Opinion & Analysis

The gap that exists is not one of "achievement" or capability of children of color to learn, the gap has to do with access to equal opportunity and equity within the systems designed to enhance and shape the learning outcomes of all children. This gap also has to do with the structural and institutional racism that is deeply embedded within our public education system and is perpetuated from one generation to the next.

We do everything possible to encourage college attendance. In the 2011-12 academic year, for example, one program alone—the federal Pell Grant program, intended to help low- and moderate-income students finance college—cost taxpayers $34.5 billion, about half the entire U.S. Department of Education budget.

Democratic senators from rural areas are seeking a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind law to give their constituents a better chance of competing for federal funding, a touchy subject among politicians. A debate over education policy will likely split lawmakers along the same regional lines that divided them during the recent debate over gun control legislation.

Every major issue in school reform — whether it be school closings, charter schools, vouchers, teacher hiring and firing, school control, teacher evaluations, testing, curriculum or tracking — is hotly debated and brutally divisive.

In the wake of a strike and amid a skyrocketing murder rate, teachers and administrators alike are trying to focus on instruction.

Control of American public schools has an increasing top-down flavor. School districts, mostly urban with lower-income students of color, are labeled “failing,” and the state or a big-city mayor takes control.

For me, the bigger questions remain the value of standardized tests in the education of children, especially the impact they have on what gets taught, how it is taught, and how learning is accurately measured.

What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially.

As the saying goes, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Unfortunately, that saying does not bode well for the thousands of children who will be displaced when 54 schools shut down this year.

The School District of Philadelphia announced last week that its budget for next year would be cut by 25 percent.