Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of California educators will
meet in Sacramento to grapple with a major problem in the
state's public schools. School administrators and teachers call
it the "achievement gap." As KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports,
school leaders want to find solutions for each school, because
doing nothing, they say, will cripple the Golden State's future.
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez: In the late 1800s, Mark Twain wrote an
essay that accused novelist James Fenimore Cooper of crimes
against the English language. More than a century later, Macy
Lederer challenges her tenth graders to unravel Twain's
argument. Macy Lederer (to students): Okay, let's look at number
two, and it says, "How does Twain create the tone?" And you guys
talked about it with your partner, so, can I hear some examples
of how he creates the tone, looking back through the passage?
Guzman-Lopez: Lederer teaches honors English at Wilson High in
Long Beach. Her principal, Lew Kerns, is proud of her – and of
what the rest of the school