Equalizing Opportunity

Equalizing Opportunity
Dramatic Differences in Children’s Home Life and
Health Mean That Schools Can’t Do It Alone

By Richard Rothstein

Public discourse about education pays great attention
to the stubborn persistence of an achievement gap
between poor and minority students and their wealth-
ier white peers—and public schools come under great
criticism for their apparent inability to close that gap. Some of
this criticism may be justified. But there is more to the story than
school reform. No society can realistically expect schools alone
to abolish inequality. If students come to school in unequal
school with unequal skills and abilities, in both cognitive and
noncognitive domains. This is not a reason for educators to
throw up their hands. Rather, in addition to efforts to improve
school practices, educators, along with community partners,
should exercise their own rights and responsibilities as citizens
to participate in redressing the inequalities with which children
come to school.
Income is more unequal and lower-class* families have less
access to medical care in the United States than in any other
industrial nation.
Read the entire article at American Educator. Vo.33. No. 2.
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/summer2009/equalizingopportunity.pdf