“The U.S. education landscape has long been a source of unequal treatment, access, and outcomes based on a student’s race and ethinicity.”
( personal communication, March 18, 2026, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, aecf.org).
“Students with disabilities in urban public schools are frequently underserved due to systemic failures, low expectations, and a lack of resources, often treating them as an afterthought rather than a priority” (personal communication, March 18, 2026, urban.org).
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What Our Most Underserved Children Deserve
My son’s name is Aiden. There’s a version of him the world does not see. Not the data point. Not the subgroup. Not the test score.
I’m referring to the version of Aiden who asks a hundred questions before breakfast, who loves using his Legos to build complex architecture, who insists that I tag along on his online gaming, who laughs in a way that fills the room, and who dances like no one is watching. Aiden, also known as the Six-Year-Old Teenager, watches over our neighborhood like a hawk.
Like most children, Aiden trusts the adults in his life to know what they are doing. Before he ever walks into a classroom, before he ever meets a teacher, policymakers, state, and district leaders have made decisions about him. They have decided what he will be taught, by whom, why, and how. Too often in this country, these decisions are influenced by inequities, hidden motives, and are more influenced by politicos than by educational research and by leading scholar-practitioners in the field.
Let us consider this question: Whom are we trusting with our children?
What They Too Often Get
Children do not receive a second draft of their K-12 urban public education. This means who we allow to lead really matters.
If my black six-year-old son Aiden needed life-saving surgery and I walked into a medical consultation and the person said: ” I’ve never been to medical school. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve got a few ideas”, there is no world- no world- where I would hand my son over to him. I wouldn’t negotiate. I wouldn’t debate policy. I would walk out.
However, let’s think about this. Who gets this version of education policy leadership from the highest offices in this country? Who too often gets the experiments, the unproven ideas, and the least prepared hands? Our Black children. Our Brown children. Our children with disabilities. Our children living in poverty. Our most underserved students living in urban communities. Children who share commonalities with Aiden.
Aiden is not an experiment, and neither are your children. Our children deserve professionals at the helm of urban school reform work at the national, state, and local levels. They deserve excellence.
I would never allow amateurs to operate on Aiden’s body, and I will never accept them experimenting on his mind and with his education.
If Aiden needed surgery, I would not be looking for someone with good intentions. I’d be looking for the best- an experienced surgeon with excellent results, someone who knows what they are doing. However, every day in this country, children like Aiden are impacted by harmful policies created by people who have never done the work. And we call this reform.
Call-toAction
America has built a system in which children with the greatest needs are too often met by the least experienced leadership, especially at the national level. They face the most inconsistent practices and the fastest-moving reforms.
We call it urgency, but too often, it’s instability and ineffectiveness.
If equity means anything at all, it means children like my son are placed in the most prepared hands from the national level to the schoolhouse. In this political climate, equity is being challenged by those most privileged and those protecting the status quo of the haves and the have-nots; however, time lost to inequity is never recovered.
Our most underserved children are relying on us to advocate for them, their families, their schools, and their communities. Will you stand with us? Are you ready to show up for students whom the system has overlooked? Will you be a part of creating what our children deserve?
Choose children. Show up for them. Be part of the answer. Join The Urban Education Change Equation (TUECE) in actualizing our vision and mission. Our students can’t wait!
Urbaneducationchange.org
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TUECE Vision
World-class public education for every student in America’s urban communities—regardless of zip code. No exceptions. No excuses. A future where students in urban public schools experience excellent teaching, affirming learning environments, and measurable academic success—at scale and without delay.
TUECE Mission
The Urban Education Change Equation is a national coalition committed to transforming outcomes for students historically underserved in American urban public K–12 schools by aligning research, practice, policy, and accountability to what students actually need to thrive.