Strategic Plan and “Equity Policy,” Part 2

This article reports on the development of a new Strategic Plan for Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), and the role of “equity” in it.  A subsequent article will discuss FCPS’s simultaneous development of a separate but related initiative, the “Equity Policy.”

Development of the Strategic Plan

The Superintendent of FCPS initiated a planning process in September 2022 for a new multi-year strategic plan, with the objective of having it finalized and approved by the School Board before the end of the current school year.  The intent is to establish goals in the areas of student learning, family/community engagement, professional and staff development, and administrative/operational effectiveness, together with benchmarks for measuring progress toward meeting the goals.

Unlike many of FCPS’s initiatives, the development process has been inclusive and collaborative.  Numerous avenues have been created for input from all segments of the community, including an Instructional Focus Team (teachers, administrators, etc.), a Student Voice team (focus group sessions, an on-line student survey, principal-led conversations with students), Faith Community Feedback Sessions, Community Forums, and several all-day meetings of a 140-member Core Planning Team (which includes teachers, administrators, high school students, representatives of advocacy organizations, faith community leaders, and other community members).  Detailed data has been distributed and commented on.  The School Board has held all-day work sessions to review and weigh in on the process, and updates have been provided by the Superintendent at every meeting of the Board.  Most of the planning materials are readily available on the FCPS website.

The Superintendent’s team has not yet published a draft of the strategic plan, and the inclusive process does not ensure that the plan will be a good one, but no one will be able to claim that it was secretly developed in a back room.

Role of “Equity” in the Strategic Plan

The strategic planning process was billed at the outset as a “Equity-Centered Strategic Plan.” The data presented to the various teams has focused principally on the learning gaps of some racial/ethnic groups, English language learners, students with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged students.  The overall emphasis of the new plan, it seems, will be to adopt measures designed to improve the overall performance of these groups.

The choice of “equity” as the key term in the title of the plan was unfortunate, because the word means different things to different people, and has ideological implications  To those who believe that all differences in outcomes are attributable to injustices, “equity” requires doing whatever is necessary to achieve equal outcomes for all, including holding back faster learners and changing grading systems to produce artificial equality, as well as injecting ideology about race into the curricula (e.g., “systemic racism,” “privilege,” etc.).  To others, “equity” simply means providing additional resources to students who need additional help.  Thus, if “equity” is a key goal, the meaning of the term must be clearly understood by all.

Materials prepared by the Superintendent’s outside consultant, Performance Fact, Inc. haven’t helped.  One slide used in presentations describes “equity” as “access to resources and opportunities that guarantee fair, just and affirming experiences and produce equal outcomes for every student, without exception.”  Other slides refer to “outcome equity,” again suggesting that any differences in educational attainment are “inequitable.”  And another slide says that inadequate teaching and leadership practices are the principal cause of the learning gaps of some identity groups.  These materials have caused controversy that could have been avoided.

Perhaps because of this controversy, the Superintendent’s team stopped putting the label “Equity-Centered Strategic Planning” on its materials in early February, and replaced it with the title “Student-Centered Strategic Planning.”  But that didn’t sit well with some of the “equity” warriors on the School Board, led by member Ricardy Anderson, who insisted that “equity” be featured.  So the caption of the planning materials was changed again.  The label “Excellence, Equity and Opportunity” is now being used on the planning materials.

“Equity” hasn’t yet been given a precise definition.  I emphasize “hasn’t yet,” because clarity is essential for the strategic plan to do what we’ve been told it will do, namely, to establish (i) goals, (ii) the steps that will be taken to attain the goals, and (iii) the criteria that will be used to measure progress.  Without clarity, a strategic plan based on “equity” will only exacerbate the controversies that now engulf our school system.

Fortunately, the Superintendent’s planning team does not seem to be pursuing an “equal outcomes for all” goal.  They seem to recognize that that objective is unattainable, because many of the factors that influence learning outcomes are beyond the control of our schools.  The emphasis in the planning process has generally been on “removing barriers” where they exist and “providing opportunities” where they are now lacking.  Examples might include providing extra instructional help for students who need it, offering more advanced courses in schools where they aren’t now offered, etc.

It is also somewhat reassuring that FCPS is distributing a brochure in community forums and on its website that states:  “Equity means that everyone has access to the same opportunities and that individual circumstances do not hold anyone back from reaching their full, unique and limitless potential.”  If “equity” is limited to this meaning, an “equity-based” strategic plan might be widely embraced.

But here’s the problem:  As outlined in the last post on this site, a separate FCPS team, working on its own track and responsive to a narrower constituency, is developing a so-called “Equity Policy.”  That team has adopted a definition of “equity” that’s very different than the one described above.   It is broad, vague and highly ideological.  If adopted, it will undermine all the good work that’s been done to build broad consensus around a new strategic plan.

The next article on this site will take a close look at the process and status of developing an “Equity Policy.”

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