In response to a question from Education Experts blog at National Journal.com where this is being cross-posted, I'm giving myself permission to repeat myself on this issue, yet again.

The disturbing revelations from recent Education Department reports could only surprise those who have chosen to ignore that unequal education is still a fact of American life 55 years after Brown vs. Board of Education. Need more proof?  An analysis by EdTrust also echoes what many teachers and parents of Title I schools have said for years, that “ budgeting practices in school districts across the country are shortchanging [poor] children and undermining federal investment in high-poverty schools…(April 2010, EdTrust).

For those who contend that poverty is irrelevant as a factor in whether U.S. children receive a quality public education, the truth is: America’s poor children are more likely to go to school in buildings that are poorly maintained, poorly equipped, poorly supplied, and poorly staffed. Many schools in high-poverty areas are not only visually depressing, but physically dangerous. How does a teacher convince a kid (or a parent whose child is) sitting in a leaking trailer or dodging falling plaster that we REALLY believe all children deserve a high quality education? What do such disparities say about the level of expectations the nation or the state (upon whom these schools rely for funding) has for the students and teachers who are there? What does it say about our nation that we are unwilling (not unable) to provide some of our children decent, safe school buildings?

Parents in high poverty communities see a constant rotation of administrators, and cycles of temporary, underprepared teaching staff for their children, but veteran, highly accomplished teachers for the children of those who have more? Why should they have to move themselves or their children to get access to those resources and teachers which are public and are proclaimed to be a way out of poverty?

There are millions of hard-working parents in poor urban and rural communities who did not finish school themselves, but desperately want their children to have a better life. Contrary to politically expedient myths, the majority of America’s poor families have always pushed their youngsters to pursue education as the best way not only to achieve individual goals, but also to help uplift the entire community. I submit that many parents in poor areas today appear to value education less because less value has clearly been placed on them and their children by the public education system. These attitudes are not born out of poverty; they are a reaction to what these disenfranchised parents and students correctly perceive as a string of broken promises.

The federal government could and should be playing a much stronger role in bringing an end to these disgraceful inequities, but while Congress fiddles, poor children continue to be underserved, and the dedicated educators who work with them continue to expend precious energies trying to make up for unnecessary gaps in resources and services.  Decades of lax monitoring and inadequate funding have thwarted the original intents of hard-won legal remedies such as Title I and IDEA.

For an excellent summary of what the Federal government could do, I recommend the Forum on Educational Accountability's February 2011 document: All Children Deserve an Opportunity to Learn.

My colleagues, members of the Teacher Leaders Network, and I have given the President's jobs plan mixed reviews. Generally, we felt the proposed bill is better than nothing, but not nearly enough.

Would treating underachieving students of color the way we do gifted and talented ones be a better and faster way to close the achievement gap?

Thanks to @SOSMarch for the tweet that led me to this wonderful message from the United Church of Christ giving a faith perspective on some of the most pressing issues in education today. Here's a slice: As people of faith...

This blog by Maureen Downey at the Atlanta Journal Constitution is the most insightful piece I've seen so far on the heartwrenching cheating scandal unfolding in Atlanta. Quoting an extensive interview with Jerry Eads who warns us that the problem is bigger and deeper than just this sad scenarion the article also points us toward thoughtful and effective solutions. Here's a taste:

NCLB and self-seekers (or worse) such as Hall, Augustine, Rhee and Paige didn’t start us down this path. The people who should be taken to task are not just those in the districts and schools who are ethically challenged but the policymakers who initiated minimum competency testing and the egregiously shortsighted “pass or perish” policies more than three decades ago – and those who continued them in the face of the overwhelming evidence that neither low-bid pass-fail testing nor punitive policy has had any positive effect on children’s education.

My Teacher Leader Network colleagues and I heartily agree. As we proposed in our recent book, Teaching 2030, it's past time for teachers to take charge of our profession. We should be establishing and enforcing standards of quality among our own ranks.

At the same time, political and educational leaders at all levels should be paying more attention to the mounting research affirming that there is more to creating a results-oriented teaching profession than overhauling teacher evaluation [important as that is] and judging individual teachers on the basis of how well their students performed on 20th-century standardized tests. 

For example, we now know that variations in school conditions may account for 25% of teacher effects on student learning (C.K. Jackson, Match quality, worker productivity, and worker mobility: Direct evidence from teachers. 2010). Add to that the evidence that peer learning among small groups of teachers (not individuals) seems to be the most powerful predictor of student achievement over time, and it becomes clearer that we can find more humane and more effective ways to measure, as well as improve, student learning and teacher performance.