In the book Creating the Opportunity to Learn, authors Boykin and Noguera examine the academic achievement gap that exists in the United States, which the authors claim is three dimensional. There is a gap between white students and minority groups, between U.S. students and students in European countries, and between what students know now and what they will need to know to lead successful lives in the future. They examine the probable causes of the gap and evaluate current research to locate solutions to address the issue. While the academic achievement gap is pervasive, over three thousand schools have made significant progress in closing the gap. The authors explore and discuss the methodologies employed in these schools in order to provide direction to other districts in their attempts to improve academic outcomes for minority students. As evidenced by their numerous peer-reviewed publications on education and race issues, Boykin and Noguera are well versed on this topic, and they provide readers with a meaningful historical viewpoint along with carefully selected suggestions to address the nation's static achievement gap.Creating the Opportunity to Learn serves as a guide for school district administrators who are searching for strategies to combat the achievement gap. Others who could benefit from its contents include administrators from teachers' colleges, college professors, principals, and all district administrators. Teachers could also glean instructional strategies that could be useful in addressing achievement disparities in the classroom.Wade Boykin has published several studies that focus on the achievement of African Americans in schools and on achievement tests. He also serves as the director of the graduate program in the Department of Psychology at Howard University and is co-editor of the book Research Directions of Black Psychologists. He has served as a member on a number of advisory panels and task force committees, including the President's National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Co-author Pedro Noguera serves as the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University and has several published articles that focus on closing the achievement gap. He has also penned numerous books, including American Dream; Unfinished Business: Closing the Achievement Gap in Our Nation's Schools; City Kids, City Teachers; and The Trouble with Black Boys … and Other Reflections of Race, Equity, and the Future of Public Education.Creating the Opportunity to Learn is divided into three sections. The first section examines the achievement gap. The authors discuss race and its connection to achievement, society's viewpoint and impact on the gap, and historical documentation of the gap's existence. Section 2 provides readers with research-based strategies to help remove the achievement disparities. The authors examine peer-reviewed literature and offer suggestions to set schools on the correct course. In the final section, Boykin and Noguera take a closer look at successful schools and make connections between empirical research and the methods employed by the schools that are closing the achievement gap. This section also offers information on how school policy can enhance efforts to address achievement gap issues.Black and Latino students have made statistically significant growth over the past twenty years on achievement tests; however, so, too, have their white counterparts. In comparing historical data with current information, the achievement gap is essentially the same today as it was in 1990. This is true across a number of measureable variables, including grade point average, district and state achievement tests, and higher-level course enrollment. Furthermore, the authors provide support for the fact that minorities are disproportionately overrepresented in special education programs and underrepresented in gifted placements.The authors then discuss No Child Left Behind (nclb) and note that this legislation compelled schools to focus on improving achievement for those subgroups that have not traditionally been successful in school. Even with this mandatory spotlight on achievement, or lack thereof, the gap still exists in most schools, after almost ten years of heightened awareness. Boykin and Noguera suggest that nclb challenged the notion that race and intelligence are absolutely connected, and while certainly not a negative turnabout, the adoption of the new law did not erase years of racial inequality.The authors review the history of racial reasoning in American history next. They discuss the prevailing thought throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth century that nonwhites were genetically inferior to whites. Boykin and Noguera offer recent examples that portray similar ideas. One example provided is from the former president of Harvard University, who stated that women were not well represented in math and science fields due to their inherent differences in intellect. Other ideas to explain the minority achievement gap are explored, including culture and parental influence. However, many studies discount these explanations as various other factors affect academic performance, such as motivation, family income, parental income, and school quality. Furthermore, claims about culture's impact on achievement are disputed by the fact that not all children influenced by a particular culture do poorly in school. The authors also challenge the ideas of Bill Cosby and psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint articulating the belief that culture heavily obstructs student achievement without observed evidence.Interestingly, the authors chose a study from 1995 to demonstrate the opposite, as it undermines the validity of broad generalizations about culture's effect on achievement. Through a survey, teachers and students identified Asian students as the highest academic achievers in their school. However, upon examination of the data, only a few Asian students were among the top achievers in the school. In fact, the grade point average for Asian students fell in the midrange of the scale for the entire school population. While it appears that the authors' point is valid, the essay from which Boykin and Noguera discerned this information was from an unpublished study conducted by an undergraduate student. Due to their knowledge and experience with the subject, Boykin and Noguera may have considered a peer-reviewed article that captures the same intent, especially after criticizing others for not supporting their beliefs appropriately.As the authors move from this topic, they acknowledge that some characteristics loosely associated with culture may influence academic achievement. They mention parent actions such as reading to children during infancy, posing questions instead of making demands, and keeping high expectations for behavior and academic success as cultural items that may influence academic performance (25). Fortunately, Boykin and Noguera recognize the importance of this information and devote an entire chapter to discussing the benefits of certain cultural influences.Next, the authors take the