What would it really take to close the achievement gap?
The answer, according to a cadre of education scholars who have just published a new book, is to fix the “opportunity gap” that exists between children born into middle class and affluent families and those who are not.
Thirty years after the release of the seminal A Nation at Risk report ushered in an era of academic standards and standardized tests to measure how students were mastering those, “Closing the Opportunity Gap,” argues that until federal and state governments, as well as local school districts, devote as much time and attention to making investments in broad access to quality preschool, health care, good teachers, and rich curricula as they have to driving up test scores and graduation rates, the academic gaps between upper and middle-class kids and their low-income peers will never disappear.
via Fixing the ‘Opportunity Gap’ to Close the Achievement Gap.