INEQUALITY FOR ALL: THE CHALLENGE OF UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS

INEQUALITY FOR ALL: THE CHALLENGE OF UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS William H. Schmidt and Curtis C. McKnight Publisher: Teachers College Press: New York Year: 2012 ISBN: 978-0-8077-5341-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8077-5342-2 (hardcover: alk. paper) Pagination: pp.264 Price: £27.50

William Schmidt, University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University and Co-director of the Education Policy Center, and Curtis McKnight, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma, tackle the extensive problem of inequality in the American education system, with particular emphasis on 'coverage of subject-matter content' (p.xi) and the distribution of opportunities to learn among American schoolchildren. Mathematics and science vary significantly between different schools' content coverage. This has led to a set of Common Core State Standards, defined and currently being implemented by over 40 US states. The issue at stake in this book, however, is not the 'pros and cons' (p.xii) of standards but an interrogation of the situation whereby the greatest inequalities of content coverage occur not between communities or even schools but between classrooms, and the focus is on mathematics and mathematics literacy.

Introducing the subject matter of the book in 'A Story and A Myth', the co-authors emphasise that there are 'no...