position that “if racial categories are indeed social and not primarily biological in nature, then it should be possible to fundamentally alter the predictability of racial patterns related to academic ability … if we eliminate the ways in which those patterns are entrenched within the structure and culture of a school” (26). Teachers, they suggest, must address their own stereotypes and challenge those of the larger culture. Finally, Boykin and Noguera assert that multicultural education, as opposed to Americanization or a color-blind approach, is the appropriate method to utilize in schools today, as it encourages teachers and others to unlearn biases and provides them with the tools to address racism and discrimination.Upon review of the literature, the authors pinpoint three areas that serve as achievement gap–shrinking methods: student engagement, student guiding functions, and classroom-based asset-focused strategies. While Boykin and Noguera are confident in their findings, they also caution the reader about the limitations of some of their chosen studies. These concerns include a heavy reliance on self-reported data and some flawed experimental designs.The authors conclude that the most important factor in closing the achievement gap is active student engagement. They cite a number of studies that connected student engagement with increased academic performance. To link minority achievement to engagement, they discuss several studies that specifically focused on increased gains by minorities as a direct result of teacher/student engagement. Boykin and Noguera also attempt to prove the point by examining articles that look at the opposite of engagement and its effect on achievement. Avoidance behavior by students leads to less frequent opportunities for active engagement with the teacher, and this tends to have a snowball effect as teachers may be more likely to interact positively with students who appear actively engaged. Results indicate that the achievement gap widens under these circumstances. This concept has the potential to have a substantial impact on classroom teaching, as it calls for professional development to focus on developing teachers' ability to establish relationships with students in order to increase student engagement. Due to the emphasis placed on student engagement by the authors, and the obvious evidence-based benefits that result from student engagement, additional information about how engagement looks and feels in the classroom would have been beneficial to the reader.Student guiding functions, which include self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, and incremental beliefs about ability, are empirically linked to increased academic achievement. Similar to the compounding nature of engagement noted above, these functions may build upon and strengthen each other. Interestingly, while malleable, black and Latino students are less likely to report these functions as traits. Fortunately, the authors contend that certain teacher actions can promote these functions within all students. The authors express excellent ideas when reviewing self-efficacy. In fact, the research presented on self-efficacy relates directly to individual student achievement. Once again, information about how a teacher might generate opportunities for students to develop self-efficacious attitudes and behaviors would have been beneficial, as it may allow individuals to take control of their learning. In addition, one factor not explored is gender. Is there a difference in student guiding functions with the introduction of gender? Should different instructional strategies be utilized to reach males and females?Next, the authors provide support for asset-focused strategies, which are activities that keep student interest, experience, and prior knowledge at the forefront. Among other findings, a strong conclusion is that teachers who display genuine care for their students and hold them to high expectations are likely to reach all students, especially minorities. Evidence exists that in many classrooms that serve black and Latino students, genuine care and high expectations are less likely to be found. In addition, Boykin and Noguera report on the benefits of directly teaching critical thinking, problem solving, and learning strategies to increase achievement. The authors do not address how administrators might go about assisting teachers who struggle in these areas.In the final chapters, Boykin and Noguera address roadblocks that hinder achievement gap–reducing efforts. Included among them are capacity and prioritization issues, a distinct focus on and misuse of test scores, and a reliance on unproven methods to reduce the achievement gap, such as forcing low-achieving students to take extra courses in test preparation. The authors suggest that the only way to reduce the gap is to develop a comprehensive approach that over time develops student engagement in the behavioral, affective, and cognitive domains.In conclusion, the authors urge districts to focus on strategies that have shown replicable evidence, to be aware of what takes place in classrooms, to focus on the positive attributes that minorities bring to their schools, to believe in their students and to help students believe in their abilities, and to avoid one-shot solutions to achievement gap issues.The organization of the book enables one to explore the contents through a journey of interrelated stories. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the history of the achievement gap, examine the role and significance of race, and measure the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act. Methodically, they present research to address certain issues and conclude with advice for district administrators. Race, the impact of student/teacher relationships, and the implications associated with self-efficacy are important topics for all educators to contemplate. According to the presented research, implementing these ideas should increase achievement for minority students if the strategies are executed with fidelity.In addition to the minor flaws mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, the opening section of the book mentions that the ideas presented throughout are geared toward raising achievement for all students but also intended to “simultaneously raise levels at a steeper rate for certain students of color” (5). While this may be the case, the majority of the studies offered in the book focused on students of color and achievement. Generalizing the research to the entire student population is by way of convenience and not by observed research.Creating the Opportunity to Learn is timely as the nation's schools near the 2014 nclb deadline for achieving 100 percent proficiency across all subgroups. As noted in Creating the Opportunity to Learn, many districts continue to struggle to meet the needs of children in certain categories, including minority students. Boykin and Noguera present solid researched strategies that can provide, at the very least, districts with a logical blueprint for action to address the disparity between whites and their nonwhite counterparts.