“We need to deal with some hard truths.  In spite of all of our successes, many students are not enjoying the benefits of a high-quality education. There is still an inescapable correlation between socio-economic status and education achievement, between your childhood zip code and your future achievement.  And hardest of all, some of what we have done in the past isn’t working well enough now and won’t work at all in the future…..   Our current system, enviable as it may be due to your hard work, is still not broad or strong enough to successfully educate children stuck in these gaps. At our current pace, we won’t close the achievement gap until the start of the next century.”

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Boston, November 9, 2011