Despite decades of attempts to reform the education system, the achievement gap between high and low-income students continues to widen. CISAC Co-Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-chair of the Equity and Excellence Commission, explains why the growing achievement gap is so threatening to American prosperity. The commission is tasked with providing advice to the Department of Education on how to remove inequality in education.

The long-awaited report by the commission, which outlines ways to close the achievement gap, was issued Feb. 19, 2013, by the 27-member panel that included three Stanford scholars: Law Professor Cuéllar, Graduate School of Education Professor Linda Darling-Hammond and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Eric Hanushek.

The nonpartisan commission, which also included union leaders, school officials and civil rights activists, was created by Congress to provide advice to the Department of Education on how to remove inequality in education.