A lot of people talk about this achievement gap between black students and white students, between latino students and white students, but let’s reframe that. Gloria Ladson-Billings says that, 

“It’s not an achievement gap, it’s an educational debt. It’s what’s owed to students of color and communities of color.”

But we also like to say that the achievement gap centers white students and I’d like us to look at it differently. Suppose we center the experience of every individual child and say, you know what.

The gap is between where you are now, and your potential.

Where you are now, and how we’re going to help you on these rungs of the ladder. 

That’s the achievement gap, where it centers that child, not the white student that everyone else should catch up to. It’s every child and the potential that they have.