No, I don't think it does, Ron. It's a Band-Aid. Let's wait until they are less educated than the other students, then try and fix it by helping them get into college? Some fix. What about the kids who don't get to go anyway, despite affirmative action? Too many kids fall through the cracks when you rely on quasi-effective measures liek affirmative action.

*How about textbooks written this decade? Textbooks at all?
*Would roof repairs and asbestos removal be too much to ask?
*Debt forgiveness, scholarships and other incentives to attract a new generation of teachers?
*Equal pay standards for teachers, instead of lower salaries in poorer school districts that end up sending the least competant teachers to the schools that need it most?
*Less reliance on standarized testing written by, for, and about white people. Let teachers teach, instead of teaching the test that month, and antoher next month, and another the month after...
*Less curriculum written by, for, and about white people and more multicultural curriculum that keeps minorities interested and broadens the horizons of white kids.
*Improved and more creative parent outreach programs that reach parents working 2 or 3 jobs by being flexible and listening.
*Community outreach programs, particularly those that include non-parents, to get the community active in improving the schools
*Improved and more after school programs that keep schools open and a safe place to go for kids into the evening hours that keep kids off the street and into a supportive environment. No need to make it all about tutoring (although that's good, too) -- how about open gyms and music classes
*School nutrition programs that don't just serve pizza next to the Coke machine.
*Get kids OFF the marketting schemes that send them around to pester all the neighbors so a magazine subscription warehouse can make money and give a few pennies to the school -- instead of those kids playing games, playing music, reading a book, engaging in debate, etc.

Nothing there too radical, or even too hard. I could go on with a much longer list. Once all the kids have a safe place to sit and textbooks to study, maybe we can work on including some of the programs (like early art and music classes) that have been shown to significantly improve mathematical skills and spacial reasoning. After all, the rich kids in the private elementary schools get it. Gosh, what about affordable, SAFE and educational daycare for pre-kindergarden students! What would that do for the mental development of young kids? What would that do for the parents?

There's so much more that can be done to improve the education of underprivileged students without falling back on divisive racial issues. Real, solid, proven things. No one knows it better than the teachers and the students what's missing, all we have to do is ask, because every school has it's individual challenges that need to be addressed. And helping out the poorest schools WILL help out minority students, without doing so at the expense of the non-minority students.