ABSTRACT
In striving for equality, sometimes we deprive the very students who need the most help. This chapter focuses on the tension between issues of equality (treating everyone alike) and issues of equity (understanding that some individuals need more assistance than others). This tension is accentuated when two or more very deserving groups must compete against each other for scarce resources and/or when an existing, sometimes toxic, school culture must be challenged. Cases involve a student with very severe disabilities, a charter school for African-American boys only, affirmative action in retaining teachers, a student who is transgender and wants to use the restroom of the gender he identifies with rather than the one he was assigned at birth, and students whose parents are undocumented immigrants.
