during the summer, they lose those gains while their more advantaged peers -- whose parents can afford to arrange for summer enriching activities -- maintain theirs.

A longer school year is not the answer. We need more parents stay home to raise their kids and educate/enrich them. The media and government lies to people telling them that they need to keep up with the Jones' to be happy. Give up that new SUVs, their cable tv with HBO ETC, new clothes, restaurants, new furniture, (bigger) house, expensive vacation(s), gambling/mad money, nickel and dime expenses that add up to thousands per year, yard service, nanny, convenience items ETC. Which requires two income families.

Here is the bottom line. Either both parents work these days and/or are divorced/split/one is out of the picture. This is especially true among minorities. If men an women made good decisions and planned well. This "gap" would never happen. Look at the quality of life for minorities now compared to what it was 50 years ago. Some call this an advancement - but I call mistreating their children and forsaking their parental responsibilities in exchange for more lavish living. This is selfishness.

People used to do the right thing and stay home to further educate and raise their kids. Sure they had less possessions, they had less greed too, and were happier and more self fulfilled (they took the responsibility of parenting seriously). Now people are not even raising their own kids. Child care has them for 10 hours a day and they have them for 4. After they are 8-9 years old, they just run amok through the neighborhood. Either this or momma stays home to tend to her drug/alcohol habit, soaps and latest boyfriend/pregnancy (instead of raising her kids the right way) all while collecting welfare.

How about instead of always trying to fix schools to help those lagging behind because their parents are incompetent - why don't we sink a bunch of money into educating minorities to make better choices to begin with. It is all about prevention. It is sad how progressives and liberals have tried to replace traditional morals (stemming from out country's traditional Judeo Christian beliefs) with Condoms, birth control pills, abortion clinics, divorces without even a decent attempt at restoration, live in boyfriends, degradation of marital value and commitment ETC. Look at all the trouble it has caused. The sexual restraint and careful courtship which was traditionally practiced was quite effective for producing lasting and committed whole families. Removing the constraints of religious values actually has created far more traps for people to fall into. Now Liberals want the Government to fix things somehow. Is it possible? Can government replace God and do as good a job?

Myself - growing up in a lower middle class family, in the summer my (stay at home) mom taught us extra things to prepare us the next school year and took us to museums and landmarks occasionally for enrichment and so we would have a leg-up (or at least keep stride) on the others. We did not have or need TV or video games. My wife does the same with my kids. I had friends whose parents both worked or were in a single parent situation. Lots of them ended up failing out of school and falling by the wayside.