The Need and Potential

The staggering disparities in academic outcomes that persist along socio-economic and racial lines represent our nation’s most pressing educational challenge as well as a grave social justice issue. We know that:

Early Deficits Nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities. Half of them won’t graduate from high school by the time they’re 18. On average, those who do graduate will read and do math at the level of eighth graders in high-income communities. [1]

Poor College Access As these students age, the scenario only worsens. While children from families making over $90,000 have a one in two chance of graduating from college by age 24, that number plummets to one in 17 for children from families making less than $35,000. [2]

Limited Life Options These disparities severely limit the life prospects of the 15 million children growing up in poverty today. And, because African-American and Latino/Hispanic children are three times as likely to grow up in a low-income area, these disparities also prevent many children of color from truly having equal opportunities in life. [3]

At the same time, there are dozens of schools around the country in which students of low socio-economic status are achieving to extremely high standards. They demonstrate convincingly that high expectations, excellent teachers and enabling leaders can trump even the most challenging aspects of what a typical urban student brings to class every day.

These schools also signal the fundamental reinvention that must occur in American public education. The current system of public schooling was not designed to create high levels of learning for all students, but rather to permit wide variance in student achievement. This variance has all-too-often been mapped directly onto historical social inequalities. Evidence of success in unlikely places proves that neither race nor class need determine the academic and life options of students of color and poverty.

[1] National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2005
[2] National Center for Children in Poverty, 2006
[3] National Center for Children in Poverty, 2006