We have two goals. [The first is] to increase the number of children entering kindergarten with early literacy skills—and now we’ve added early math foundation skills. And the second goal is to decrease the number of children, students, with learning disabilities or learning differences associated with reading.

Although I agree with most of Mr. Hodges’ points, I think he is missing the larger issue. What he refers to as “new racism” is not race based. African Americans comprise a disproportionate sector of the underclass,but this is due to historic discrimination. Since,at least, 1980 corporate America and their Conservative lackeys in politics have been waging class war on an unprecedented scale. We are seeing the systematic destruction of the middle class in a drive toward feudalism. The corporate elite are not going to be satisfied until they have it all,and the rest of use are reduced to servitude. The worst of it is, unlike medieval Europe, this is on a global scale. Multinational corporations don’t concern themselves with mere countries, they want world domination.