Can Charter Schools Close the Education Gap?

In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion column addressed to President-elect Barack Obama, Joel Klein, Chancellor to the New York City Department of Education and Reverend Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, ¹ called attention to the plight of minority students in today’s public schools:

In the afterglow of your election, Americans today run the risk of forgetting that the nation still faces one last great civil rights battle: closing the insidious achievement gap between minority and white students. Public education is supposed to be the great equalizer in America. Yet today the average 12th grade black or Hispanic student has the reading, writing and math skills of an eighth grade white student.