What can we learn from the TDSB admission error?
5 min read · April 28, 2023
New Power Labs
TL;DR - diversity initiatives that fail can teach us important lessons about mainstreaming these efforts for greater success, and remind us that one-and-done solutions won’t get us where we aim to go.
Earlier last month, the Toronto District School Board drew unexpected criticism while attempting to increase equity and diversity in the application process for spots within 17 alternative elementary schools.
TDSB’s randomized lottery system was designed to prioritize Indigenous students and siblings of current students. Second in priority were randomly selected students from underrepresented communities; 25% of spots would go to Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latinx, 2SLGBTQIA+ students and students with disabilities. In the third round, remaining spots would be randomly distributed to all applicants.
There were 1,285 applications for 458 available spaces in 17 different schools, so some disappointment was to be expected. What happened as the selection process rolled out is a useful case study for how we allocate capital to underfunded communities.
Due to an administrative error, the students from underrepresented communities who were pulled into the second priority lottery but not selected did not get considered in the third pool. That is, kids who self-identified as people of colour, queer, or having a disability were competing amongst themselves for a limited number of classroom seats and then excluded from access to the larger pool — up to 75% of the spots.
While the TDSB has acknowledged the error, the lottery will not be redone — a decision that has prompted legal action from some of the parents of students impacted.
While recognizing the inherent challenge of equity work, we might applaud the administration for the good intention, even though the outcome didn’t pan out. But we see two takeaways relevant to the current state of capital flows:
We may be (unintentionally) excluding diverse communities from the majority of our portfolio, making the same mistake as the TDSB. In funding and investing, we often bookmark a percentage of our investment portfolio to underfunded communities or diversity initiatives with good intention. In doing so, we may overlook how principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion show up, if at all, within the remaining, larger portion of our portfolio, meaning a majority of funding still flows in the same old (exclusionary) ways.
Human error may be inevitable, but that’s not to say we should stop trying. TDSB’s decision not to redo the lottery after noting the mistake seems to suggest a lack of commitment to the intended outcome. We can avoid tokenism and performative diversity efforts by addressing failings and doing better once we know better. It takes robust, consistent processes embedded throughout our organization’s work.
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