“We cannot continue to accept that barely half of the country’s black and Hispanic students are graduating from high school, or that white children can read at levels far exceeding those of minority children,” Chancellor Klein said. “These facts translate to diminished life opportunities for millions of students who are being denied their proper access to the American Dream.”

The event, held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, was part of the Department of Education’s “Closing the Achievement Gap” series. The series of forums is designed to engage educators, parents, and other members of the New York City community in a dialogue about how to improve achievement.

Klein and Sharpton also co-authored a Wall Street Journal editorial calling on President Obama to nurture “a bipartisan coalition that challenges the entrenched education establishment…. [and] demonstrate an unflagging commitment to ‘what works’ to dramatically boost academic achievement — rather than clinging to reforms that we ‘wish would work.’”

Sign us at 20/20 up for that bipartisan coalition!

A similar call during the election last year resulted in Klein and Sharpton convening the Education Equality Project.  On eve of President-elect Obama’s historic inauguration, the EEP will host an Martin Luther King Day education rally in at Cardozo High School in Washington, DC, this Monday, January 19.

Reverend Sharpton and Chancellor Klein will lead the rally and will be joined by other civil rights, government, and education leaders including Mayors Booker (Newark) and Johnson (Sacramento), Martin Luther King III, Governor Romer, US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, Dr. Michael Lomax (President, United Negro College Fund), Geoffrey Canada (President and Chief Executive Officer for Harlem Children’s Zone), and Senator McCain.