The Road to Excellence: Promoting Access and Equity to Close the Achievement Gap Internationally

Abstract

The premise of this book is that all children deserve quality education. Each of the preceding chapters has endeavored to uncover the problems and issues associated with the achievement gap and the role education plays in closing it. Throughout the book, each chapter author has highlighted their country’s problem and proposed what might be done and, in some instances, given images of how to do it according to research conducted, often focusing on a particular initiative, policy reform, or intervention. There is no single way to close the achievement gap.

The achievement gap refers to the disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout rates, and college-enrollment and -completion rates. Various gaps exist between groups all over the globe. Closing the achievement gap has become a focal point of education reform efforts, and many nations have made it their mission to close the gap. Efforts to combat the gap have been numerous but fragmented, and have ranged from affirmative action and multicultural education to finance equalization, improving teacher quality and school testing and accountability programs to create equal educational opportunities.

At the desk where I sit, I have learned one great truth.

The answer for all our national problems—the answer for all the problems—the answer for all problems of the world comes to a single word. The word is education.

Lyndon Johnson

If you can solve the education problem, you don’t have to do anything else. If you don’t solve it, nothing else is going to matter all that much.

Alan Greenspan