Abstract
Increases in family income inequality in the United States have translated into widening gaps in educational achievement and attainments between children from low- and high-income families. We describe the mechanisms that have produced this disturbing trend. We argue that the three dominant policy approaches states and the federal government have used to improve the education of the disadvantaged have had at best modest success in improving education for disadvantaged children. To conclude, we describe the building blocks for an American solution to the problem of growing inequality of educational outcomes.
- Copyright © 2016 by Russell Sage Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Reproduction by the United States Government in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose. This chapter draws from the introductory chapter in Whither Opportunity? and from our 2014 book. We thank the Russell Sage Foundation and the Spencer Foundation for supporting the research and allowing us to summarize the lessons from our books here. Direct correspondence to: Greg J. Duncan at gduncan{at}uci.edu, School of Education, University of California, Irvine, 2001 Education, Irvine, CA 92697; and Richard J. Murnane at richard_murnane{at}harvard.edu, Gutman Library, Rm. 406B, Harvard University, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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