The predominant emphasis on measures of student academic achievement is new and seems likely to be the defining issue of the first decades of the new century. International comparisons will become more refined and more permanent. But there is also an ironic continuity, for the intertwining of access and equity over the past quarter-century included attention to outcomes, measured in terms of the narrowing of academic achievement differences among groups. At a time when egalitarian rhetoric has cooled considerably, it remains to be seen whether the connection between access and equity will retain its place in the ideology and practice of American education, or whether the stress on creating academic standards and measuring achievement outcomes will place that historic commitment in jeopardy. Marvin Lazerson is the Carruth Family professor at the University of Pennsylvania's graduate school of education in Philadelphia.
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