"Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say" heads an article in The New York Times (February 9, 2012) by Sabrina Tavernise, with the stunning lead:

"Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects."

The growing evidence, it seems, refutes the central tenet of the "No Excuses" Reformers, led by Secretary Arne Duncan, who chant "poverty is not destiny" because, they maintain, schools can lift children out of poverty if only we had higher standards, better (and more) tests, and high-quality teachers not pampered by those corrosive unions.

But the stunning part of this article is not that the U.S. is experiencing a widening education equity gap between the privileged and the impoverished; the stunning part is that The New York Times is admitting such—almost.

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Education Gap Is "Cultural," Not a Matter of Money?

"It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school," explains Tavernise. "Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race."

About two-thirds of this NYT article examines and links readers to a solid body of research highlighting the many socioeconomic inequities that are mirrored by educational access and outcomes. But one telling piece of evidence shows how difficult this admission is for mainstream media: A small graphic showing a declining line reflecting the inequity between black and white children along with a rising line of inequity between high-income and low-income children.

While the article appears comfortable discussing income inequity, the chart offers a soothing reminder that this isn't about race (what a relief).

And then by the bottom third of the article, once readers have digested several compelling studies on the education gap, the "but" appears, explains Doug Henwood:

"All that information, and then some, is nicely presented in the first half of the article. But the second half consists mostly of quotes from three right-wing sources: University of Chicago labor economist James Heckman; Bell Curve ghoul Charles Murray (newly famous for his cultural take on the crisis of the white working class); and Douglas Besharov, now of the Atlantic Institute but formerly of the American Enterprise Institute, where he ran the Social and Individual Responsibility Project. Heckman says the last thing we should do is give poor people more money. Murray says it has 'nothing to do with money and everything to do with culture.' And Besharov chimes in with the inevitable 'no easy answers,' because 'no one has the slightest idea what will work.'"

Thank goodness, the problem is just cultural; it has nothing to do with money.

[Although this soothing denial of racism also includes an odd and cavalier claim that no one knows what to do—another baseless claim discounted by Kahlenberg.]

What a relief, right?

Actually, no. This potentially important piece of journalism has failed miserably by couching powerful evidence within two masking ideologies that prevent the U.S. from attaining social equity by protecting ideologies that are unfounded beliefs: America has already achieved a post-racial status, and success comes from rugged individualism (and failure from sloth).

Yes, one of the great failures of universal public education has historically been that schools mirror our society, including the worst elements of out society—stratification based on status and not merit along with practices that insure inequity instead of confronting it.

But to suggest that our education inequity is absent the weight of racism and that our "cultural" inequities are somehow not linked to money (thus, by extension, our economic commitments to capitalism and consumerism) is protecting the very masks that hide the realities feeding educational inequity.

Our schools are valuable sources of disturbing evidence of inequity that reflect and feed the inequities in our society:

• Pre-kindergarten children are being expelled in the U.S. with African American boys experiencing the bulk of that practice (Gilliam, 2005).

• Gaps persist in SAT scores by socioeconomic status and race.

• Education remains a stark picture of the classroom to prison pipeline.

• And that pipeline results in a prison population that inverts racial ratios found in our society (remember the society that is not a matter of money): White males outnumber African American males 5 to 1 in society, but African American males dwarf white male populations in prison 6 to 1.

U.S. public education has an equity problem, and that problem is a reflection of social injustice that has income as a powerful proxy, a proxy so powerful it allows us to pretend that race doesn't lurk beneath it.

Inequity is nothing new in the U.S., and also persistent is the American habit of wearing white-colored glasses despite the evidence so we can all feel fine.

Reference

Gilliam, W. S. (2005, May 4). Prekindergarteners left behind: Expulsion rates in state prekindergarten systems. Yale University Child Study Center.http://www.hartfordinfo.org/...