Americans never looked at education the same way after 1964, when sociologist James Coleman led a Congressionally commissioned study, The Equity of Educational Opportunity, which aimed to explain achievement gaps between Black and White students. Many assumed that the research would be simple as they thought that gaps were caused by an unequal distribution of material resources such as modern labs, current textbooks, and highly qualified teachers. The study, widely known as The Coleman Report (1966), went beyond that and exposed the socioeconomic worm in the pedagogical apple.

The Coleman Report looked at non-material variables. It looked at standardized test scores, parents’ educational background, families’ socio-economic status (SES), variations in instruction. It found that:

  1. Disparities in school resources had no significant impact on gaps between Black and White students’ standardized test scores
  2. Variations in test scores were greater within schools than they were between schools in the same district
  3. Test scores in the Deep South for both Blacks and Whites were much lower than test scores in the North
  4. Family backgrounds and SES played a larger role in student achievement than did school resources.
  5. Disadvantaged Black children learn better in integrated schools.

Coleman’s study was and continues to be controversial. It set in motion busing programs to achieve integration, which was a political nightmare as students and parents refused to cooperate and as it cost taxpayer millions. Educational reforms following Coleman’s study attempted to close education gaps by upgrading school labs and computers, increasing counseling services, training teachers to be culturally competent and to use student-centered teaching strategies, and creating more inclusive curriculum. With new appreciation for the impact of pre-school child development, public programs increased participation in parent education and more parents spent time reading to and engaging their kids in learning activities. Yet, the gap remained (Garcia and Weiss, 2017).

Curriculum Associates (2025) revealed that gaps tend to widen grade school. The percentage of first grade students reading below grade level was 3% and the percentage of eighth grade students reading below was 31%. The pattern holds for math. By eighth grade, 39% of students at predominately Black schools were reading at grade level and 55% of students at predominately White schools are reading at grade level. Achievement gaps also parallel family incomes. While 40% of eighth grade students from families with an income of less than $50,000.00 were at reading level, 55% of eighth grade students from families with an income of $75,000.00 or more were reading at the eighth grade level. The pattern holds for math achievement.

Coleman’s discoveries suggested that if Americans were serious about closing the achievement gap, they had to address socio-economic conditions and the family’s ability to overcome obstacles to their children’s education. Few who supported Coleman could have predicted what happened next. The world of 1966 and many of its hopes for and a commitment to a more just society withered in the face of the nation’s material priorities and a growing sense of entitlement across all demographics. Achievement gaps and the tarnished quality of American education are in many ways collateral damage for our way of seeing the world. The redistribution of wealth that took place from 1970 to the present and the entrenchment of identity politics and radical partisanism play key roles in maintaining educational achievement gaps.

In the last part of the 20th century, government saw fit to cut taxes for the rich, deregulate industries, allow the proliferation of financial products that were floated on bad credit and the monetization of debt, allow wage stagnation for the working class, and permit corporations to take factories abroad. The cost of a college education soared as public funding has waned and reinforced economic barriers to higher education. Between 1973 and 2013, the average income of families in the top 1% increased by nearly 300% while the income of the median household increased by about 25%, and the average tuition at a public college increased by nearly 400% (Mitchell, Leachman, and Masterson, 2017).

The last part of the 20th century also saw an increase in identity politics characterized by demands for social justice based on past and present oppression. Demonstrating solidarity with minorities became a factor in elections at all levels. Scholars argued that the nation was not led by people committed to the common good, but by those interested in expanding the wealth and power of global plutocrats. The notion that Americans were being colonized by their own government came into focus with each executive action undertaken without congressional permission and oversight, with each incidence of police brutality, and with each court decision that enhanced corporate power at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. Those who dissented from politically correct rhetoric that Whites were to blame every misfortune and failure of non-Whites sabotaged potentially fruitful conversations about everyone’s role in achievement gaps. Politicians retreated to old strategies to close the gap and threw money at innovations promising to raise standardized test scores and close the gap. No Child Left Behind (2001) and Race to the Top (2009) invested over $23 billion in local school initiatives. Yet, the gap remained.

I learned about Black resistance to education in the 1990s while teaching at a high school in Oakland, California. Black students from middle class families told me it was “not cool” for Blacks to pursue academic excellence because that was a White thing to do. Pedagogical innovations and community programs do little to undo generational trauma and socioeconomic injustice. They do not offer hope to people for whom the system that perpetuate poverty, inequity, and indifference to suffering never changes.

 The achievement gap is collateral damage for our choices. It is collateral damage for parents who are missing in action, or unable or unwilling to prepare their children for formal education. It is collateral damage for teaching children that they are entitled to diplomas even when their academic proficiencies are substantial. It is the collateral damage of congressional cuts in funds for education and family wellness. It is the collateral damage of unions who insist that incompetent teachers retain their jobs. It is the collateral damage of the belief that it is too costly and complicated to extend the school year and to increase requirements for parents’ to attend workshops on how to support teaching and learning. It is the collateral damage of low expectations for learning and lack of consensus about essential, universal learning out comes. It bears witness to America’s inconsistent valuing of human dignity and scorn for the intellectual skills that are required to sustain civility and democracy.

References

Alexander, Karl and Stephen Morgan. The Coleman Report and Educational Inequality Fifty Years Later. The Russell Sage Foundation, 2016.

Center for Poverty & Inequality. What are the Poverty thresholds today? University of California, Davis. 2025. What are the poverty thresholds today? – Center for Poverty and Inequality Research

Curriculum Associates Research. State of Student Learning in 2025. North Billerica, MA. 2025. State of Student Learning in 2025.

Garcia, Emma and Elain Weiss. Education Inequalities at the School Starting Gate. Economic Policy Institute. 2017. Education inequalities at the school starting gate: Gaps, trends, and strategies to address them | Economic Policy Institute

Mitchell, Michael, Michael Leachman, and  Kathleen Masterson. “A Lost Decade in Higher Education Funding. State Cuts Have Driven Up Tuition and Reduced Quality.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. August 23, 2017. A Lost Decade in Higher Education Funding | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.