ABSTRACT
The education reform movement in the United States has focused increasingly on the development of new standards for students. Reforms such as charters and vouchers are unlikely to help many minority students, although they may provide an escape hatch for a few. The constant of reforms today is standard-setting for student achievement. The variable is educational opportunity. "Bottom-up" reforms of curriculum and assessment in some schools aim to provide more thoughtful and authentic learning experiences that challenge and excite students' interests and develop higher order thinking and performance skills. School-to-work programs promise greater options for some students who are enabled to connect more directly to the workplace. The common presumption about educational inequality is that it resides primarily in those students who come to school with inadequate capacities to benefit from what education the school has to offer. Recent studies, however, have provided solid evidence that money does make a difference, especially for African American children.
