Closing the Opportunity Gap: What America Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance

by Prudence L. Carter (Editor), Kevin G. Welner (Editor)

While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap even more at odds with American the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given a fair chance to be prepared for college. In communities across the U.S., children lack the crucial resources and opportunities, inside and outside of schools that they need if they are to reach their potential.

Closing the Opportunity Gap offers accessible, research-based essays written by top experts who highlight the discrepancies that exist in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and life circumstances conspire to create the "opportunity gap" that leads inexorably to stark achievement gaps. They also describe sensible policies grounded in evidence that can restore and enhance opportunities. Moving beyond conventional academic discourse, Closing the Opportunity Gap will spark vital new conversations about what schools, parents, educators, and policymakers can and should do to give all children a fair chance to thrive.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Mills College Library]

379.26097 C6457 2013

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It was an inclusive look on some of the problems of education in America. I felt like each page had an a ha moment.