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The children of the wealthy are pulling away from their lower-class peers -- the same way their parents are pulling away from their peers' parents. When it comes to college completion rates, the rich-poor gulf has grown by 50% since the 1980s. Upper income families are also spending vastly more on their children compared to the poor than they did 40 years ago, and spending more time as parents cultivating their intellectual development. It may not simply be a matter of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer -- although that certainly is a part of it. The growing differences in student achievement don't strictly mimic the way income inequality has skyrocketed since the middle of the 20th century. It's actually worse than that. Today, there's a much stronger connection between income and a child's academic success than in the past. Having money is simply more important than it used to be when it comes to getting a good education.

A recent statement by the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) attempts to provide an empirical justification for that state's focus on the achievement gap - the difference in testing performance between subgroups, usually defined in terms of race or income. Achievement gaps, which receive a great deal of public attention, are very useful in that they demonstrate the differences between student subgroups at any given point in time. This is significant, policy-relevant information, as it tells us something about the inequality of educational outcomes between the groups, which does not come through when looking at overall average scores. Although paying attention to achievement gaps is an important priority, the NJDOE statement on the issue actually speaks directly to the fact, which is well-established and quite obvious, that one must exercise caution when interpreting these gaps, particularly over time, as measures of student performance.

While our society is more diverse than ever before, schools are more segregated today than they were 30 years ago. School choice policies that allow children to enroll in schools outside of their neighborhood have the potential to reduce segregation and many of the inequities that flow from that segregation. Yet some of the nation's most segregated K-12 schools are public charter schools. A new report from the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), Chartering Equity: Using Charter School Legislation and Policy to Advance Equal Educational Opportunity, written and researched by Julie F. Mead of the University of Wisconsin and Preston C. Green III of Penn State, offers guidance on how charter school policies can best be shaped to promote equity goals.

In a dramatic illustration of the impact of income inequality on how children do in school, the achievement gap between children from high and low income families is far higher than the achievement gap between black and white students, a pathbreaking research report from Stanford University has shown.

The deliberate pepper-spraying by campus police of nonviolent protesters at UC Davis on Friday has provoked national outrage. But the horrific incident must not cloud the real question: What led comfortable, bright, middle-class students to join the Occupy protest movement against income inequality and big-money politics in the first place?

"If you were thinking of ponying up $20 to buy Jonathan Kozol's latest book, Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America, don't bother. EduShyster has it on EXCELLENT authority that the book suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. While I haven't actually read Fire in the Ashes, I know someone who has-Teach for America foundress Wendy Kopp-and she thought it was a real dud. You see Kozol has spent the past 642 years writing about the scourge of poverty among America's children, racial segregation in the public schools and inequities in education funding-all of which we now know DO NOT MATTER AT ALL. In fact just by mentioning these non-mattering factors Kozol is practically a one man excuse factory."

"While reasonable people can disagree about whether this is "privatization," the question remains as to whether the market mechanisms embodied within the charter model lead to more socially just outcomes.  After all, many might be willing to accept privatization if choice and competition produce more equitable and just opportunities, especially for disadvantaged children. However, an increasing consensus in research circles suggests that charter schools may exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, the chronic inequity in America's education system.  Despite its roots as an initiative to promote more equitable outcomes, multiple studies have linked charter programs with segregation. "

"Ms. Ravitch has a new book coming out, called "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools," in which she criticizes what she sees as a useless distraction from the problems of race and income inequality. She warns of "the Walmartization of American education," and "promised miracles that would shame snake-oil salesmen." While previously well known in education circles, she gained a much broader audience after she publicly rejected almost everything she had once believed. In a surprise 2010 best seller, "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," she openly declared that she had been wrong to champion standardized testing, charter schools and vouchers. She says she is trying now to make up for past errors."

"Sixty years after Brown, whiter, wealthier communities are breaking away from racially and economically diverse school districts."

"Privatisation of education has a devastating impact, aggravating inequality, so why does the development community fund profit-seeking providers?"

"Beneath the political and corporate veneer espousing teaching as a profession lurks a simple fact: the corporate and political elite wants teaching to be a service industry. Worse yet, they have their wish, because teaching is now a service industry, ultimately devoted to perpetuating an economic system based on social inequity and a venal consumer culture."

I've heard it over and over again from reformy pundits. Funding equity? Been there done that. It doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's all about teacher quality! (which of course has little or nothing to do with funding equity?).  The bottom line is that equitable and adequate financing of schools is a NECESSARY UNDERLYING CONDITION FOR EVERYTHING ELSE!

It is a dangerous and potentially failed thing to manipulate an audience by evoking our tendency to be compassionate for children. I have often used the documentary The Corridor of Shame, concerning the inequity in school funding in my home state of South Carolina, in my education courses both to highlight the corrosive power of poverty in the lives and learning of children and to confront the dishonesty of emotional appeals that do more to harm a valid message than reinforce it.

One aspect of the education reform debate that persistently gives me pause is the claim that the top students are being short-changed in U.S. public education-specifically due to disproportionate time and money being spent on struggling students. I have attempted to address this argument both seriously and satirically, but each approach has brought primarily defense of those neglected top students.

America's urban public schools are in trouble: Student test scores are low and dropout rates are high. Recent remedies proposed include everything from reducing the power of teachers unions and opening more charter schools to ending test-based accountability. But what if education critics are focused on the wrong problem?

Although the past several generations have seen declining gender inequalities in educational attainment, gender-based differences in the fields of study we choose seem to persist (see here). For example, the percentage of women obtaining degrees in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has remained exceedingly static in the last few decades (see here).

School Reform is the American Elite's preferred response to poverty and inequality, a strategy that requires no sacrifice, no redistribution nor any self-organization by America's disfranchised groups. Every day, it is proving itself a dismal failure.

"Policy makers and business leaders often point to our K-16 education system as the cause of our economic ills. The oft-heard refrain is that a reformed system of education will lead America into economic health during this age of global economic competition. The author questions this great faith in the transformative power of education given the realities facing youngsters today. Growing income inequality, unaffordable higher education, and paltry growth in jobs that pay a living wage conspire to rob education of its promise for too many of today's children."

One aspect of the education reform debate that persistently gives me pause is the claim that the top students are being short-changed in U.S. public education-specifically due to disproportionate time and money being spent on struggling students. I have attempted to address this argument both seriously and satirically, but each approach has brought primarily defense of those neglected top students.

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo's forthcoming State of the State address is expected to focus on what can be done to improve public education across the state. If he is serious about the issue, he will have to move beyond peripheral concerns and political score-settling with the state teachers' union, which did not support his re-election, and go to the heart of the matter. And that means confronting and proposing remedies for the racial and economic segregation that has gripped the state's schools, as well as the inequality in school funding that prevents many poor districts from lifting their children up to state standards."