It happens that the Supreme Court's decision in two affirmative action cases came out just days after the release of the latest reading results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The latter show clearly that America still faces a wide education achievement gap between white and minority students. (See below for our take on the results.) We'll leave it to others to sniff out the various emanations and penumbras of the High Court's dual rulings. One point, however: Instead of focusing on postsecondary admission procedures, America would make far more consequential (and less controversial) gains for its minority students if we concentrated on closing those gaps in K-12 education. It's the discrepant achievement levels of our school children, not their college admissions rates, that comprise America's real education scandal. Justice O'Connor's opinion gives the country twenty-five years to close those gaps and erase the rationale for affirmative action. No Child Left Behind is less patient. So are we.
"Court upholds use of race in university admissions," by Joan Biskupic and Mary Beth Marklein, USA Today, June 23, 2003
"Supreme court quotas," editorial, Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2003