Closing The Achievement Gap

Roger Wilkins
August 23, 2005

Roger Wilkins is a co-chair of Renewing Our Schools, Securing Our Future: A National Task Force on Public Education and is the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University. Today the task force released Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Stronger Nation, which outlines a comprehensive plan for closing the learning gap among our own students and with others across the globe.

More than 40 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of a war on poverty, minority and poor students—in rural areas and cities alike—continue to consistently fall behind in basic math and reading skills. It would be wrong and unfair to assume that the reason for these students’ poor achievement lies largely within them. The children on the wrong side of the achievement gap often come from devastated neighborhoods where unemployment, poor health care and crowded sub-standard housing are common. These difficulties, often experienced for generations, reduce the likelihood of parents providing the preparation and support for school that is standard in middle-class families. The health checkups, trips to the dentist, family and individual counseling and visits to museums and other institutions—which are key in preparing students for academic success—simply do not occur often enough for low-income and minority children.