Part of the problem in ensuring equal access to a quality education for young people in both the United Kingdom and the United States, irrespective of their place of origin or race or ethnic identity, is the current composition of elites. Those at the top of the educational and political system find it hard to grasp the problems of low-income and minority students unless they have experienced poverty, discrimination, and failing schools for themselves. Poor students are dismissed as insufficiently academically gifted or hardworking rather than acknowledged as deprived. No one takes account of
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