Jonathan Kozol
Author, "Savage Inequalities", "Amazing Grace"

The Achievement Gap
The so-called achievement gap, in reality, is a grotesque gap in opportunity, and I'm speaking of medical inequalities: unequal access to good pediatric care when children are babies, when they're infants, when they're toddlers. I'm speaking of unequal access to preschool education, so these kids enter public school typically two or three years developmentally delayed, behind children of affluent white people in New York City, who typically go to very expensive preschools before they come to public school. And then we're speaking of gross inequalities in resources, in money spent per child, in salaries paid to teachers, in class size, once they enter public school. Yes, there are all sorts of other factors that influence the low test scores of inner-city children, but the vast majority of factors are matters that society could change if we had the moral will, but we refuse to do so. It doesn't do any good to simply pass a bill, which involves a lot of exhortation, rhetoric and bombastic utterance about holding children to high standards, holding them accountable. None of that makes the slightest difference in the world if they're still in separate and grotesquely unequal social and educational settings.
 

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