"Equity in Education" Makes Cookie-Cutter Kids

The following is a transcript of the interview segment featured in the video embedded above. State representative Jeremy Munson chats with Albertville city councilmember Walter Hudson about the push toward "equity" in education, and the pitfall it presents to higher performing students whose success threatens arbitrary statistical goals.

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State Representative Jeremey Munson:

Walter, I want to thank you for joining me on the show again this week.

We're going to talk about education first, and I'd like you to level set for our listeners. Give a status of what the education in the public schools are like in your district. You live in Saint Michael-Albertville school district, which is an exurb of Minneapolis. I’d like you to kind of talk about this push for racial equity and education equity and what it means for you and your family.

Albertville City Councilmember Walter Hudson:

Yeah, in my neck of the woods - I live in Albertville and our school district is the Saint Michael-Albertville school district. We do a fantastic job of teaching our kids. I mean, for a public school district, we're right up there on the top of the list in terms of performance.

So naturally, according to the left equity paradigm, we must be punished. Because that's how equity works.

When you hear the word equity, know that what they mean is - the better you do, the more you're punished. And I do mean punished. I don't just mean the less you get. I mean... the purpose in you getting less is so that your performance equalizes with the people who are doing worse than you.

The stated objective of our racial equity policy in Saint Michael-Albertville is to "eliminate race as a predictor of outcomes,” which sounds fantastic. Of course, I want people to perform well regardless of their racial identity.

But when you set that as your policy goal, that's an arbitrary statistical bullseye that you put up on the wall for yourself. And so once you've set that as the goal, then everything else has to fall in line with that goal. It doesn't matter how you get there. You just need to get there so that you can pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for having achieved it.

But when you think about what it takes to equalize outcomes amongst an arbitrarily identified group of students, you're not going to do it by bringing the people who are falling behind up to the level of the highest performers. The easiest way to do it is going to be to cap the potential of the highest performers. And to have this kind of lowest common denominator be the new A+. And we've seen that play out in other districts where this has been applied, where it's been tried.

And here's the great irony. For as long as I've lived in this community, every election cycle, people, whether they're running for school board or city council, or county commission or whatever the case may be, all of them touch on the idea of state funding for education. And they talk about the fact that Saint Michael-Albertville is almost dead last, if not - I believe we actually are dead last in the state in terms of the per pupil funding we get from the state because of this equity nonsense. And they'll say, well, something needs to be done. We need to change the state funding formula. Vote for me and blah blah blah. Well, we voted for a lot of people over a lot of years, and nothing's changed. And the reason why it hasn't changed is because nobody is going after the moral root of the policy, the moral root of the policy is this equity nonsense. It's the idea that in order to bring people up, we have to cut people down. Your district’s doing well, so you get less money. And until we address that immorality head on and call that out for what it is - an evil policy that needs to be opposed – we’re not going to see changes to the state funding formula, because anybody who comes from our community down here to Saint Paul asking - with their hat out - you know, asking for extra cash is going to be told well you guys don't need it. You're doing fine. You're the highest performing district in the state or amongst the highest. Why should we give you more money?

And if you don't have an answer to that question, which is because equality under the law is a constitutional guarantee, because it is immoral to deprive people of the funding they are owed as taxpayers and residents and children for happening to live in a particular area. It's immoral to deprive them because you think they shouldn't do as well as they are doing. If that's not our answer, we're never going to see any change to the policy.

Munson:

You're absolutely right. And there are so many people out there that hear equity, or social equity, or social justice, and they believe it's about equal opportunity. And the change from opportunity to equity - - which is guaranteeing equal outcomes – is completely different.

Hudson:

Yep.

Munson:

It is absolutely.

When I was raised - I'm about 45, and when I was raised in the 1980s, it was all about - don't identify race, just forget about. It doesn't matter. Don't just - you should not see color. And that's how I was raised, to just accept people for who they are, and you don't even need to talk about it.

And it got to be so bad that when, in the 90s, I was working at the Mall of America. And somebody my age came up to buy something at the store and I said, well, who are you working with? Because we got commission. And they say, “Oh, oh, he was a gentleman. He's about this tall. He had dark really curly hair. [They’re saying everything but it’s a black guy.] … People [then] try so hard not to see race. Nowadays it is all about race. It's all about identifying who you are.

So much so, I think that the schools are really trying to separate people and tell white people, “your friends are you racist,” and then tell their black friends that, “you don't know this, but your white friends are racist” and they're trying to separate people.

