Closing Achievement Gaps [California Preschool Planning Toolkit; Section 3i]

Test score disparities among racial and ethnic groups are a prominent feature of today’s educational landscape, with black and Hispanic children regularly falling far behind white children. Although the achievement gaps narrowed somewhat during the 1970s and 1980s, they have since proven stubbornly resistant to closing further. If the nation is to achieve the goal of equal education as “a fact and a result,” to borrow President Lyndon Johnson’s words, we must commit ourselves to overcoming the substantial racial and ethnic differences in educational achievement that remain.

This document is part of the California Preschool Planning Toolkit.