Caleb Anderson: Excellence or Equity

If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free

Sometimes the outworkings of an idea are best understood in light of a concrete example.  I am going to use recently proposed education changes to comment more widely on why the left's obsession with leveling the playing field is potentially dangerous.  

I am not saying that this example alone constitutes an existential danger, but I hope to demonstrate that the driving ideology is being applied across the board, that it is largely misunderstood, misrepresented, and thoroughly underestimated ... as such, it does indeed pose a considerable (and perhaps existential) threat.

When the last Labour government came to power it signaled its intentions to make some radical changes to the way education was delivered in New Zealand.  When details of the proposed reforms were released they sparked considerable controversy, so much so that the report was abandoned and the reforms, at least officially, were set aside.  

The principal driving ideas in the proposed reforms centred on three key assertions   ...

1.  That the primary goal of education was not, principally, to deliver high-quality learning opportunities but, instead, to deliver equitable outcomes.  Although they disingenuously implied that it was both, not one more, or less, than the other.

2.  That urgent reform of the education system, with equity in mind, was critical to the maintenance of social cohesion.

3.  That equity initiatives would inevitably lead to improved educational achievements for Maori and other disadvantaged students

As is often the case, "setting aside" the proposed reforms, did not mean "dispensed with" altogether.  Those pushing these reforms, primarily academic activists, simply went underground and worked on incremental changes at the coalface.

So, with the demise of the Education Reforms per se, this cause was far from abandoned. 

It has been subsequently re-asserted, among other things, that the end of academic (ability-based) streaming would be a critical step in the journey to more equitable learning outcomes.  Articles in support of this assertion were peppered with "the research shows ......" type statements.  These were endlessly scattered through publications, journals, professional development initiatives, teacher unions etc, and were generally well received. 

Many secondary schools have dispensed with streaming as a consequence and were lauded for having done so.

Unsurprisingly, Auckland University has recently set its eyes on primary and intermediate schools, and has embarked on research (largely, it seems, based on surveys answered by those willing to answer, and likely devised, and interpreted, by those keen on a particular outcome), that will no doubt confirm their a priori assumption that streaming exacerbates inequality in education and needs to be abandoned with urgency.  

We often act as if things were simpler than they generally are.  In truth, the causes of things are never univariate, and there are opportunity costs to every decision we make, the stakes can be high, and damage, once done, can be hard to unwind.  

So, underlying assumptions matter because they will determine what information we collect, and how we interpret, and apply, this information.

The following questions are, therefore, critical  ...

1.  How sure are we of our primary assumptions?

2.  How good is our research?

3.  Have we carefully considered the opportunity costs of dispensing with streaming?  Or put another way, might what we lose outweigh what we might gain?

I have commented before as follows ...

While it might well be argued that streaming contributes to differential educational outcomes, it is far from clear what the overall results of abolishing streaming would be for the wider system, and for educational achievement as a whole.  We also do not know how significant streaming is alongside a myriad of other factors influencing educational outcomes.  For example, in the United States, data seems to show that absent fathers are a much greater determinant of educational underachievement (and life success) than streaming, and it seems reasonable to assume that this may be the case in New Zealand also, and this is just to name one variable.  Correlation and causality are not the same thing. Because streaming exists alongside poor educational outcomes, does not make it the cause of these outcomes, much less the primary cause.  

...  That the motivation for the abandonment of streaming may be more philosophical than empirical is evident.  Differential grouping allows teachers to manage multiple groups of learners concurrently, ensuring that students get material and instruction commensurate with their ability or readiness.  Differentiated instruction was one of the reasons why New Zealand was once near the top of the OECD educationally, and why teachers from other countries came to study the New Zealand education system.  

...  I know of no multivariate, multidisciplinary and peer-reviewed research which would support such a move.  The fact that a growing number of schools are abandoning streaming and differentiated grouping, and are enjoying the experience, doesn't cut the evidential mustard.  That we can throw away a proven educational model with such abandon is a concern.

In reality, the left's obsession with eliminating difference is intrinsically flawed, it is intrinsically flawed because differences exist, and they exist everywhere, this part of what it is to be human, and is integral to the working of groups.  Some people are tall, and others not, some people are innovative, and others not, some have high IQ's, others do not, some are risk takers, others are not, some are motivated, and others are not.  Hierarchies of competence exist in every conceivable domain, this has always been the case, and will always be the case, no matter how much those inclined to do so attempt to equalize.  

The challenge is always to utilize differences for optimal benefit to the group, not to destroy them. The more accommodating these hierarchies are of differential abilities and aptitudes, unencumbered by enforced boundaries and artificial configurations, the better.  Not everyone can be at the top of a competency hierarchy, and it is better for some, and for the rest of us, that they are not.  

Not only are efforts to equalize outcomes (as opposed to opportunities) antithetical to the natural differences that exist in every domain of endeavour, they disincentivize opportunity, innovation, and excellence among those who have the potential to achieve at a high level and, in so doing, create opportunities for others. "Flattening the curve" usually erodes competitiveness, demotivates those inclined to lead, and sometimes disinclined to follow, and paradoxically produces poor quality outcomes across the board.  It deprives students (and others) of opportunities to know and experience, and sometimes discover for the first time, where their talents lie, how these might be sharpened, what skills they can bring to the benefit of others, and what the limit of possibility might be.

Soviet dissident, and writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, having written a private letter critical of Stalin's management of the Soviet war effort, was to spend a good portion of his life in the cruelest confinement in gulags and work camps.  Solzhenitsyn, who had a knack for capturing complex and far- reaching ideas within very brief statements, once commented concerning socialism as follows:

“Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.” 
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn knew the outworkings of socialism from personal experience ...  he had license to be somewhat emphatic.

The left's obsession with leveling the playing field (no matter where, when, or how), may be well meant (although sometimes it is clearly not), but it is always, ultimately, dangerous and destructive.  If freedom is the price we pay for equality, and equality is the price we pay for freedom,  we have a stark decision to make.

This is a highly relevant question with huge potential implications.   The decision we reach here would not only impact at the margins of the classroom, or of wider society, it impacts at every point in between.  Left-wing commentators, reflecting on the perceived failure of socialist policies never lament the policies, they never lament the deleterious impacts of the "ëqualize at all costs" policies,  their dogma does not allow for this.  They only ever lament not going harder, further or faster. 

We need to celebrate not crush, encourage, and not dissuade, those who by very dint of nature are positioned to excel ...  and thus we benefit society at large.  Potential needs to be free not only to be what it is, but what it could be, not constrained by mechanisms of myopic and misguided social engineering.

Educational achievement is a significant contributor to GDP, this is well established.  While equalizing educational outcomes might sound appealing, in truth, when at the expense of excellence, which it nearly always is, it is anything but.  While its end goal is to reduce inherent disparity, its actual end result will be to deprive young people of choice, of opportunities to push educational boundaries, of the company of the like-minded, of incentives to be successful, and will make us all poorer as a result.  

The elimination of streaming, and the rationale behind it, the obsessive pursuit of equality at any cost, is just one thread in a much bigger tapestry.  

But it is an important thread never-the-less.

So, do we sacrifice freedom on the altar of equity, or equity on the altar of freedom?  

If it must be one, it should undoubtedly be the latter, because if it is the former we will, eventually, have neither.

Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.