Equity Week: The Ladder of Educational Opportunity

“We have proclaimed our faith in education as a means of equalizing the conditions of men. But there is grave danger that our present policy will make it an instrument for creating the very inequalities it was designed to prevent. If the ladder of educational opportunity rises high at the doors of some youth and scarcely rises at all at the doors of others, while at the same time formal education is made a prerequisite to occupational and social advance, then education may become the means, not of eliminating race and class distinctions, but of deepening and solidifying them.”  –Report of the Truman Commission on Higher Education, 1947

Equal opportunity is a core American value that rests on the idea of a level playing field for all, regardless of social or economic position. But when the practices and policies of a society offer advantages to some and create disadvantages for others, the playing field is anything but level. These structural inequities are manifested at community colleges as achievement gaps, when certain groups of students are less successful. By making equity an institutional priority, community colleges can work to close these gaps.

Achieving the Dream’s A Tale of Two Students: Equal Treatment is Not Enough explains the difference between equal and equitable treatment: “When patients arrive in an emergency room, they go through the triage process, which sorts them out according to the urgency of their conditions. Some receive care before others. This is not equal treatment, but it is equitable treatment. Resources are allocated according to need so as many as possible are likely to survive their illness or accident. Few would argue that everyone should be treated the same in an emergency room.”

Community colleges play a vital role in preserving educational and economic opportunity for many Americans, especially low-income students and students of color. Since so many students begin postsecondary education unprepared for college-level work, developmental education is an essential rung on the ladder of educational opportunity. Without it, our system would be inaccessible for a large portion of students. Supporting programmatic and policy innovations can help us ensure that developmental education programs accomplish what they are intended to do: help students, regardless of background and level of preparation, obtain a credential or degree and put them on the path to economic stability.

This week on Accelerating Achievement, we’re bringing you daily posts from a few practitioners who work at the intersection of equity and postsecondary completion.

Struggling to address these issues at your college? Check out Achieving the Dream’s Equity Resource Center. Want to know more about how the vision of the Truman Commission steered the American education system over the last half century? The Community College Research Center wrote the book on it.

Alyson Zandt is a Program Associate at MDC.