For the past three decades America’s public education system has aspired to provide rich and poor, Black and White, immigrant and native born, an equal opportunity for success. That it fails in this goal is evident in the persistent differences in academic performances between groups of students. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement remain a stubborn fact of schooling in America. National studies shows us that the average non-Hispanic black student scores well below the average non-Hispanic white students on standardized tests of math and reading skills, as does the average Hispanic student. Likewise, the average student from a low income family scores much lower on such tests than students from higher income
