Educators see civil rights issue in bad schools

[flashl]

WASHINGTON - If Johnny can't read and Sally can't add, it's often because of the color of their skin and their ZIP code, educators and activists said Wednesday.

The heads of the New York City and Washington, D.C., school systems joined with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and others to press for a shake-up of public schools from coast to coast to narrow the achievement gap between white students and black and Hispanic students. The group called the gap the nation's most pressing civil rights issue.

...

Klein, Sharpton and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee appeared together to announce the creation of the Education Equality Project, an advocacy group to reform a public education system they say has been paralyzed by special interests like teachers unions as well as political and parental indifference.

...

Rhee noted that in her city, children who go to public schools in an affluent neighborhood get a "wildly different" education than students in the same school system who live in a poorer neighborhood.

She also voiced concern that some of her fellow Democrats are so critical of the federal No Child Left Behind law that emphasized standardized testing that they have lost sight of the point of the legislation.

Yahoo (AP)

[jody]

1. I don't know about other states but in my state, performance on reading and other tests are highly

correlated with the percent of "free school lunches".

IMO "free school lunches" are a surrogate measure for poverty.

Of course my statement is at the individual school level.

[flashl]

2. Agreed. There is a correlation between Zipcode and "free lunch". nt