Audio Archive -- Audio recordings of EPI press conferences, seminars, and events.

Inequality at the Starting Gate
A news conference — Monday, September 30, 2002

On their first day of kindergarten, average achievement scores for young children in the most impoverished families are 60% lower than scores for children in the highest income families. That startling fact is just one of the many findings of Inequality at the Starting Gate, a groundbreaking nationwide portrait of 16,000 children as they begin kindergarten and the enormous learning gaps between them based on their families' socioeconomic status.

The authors join a number of other experts on early childhood education and equality to discuss these new findings and their implications for national education policy.

Listen to an audio transcript of the event (approx. 1 hour):

• click for streaming audio clip (Real Audio) 
• right-click to download (MP3) (~57 MB) 

Participants:

Lawrence Mishel: (Moderator) President of the Economic Policy Institute and director of the group’s education research program. Most recently, he has co-authored State of Working America 2002-2003, a comprehensive look at the nation’s economy and labor market.

Valerie E. Lee: Co-author of Inequality at the Starting Gate and a professor of education at the University of Michigan. Her research has focused on educational equity, with an emphasis on student learning and its equitable distribution by race, social class, and gender.

David T. Burkam: Co-author of Inequality at the Starting Gate and lecturer and assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan. His most recent work involves equity issues in kindergarten and early schooling, as well as math, science and high school curriculum.

Christopher Edley, Jr.: Professor at Harvard University Law School and founding co-director of The Civil Rights Project, a recently launched think tank based at Harvard. His recent book, Not All Black & White: Affirmative Action, Race and American Values, grew out of his work as special counsel to President Bill Clinton, and director of the White House review of affirmative action.

Bella Rosenberg: Assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers. Her group has championed "Kindergarten-Plus," an initiative that calls for an extended, wrap-around summer school session for disadvantaged kindergarten students.

Mark R. Ginsberg: Executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. He oversees the nation’s largest organization of early childhood teachers and others working with children from birth through age eight.

Richard J. Coley: Director of the Policy Information Center of the Educational Testing Service and author of An Uneven Start: Indicators of Inequality in School, which examines math and reading readiness of kindergartners grouped by race/ethnicity, gender, age, and socioeconomic status.

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