Bring all students to the table

Hi~. I have two questions about the writings below and would like to hear your opinions.

1. What's the meaning of the phrase "bring all students to the table"? Is it a kind of idiom? I'm wondering why the word "table" instead of "desk" is used?

2. What do you think the word "this" refer to in this context?

Thank you !

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Additionally, many conversations focused on the concern that some students faced challenges outside of the classroom that some teachers felt we could not overcome in the classroom, and the thinking was that somehow, by deviating from traditional teacher-centered instruction, we might make it harder for struggling students to learn. During these discussions with my teachers, I agreed that inequitable life experiences did impact how some students processed learning, but I also believed that the experiences we presented in the learning process should be varied enough to overcome the disparities and bring all students to the table. One way to do this was to learn how to incorporate effective instructional strategies equitably for all of our math lessons in all of our classrooms.

What was needed to make this the new norm was a yearlong curriculum of research-based materials that consistently guided the teachers at the point of instruction in math content and rigor and also gave them options for scaffolding or extending the learning based on what the students needed, when the students needed it.