This should only be a surprise to the clueless

by David Safier

It turns out the rich are more educated than the poor. And it turns out, the gap is widening. Who knew education, which is supposed to be the great equalizer and create our level playing field, isn't equalizing because the playing field is tilted?

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

The recent conservative "education reform" emphasis, blaming the schools and the teachers for our education problems and ignoring social and economic factors — something, unfortunately, Obama and Duncan buy into more than they should — will help the gap widen further. As the income gap widens, the education gap widens with it. Saying education is the answer, end of story, is just a way of moving the argument "into committee" — delaying any effective measures to increase our economic and social mobility for years while the problem worsens.