Chasm in the Schools : Falloff in SAT scores for blacks and Latinos shows that officials must take concrete steps to ensure equal educational opportunity.

The expected chest-beating and soul-searching have followed the College Board report Tuesday that while overall SAT scores for white students rose one point last year, overall scores for black and Latino students stayed the same or declined. The widening gap highlights how public schools are leaving some children behind, failing to prepare them for college and economic success. But the problem is partly rooted in the failure of political and educational leaders to move beyond pointless debates over social causes and take concrete steps to ensure that all children get equal opportunities to develop their skills.

For starters, California’s county leaders should devote some Proposition 10 “early childhood development” dollars to help all children gain access to intellectually stimulating child care environments. Gaping disparities now exist between high-quality, high-cost child care programs that foster educational readiness and the much more common and affordable child care that amounts to little more than baby-sitting. Such disparities, says UCLA public policy professor Meredith H. Phillips, help explain why “half of the test score gap we see at the end of 12th grade is due to the gap that already exists at first grade.” Some Proposition 10 money could also be used to improve the training of child care workers.

There is work that could be done right away at the other end of the spectrum too. School officials can ensure that all public high school students have equal access to college preparatory advanced placement courses. In a lawsuit filed in July on behalf of four Inglewood High School students, the American Civil Liberties Union documented how the scarcity of AP classes in inner-city schools is depriving many smart and motivated African American and Latino high school students of access to the best public universities and to the kind of advanced education necessary to perform well on tests like the SAT.

In a 1971 case called Serrano vs. Priest, the state Supreme Court ruled that California’s children shouldn’t be subjected to unequal educational opportunities simply because they live in less economically advantaged communities. The decision forced the state to begin shifting its base for school funding from property taxes to general state revenues. But disparities are returning in the shape of “categorical aids,” such as grants for special academic projects that tend to be nabbed by high-end schools. In addition, many poorer schools are being forced to divert precious academic resources into nonacademic areas like counseling and security. These inequities are more subtle than a lack of AP courses, but unless schools and political advocates begin documenting them, school districts won’t be able to make forceful arguments for increased public funding.

In a recent book on educational testing, Harvard professor Christopher Jencks underscored the broad social benefit of bridging the test score gap. “If racial equality is America’s goal,” he wrote, reducing the gap “would probably do more to promote this goal than any other strategy that could command broad political support.”