Imagine that you are a high school teacher in a high-needs school in the City of Chicago. Every day you work relentlessly to teach in overcrowded classrooms, earn your students trust, invest them in your high expectations, and meet the diverse learning and personal needs of each student. Still, only six of your 100 students will graduate from college.
The academic achievement gap is staggering; it affects nearly every community in every urban and rural region of our country. After 50 years of educational reform, we must ask ourselves: why does the achievement gap still exist?