| This research seeks to understand sources and implications and distill potential solutions to the long-standing problem of the race- and income-based achievement gap. It is a multi-disciplinary, multi-level integrative literature review that begins with a survey of conventional explanations for the gap based on conventional indicators of systematic variations in student outcomes and proceeds through a review of family, school, community, state and national influences on educational outcomes and outcome variations. The findings of are synthesized into a comprehensive understanding of the gap and coordinated strategies for addressing it. A descriptive model of the Cycle of Advantage leading to and sustaining the achievement gap is presented, as is a model of the gap's Zones of Influence, or areas where capital access and environmental conditions variously influence cognitive development. The gap is found to be largely a group phenomenon sustained by socio-cultural influences related to the historic marginalization of these groups as well as the fact that past efforts to facilitate group assimilation and adaptation and ensure equality of opportunity have been insufficient relative to their needs and demographic, economic, technological and educational trends and demands. The gap is exacerbated by concentrated poverty at the school and community levels as well as over-dependency on public aid and service delivery among poor families and communities. It is observable before, throughout and at the close of formal schooling, with little evidence that schools currently have, or as they are currently structured might ever have, the capacity to close the gap. Targeted efforts in high-poverty, urban communities to provide poor and minority families enhanced access to adequate health care and housing, safe neighborhoods, early childhood education, and parenting education are empirically suggested to be the key leverage points for closing the gap. Efforts to attract private investment to these communities are suggested, as are efforts to experiment with different modes of investment, administration and service delivery in traditionally public sector domains. The federal government will need to take the lead in establishing a coherent vision, setting parameters and priorities for coordinated action, recommending and providing incentives for action, and providing for monitoring and evaluation. |
