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Via the Sacramento Bee | By Dan Walters

Years – even decades – of intense academic and political debate over closing the stubbornly wide “achievement gap” that separates Latino and black students from their white and Asian classmates are reaching a climactic point.

This week, the State Board of Education is poised to approve hotly contested regulations to guide the expenditure of billions of extra dollars aimed at improving the educations of poor and “English learner” students.

Nearly 60 percent of the state’s 6 million K-12 students fall into that category, and while almost every school district will receive some new money, those with large concentrations of the targeted kids – particularly big urban districts – will receive much more.

Read the full commentary here.