Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances
WHEN MITT ROMNEY recently announced his education platform—more school choice, greater emphasis on charter schools, a tough line on teacher performance, and skepticism about teachers unions—it was widely noted that this array of policies was not much different from those advanced by the incumbent president. With the exception of school vouchers (which Romney favors and Obama opposes), both men have a basically center-right view of education policy, which prescribes tough business principles to elementary and secondary learning in order to reduce the achievement gap between black and Latino students, and white and Asian students.
But what if this bipartisan policy consensus is wrong? What if the achievement gap, today, is much more about rich and poor than black and white? And what if the mainstream policy ideas—more competition in schools, better use of data, more accountability for teachers—miss the much bigger impediments to academic achievement, such as the effects of poverty and segregation?
Greg Duncan of U.C. Irvine and Richard Murnane of Harvard have assembled a large group of top-notch researchers to produce a massive volume—551 pages with small type and narrow margins. If long and dense, the book’s research is stunning, and may help change the national conversation in education. The authors explode two myths that have dominated American education discourse for a generation: that inequalities are rooted in race, and that a tough “no excuses” model can vanquish the effects of poverty and economic school segregation.
When policymakers talk about the “achievement gap,” and when newspapers print tables outlining group differences on tests like the SAT, the data are almost always presented in terms of race and ethnicity. On one level, that’s understandable. There are shameful and substantial racial and ethnic test score gaps that deserve consideration, and there are political constituency groups that appropriately call attention to the need for action.