When we moved to this part of Pennsylvania, our son was one year old. As we prepared to find a community to live in, we researched the schools, looking at a variety of factors to see which was, for us, the best fit. To be honest, most were mediocre and some were good, and the one we ended up in eventually was excellent. Our concern with the last one was housing costs and cultural issues around wealth and peer pressure. We chose one of the mediocre districts, but because of some concerns about their vision of college prep, we moved after six years. I was struck by the unfairness of it all; the more money we had, the better education we could get for our children. Part of the inequity was the level of funding that people could afford, and we all know that money matters when it comes to education. It isn’t the only thing, but it is important.
The school district I grew up in was considered one of the best in the state; we even had a woman with a PhD teaching in the science department. Over time, however, the taxes rose to a point that was unaffordable for young families, and the school board was, eventually, taken over by members of a fundamentalist sect, which cut the budget to the bone, bringing the level of excellence to nothing. It is a classic example of how a school district can be destroyed by numerous factors that are out of the control of most of the population. It wasn’t the students or the teachers; it was a group that had their own schools and didn’t want to pay for other kid’s educations.
Iniquity is a little different from sin. We all mess up and go off the right path; that’s sin. Repentance is to literally turn around one’s life. Iniquity, though, is deeper; it is premeditated and unrelenting. It is the process of destroying something good because it doesn’t fit into your vision of the world. If King David and Bathsheba had just cheated, that would have been sin. David, however, forced Bathsheba into his bed – David raped her; that’s iniquity. Creating a system that favors you and hurts others is systemic, and it is iniquity. We see this happening in many ways; the destruction of public school systems being one of them. Purposeful inequity, like Project 2025, is part of a plan. More to come, sadly, because inequity is everywhere, and we are called to correct it.
Prayer – Holy God, speak to our hardened hearts and cure us of our selfishness, so that we treat others with respect. Amen.
Today’s art is “Behind the Wall of Inequity” by Darrell Black.