It is up to all of us who are in education, and especially in early education, where schooling has the greatest effect on social equity, to redeem the promise of public schooling, and help make the very need for debate over affirmative action gradually disappear. We must make it possible for all children to achieve at higher levels, and thereby reduce the tragic achievement gap between social groups. There is only one way to do this. Each child in each grade must learn what he or she needs to know in order to be ready to learn the lessons of the next grade. This entails that the things children need to learn in each grade must be agreed upon very specifically, so that every child does in fact learn what is needed in that grade.
Education is a slow and cumulative process.
Knowledge builds upon knowledge, skill upon skill. And the skill of skills reading well, which is the key to further learning, is not just a mechanical skill. Reading well isn't just knowing how to sound out words and perform rapid eye movements, or look for the main idea. It entails having a wide vocabulary so that one can understand newspapers, serious books, and training manuals for new skills. And a wide vocabulary means having correspondingly wide knowledge.