If We’re Talking About Race, Let’s Talk About Education

By Susan H. Fuhrman

In his March 18 speech in Philadelphia about race, Sen. Barack Obama spoke of the “gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

The persistent inequities in education are at the heart of that gap, both as a cause and as a reflection of other causes, such as poverty, unequal health care, a lack of physical safety, and inadequate housing. Or, as Sen. Obama put it: “Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education , and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.”

The flip side of that statement: If we improve education for disenfranchised children and communities, then education itself becomes part of the solution to the full range of society’s inequities and broader ills. And that is why education, which has not gotten much attention from the presidential candidates, must move front and center...