equity provides a powerful reason for why educators personalize learning for students

providing every student with the support they need to be successful with grade-level content turns equity into a powerful purpose for personalizing learning. that purpose empowers the instructional tactics and classroom models teachers use to more personalize learning for students. if equity is the driving purpose, then a teacher may opt not to use a flipped classroom model because they recognize that all students cannot yet access digital information at home. the most powerful resource a teacher has is their time. equity as a purpose calls on educators to distribute their time based on student need. small group instruction becomes more than a tactic; it is the way teachers equitably distribute their time, by providing more individual support to the students who need it the most. 

equity is not an inherent part of personalized learning.

personalized learning and equity are not the same thing. while personalized learning can be a powerful tool when working for educational equity, equity is not an inherent part of personalized learning. simply using a station-rotation model will not automatically lead to more equitable outcomes for students. if teachers better meet the needs of their highest-performing students without spending more time supporting their lowest-performing students, then schools increase the risk that the opportunity gap widens. when equity is the reason for personalized learning and informs a teacher’s classroom practices, that risk not only diminishes but we also create an opportunity to better support the success of all students.

there are systems that were designed to be inequitable; these can and must be redesigned.

gaps in opportunity and learning are the result of systems that were designed to be inequitable. there are clear examples of systems that were designed to be inequitable from recent history, such as redlining, school segregation, and poll taxes. these systems were designed to provide less opportunity to and disempower communities of color, particularly black communities. while it is easy to point to historical examples, it is harder to look critically at those systems in place today. it requires even more energy to redesign those systems, often because we are a part of them. and educational equity will not be achieved if we focus solely on the academic supports we provide students. a singular focus on the extra support schools provide certain students unfairly implies there is something wrong with them. it suggests that the only problem to solve is the “student problem” rather than the system that failed to support them. equity requires educators to put more effort into redesigning the systems that were designed to the advantage of the dominant white culture. this means taking a hard look at policies such as grading, classroom management, discipline, curriculum, and staffing, just to name a few.