ABSTRACT
Sociologists have shown that intellectual capital, that is knowledge, operates in almost every sphere of modern society to determine social class, success or failure in school, and even psychological and physical health. The paradox holds more inexorably for intellectual than for money capital. The lack of shared knowledge among American students not only holds back their average progress, creating a national excellence gap, but, holds back disadvantaged students, thus creating a fairness gap as well. That the idea is a myth is not a darkly kept secret. Rather, the idea that there is a local curriculum is accepted as truth by experts within the school system. In 1989 a group of educational researchers ventured to suggest that perhaps a nationwide core curriculum (confined of course to migrant children) might be desirable. Since inferior education is today the primary cause of social and economic injustice, the struggle for equality of educational opportunity is in effect the new civil rights frontier.
