consults them on policy matters; recruits them as cultural and local-history resources; welcomes them as program volunteers; and consistently involves them in short- and long-range school-wide planning and Implementation.
10. The school is an important link in a school-community network that supports a safe, caring environment of continuing and stimulating experience for children. It provides early educational services; provides or collaborates with daycare programs; provides parenting programs for community adults; and it collaborates with community agencies and groups through referrals for health, social, recreational and cultural programs and services.

-- excerpted from Educate America: A Call For Equity in School Reform (1994), published by the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, Inc.

Return to the MAEC Homepage