MinnPost had a great piece recently on the achievement gap which pointed out the obvious problem in tackling it-don't isolate it.
Before I am accused of opposition to solving the achievement gap or opposing all forms of educational reform, let me say that I am only pointing out that to solve the achievement gap we need to admit that it is part of a larger struggle against racism that dramatically impacts our educational systems, our employment picture, our health care system, and our public safety institutions.
The latter is particularly true. Black people are more likely to be convicted of a crime and our prisons have an insanely high rate of blacks residing in them.
If we are going to tackle this problem efficiently, we can't just look at the achievement gap as an education problem. It's a societal problem which means the path to a solution is how we handle the interlocking complexities of prejudice and racism.