Between 1970 and 1988, the achievement gap between black and white students was cut in half.

As the kindergarten teacher says to her hard-working pupils: G-double-O- D, good job, good job!

But nothing good lasts forever, right?

By 1989, the progress stalled, and the achievement gap between more affluent and lesser-privileged children has stretched wider than ever, The New York Times pointed out in “Education Gap Between Rich and Poor is Growing Wider.”

In Escambia County, the white student graduation rate in 2015 was more than 20 percentage points higher than black students.

In the county’s elementary schools last year, 70 percent of third-graders are  reading on level, compared to only 32 percent of black students, according to data from the Florida Department of Education. The state numbers nearly mirror Escambia County's.

The achievement gap is as much about race as it is class. In kindergarten, children from poor families typically are already a year behind the children of affluent families in both reading and math levels.

In cooperation with the University of West Florida Officer for Economic Development and Engagement, the Studer Institute has devised 16 metrics to measure the economic, educational and social well-being in the Pensacola metro area. Improving education emerged as top priority to help improve the community’s quality of life.

It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation about improving education without talking about the “achievement gap” on some level.

Research has pinpointed a litany of factors related to the achievement gap — students’ racial and economic background, their parents’ education level, their access to high-quality preschool instruction, school funding, peer influences, teacher expectations and instructional quality.

But looking at research and  talking about the achievement gap  won’t do anything to help close it and improve educational opportunities for all students.

When I talk about the problems in education to decision-making leaders — the people whose job it is to find solutions to problems — they invariably fall back on the same old, tired excuses:

“Kids damaged and broken as a result of dysfunctional families.” Their parents don’t care.” “They come to school hungry and unprepared.” “They don’t have a daddy or books at home.”

Their reasons, in other words, are always about the children and their families.

Young folks, however, see things entirely different.

They talk about teachers who can’t relate and can’t teach. They talk about principals who demand respect but don’t give it. They talk about counselors who undervalue and underestimate their potential and put them in lower-level classes.

Sometimes they talk about a culture of low expectations in their school and a curriculum that lulls them to sleep and pushes them out of the door before graduation.

The harsh reality is that data bear out what young people are saying. It’s not so much the issues like poverty and parental engagement don’t matter. Obviously they do.

But the problems are compounded when schools take the students who have less to start with and them systematically provide less for them in the classroom.

They get fewer resources, less attention, ineffective teachers. In fact, they get less of everything that should make a difference.

Let’s be clear. It would help if changes were made outside of schools. If parents spent more time with their children, if poverty didn’t crush their spirit and kill their dreams and if they arrived at school and remained on part with their affluent peers.

Both research and experience show that what schools do matters a lot, and we have to focus on what works in education.

School leaders who focus on closing the achievement gap often do things such as reduce or get rid of art, music, civics and recess. Then, they spend lots of time analyzing student performance on math, reading and writing tests in an effort to improve those skills. While those things are vitally important, this kind of learning comes with consequences.

It’s time that policymakers and pundits seriously admit that we live in a vastly unequal and unjust society that creates real problems that we see in schools before children ever even arrive on campus.

Students need to feel safe, to feel loved, to eat, to sleep, and to have friends, family and teachers they can engage in learning.

The students who too often don’t have their social and emotional needs met in and out of school are the same ones who are on the bottom end of the achievement gap.

Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care is apropos to closing the achievement gap.

An educator put it best when she said, “If kids comes to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job more important.”

We certainly can’t make any headway in raising student performance and closing the achievement gap until we make progress in closing the teaching gap.

That means supporting children equitably outside as well as inside the classroom, creating a profession that is rewarding and well-supported and designing schools that offer the conditions for both the student and the teacher learning that will move education forward.