While still sitting on $200 million of unspent Covid relief funds and struggling from devastating learning loss among students, the Wake County Board of Education has decided to focus on “equity-focused practices.”
Such practices would include:
- More “diversity” of sources for instructional materials
- More “diversity” in hiring of school personnel
- Eliminating practices that lead to unequal outcomes between socio-economic groups
Equity as a goal, as I wrote previously, requires the unequal treatment of people. Some must receive privileged treatment, while others are punished or intentionally denied opportunity.
Equity as a goal requires the unequal treatment of people. Some must receive privileged treatment, while others are punished or intentionally denied opportunity.
Outcomes among racial, ethnic, and gender groups should be equalized, according to advocates of equity.
But this denies the very diverse nature inherent in humanity. As Friedrich Hayek wrote, “The boundless variety of human nature — the wide range of differences in individual capacity and potentialities — is one of the most distinctive facts about the human species.”
Because of this uniqueness among humans, unequal outcomes is a given. The only way to equalize outcomes is to treat people differently.
Such realities highlight the bitter irony and hypocrisy of those demanding we “embrace diversity” who nevertheless ignore human diversity that will naturally result in unequal outcomes. Instead, they offer up unfair and unequal treatment in pursuit of their goal.
Moreover, pursuing equity doesn’t prop up the lowest achievers, raising them up to equal standards as the highest achievers. Instead, equity is most readily achieved by punishing or otherwise handicapping the highest achievers to bring everyone down to the lowest level.
Students, and as a result, society, become dumbed down.