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Gloria Ladson-Billings flips the term "achievement gap" on its head and purports that we have been looking at it entirely wrong as our country's economic history is tied very closely to its educational history. This essay makes it plain the connection between why and how our current educational system is racialized and how we need to adjust our thinking in order to make things better for the future.

It's scary when words from decades ago still hold true today. Baldwin's speech to educators compels the molders of the future to conceptualize the black child's humanity and the many ways it is challenged within the classroom and greater school institution. "Any Negro who is born in this country and undergoes the American educational system runs the risk of becoming schizophrenic," Baldwin says. While the term is outdated, the sentiment is unfortunately no less valid.

Tyack makes plain historically how things got to its current state of affairs. From a historical standpoint, acting somewhat as a receipt of proof to how things are so inequitable and unequal in the American educational system, "One Best System" shows historically that things are currently the way they are by design — whether we like it or not.

This book operates as socio-emotional compass to conceptualize the psyche of the black child trying to exist in a school (and greater environment) not designed to cater to his/her needs as it does their white counterparts. This book helped me frame a lot of the questions that I was asking myself as a child and understand them now as an adult, and it gave context for other who may be struggling with the same.

As public school systems continue to face ghastly and exponentially growing budget deficits, educational 'options' (like charter schools) are becoming a high commodity while very little is being done to fix the problem facing public schools at its root. This film gives faces and names of those being trampled by our current broken system.