Marisa Del Pino

Humanities and English Teacher and Equity & Justice Initiative Co-Founder, Cleveland Humanities Magnet High School (2023)

Los Angeles Unified School District

How do you define educational equity?

I can’t think about educational equity without considering the concept of  “numbers”.  Educational equity is the ability to look at different groups of students and recognize their experiences, and the access to resources, support services, and curriculum that best fits their needs.  Educational equity is not giving all students the same “things”, but rather giving different students different “things” based on their needs.  If one follows this definition this would mean that those students with the least amount of resources in their homes and communities should have the most amount of resources in their schools.  As a result of this, I think educational equity also involves being visionary and including our students in this work.  We have to be able to consider and think about the myriad of possibilities for how things can be different for our students, for us, for our society.  Ultimately, if  things are going to be different, educational equity should exist inside of classrooms and extend beyond the four walls and happen at the institutional level as well.