When we talk about an academic achievement gap in this country, we must do so in the context of an opportunity gap, which has said to black and brown children that they are not worthy of accessing the same quality of education as their white peers. We must talk about it in the context of implicit (and explicit) bias that educators and assessment authors bring in, which continue to box these children out, even after the courts said you must let them in. We must talk about it in the context of all of the teacher turnover and instability in their schools, because of the high pressure environments facing the teachers who are forced to work with too few resources, and, yes, the high numbers of unprepared or uncommitted doers-good who go to teach children in the hood without any ability to identify with those students’ lives. We must talk about it in the context of intentional federal policy which has failed our most vulnerable students.