Valerie E. Lee and David Burkam, Economic Policy Institute
September 2002
This hundred-page book from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute was written by Valerie E. Lee and David Burkam of the University of Michigan. Their main thesis: due to socio-economic and family factors, low-income (and, disproportionately, minority) youngsters are already behind the 8-ball, educationally speaking, upon arrival in kindergarten. Then they enter inferior schools, which worsens academic inequality. (The database is the U.S. Education Department's "early childhood longitudinal study.") What to do about this unhappy tangle? Definitely not vouchers or school choice, say the authors. They edge up to but cannot bring themselves to recommend public-policy involvement in family structure. This leaves them with the usual recommendations: more and better pre-school, more equitable distribution of technology, better public schools and something called "more equitable distribution of children across public schools," which appears to mean involuntary integration. Overall, it's one of those studies that does a far better job of documenting a familiar problem than at shedding new light on possible solutions. The ISBN is 1932066020. For more information, see http://www.epinet.org/books/starting_gate.html.