Hudson:

[Laughter] Right, “you don't know this, but” yes, exactly.

Munson:

Exactly. So, I have grave concerns around that. I mean, Minnesota has thrown more and more money at schools than most states ... I believe the numbers came out last year that Minnesota was one of the worst, had the worst racial disparity in the country. So more money isn't the answer.

And again, when I was raised in Brainerd in this small town in northern Minnesota, central Minnesota, and I was - they went through and they tested all these kids in preschool for IQ. And they took the top 1% of kids in the whole school district and put them in one class altogether. They wanted to have this, this unique class of kids - 18 kids - that they would bring through the system separate from everybody else. And so I was in this class and we had different grading. It kind of taught to the top, you know, to like let you see what happens. And that program lasted eight years, and they did away with it, because all the other parents got mad because there was inequity, right?

Hudson:

Right?

Munson:

Everybody had the same opportunity to go in the program, right? But we didn't have the same outcome. So parents got mad. They shut the program down.

Hudson:

Yeah yeah, I mean - and that's where we're headed if we don't put a quash on it now.

Now, what the school district will tell you, if you go to your district and you inquire about this, and you discover their equity policy, which I guarantee you they have - they will say, well, we have to do it because it's a state mandate. And it's true. It is a state mandate. You do have to have an equity policy.

What I'm suggesting is. I mean, basically don't do it, but say you're doing it. Have an equity policy that does nothing. Make it impotent. And if somebody comes along and calls you on it, say yeah, we're not doing that here and this is why - it is deeply immoral, impractical and it runs counter to what it is that we're trying to achieve.

In education, the mission of education is to bring children up to a point where they can negotiate reality where they can rationally form their own values, and then effectively pursue them. They can't do that if they don't first acknowledge reality. And one of the unavoidable immutable characteristics of human nature is difference amongst individuals. That does translate to statistical disparities amongst groups.

When you sort them out arbitrarily, yes, you're going to find that this group does better than that group in this area. And this one does worse than that one and the other. But to take those statistical results and then make these broad, sweeping judgments of white supremacy and racism and bias – and ‘-ist’ this and ‘-phobe’ that – is not only fallacious, it leads to practically immoral policies that throttle - literally throttle and retard the capacity of students to fulfill their potential, in order to make you feel better about a number on a report. It's so absurd and so deeply immoral. The case against this just flows out of the mind and heart once you understand what's going on and what's fueling it. I don't think it should be difficult for us to turn this around if we inform people as to what's going on. I don't think people realize the extent to which their children are being sacrificed on the altar of this wokeness that's rising in the culture.

Munson:

Well, I think that the answer to identifying the problems are about not looking at race, but looking at economic status, economic level of people and whether or not someone has [a] two parent household or an engaged parent. We have these charter schools that have great - that are great opportunities, especially in bad areas of the state. But unless the parent gives a damn, the kid - the kid suffers.

Yeah ... we should be... documenting parental involvement and income.

Hudson:

Yes.

Munson:

You know income level... It's there's a big disparity between children of low economic status and wealthy, you know, right? And that is irregardless of race.

It has to do with economic status and we need to create more opportunities to lift people up and give them - I mean, America is land of opportunity. And we need to help kids that come from poor economic families to focus on the issues that we can help them...

My kids have a great understanding of finance, but people from poor economic families need help with finance. They need help to better understand how to manage money or the value of money ... what money even is. And that will help them. That will benefit them, and I think... Maybe we'll find that people of lower economic status tend to be higher minorities. That's something you can identify. But we should be really focusing on people of low economic status versus race.

Hudson:

I'll tell you what makes it personal for me.

I've got a 7-year-old who is in first grade. He's he loves to go outside and play with the kids in the neighborhood. I'm half black, so he's a quarter. There's a girl across the street who I believe is a Somali immigrant, and one of his best friends. There's a boy down the block who's as white as they come.

The three of them are like a little trinity of terror, running up and down the block, and they have a good time and, you know. And they have their drama in all this.

They're growing up together, not thinking one moment about each other skin color at all. They're going to go to school, the school that my tax dollars pay for. And they're going to be taught that, as you put it, Jeremy, “you didn't know this, but - she's actually being oppressed by him, and you're partially to blame.”

I will move heaven and earth to prevent that from happening, because that is evil. That is child abuse, child abuse funded by my property taxes.

It will not happen in Saint Michael Albertville and it should not happen in the state of Minnesota.