I had high hopes for the Governor's Achievement Gap Task Force, later re-named the Working Group on Student Achievement, for these reasons, as well as the fact that 21 of its 34 members represented communities of color. These high hopes were dashed after I attended the working group's Salt Lake town hall meeting at Horizonte Instruction and Training Center Nov. 7. What had promised to be an honest discussion about closing performance disparities between white students and students of color quickly turned into good old-fashioned rhetoric.

The moderator for the evening, Rep Kory Holdaway, R-Taylorsville, opened with a caveat to the working group's recommendations: "This [the achievement gap] is not an issue of ethnicity." As if this were not enough, Rep. Holdaway echoed this refrain several times throughout the evening: This is not an issue of ethnicity.

What he and some other members of the working group would have us believe is that the achievement gap is a completely neutral, random affair.

One of the group's recommendations is to develop a commission to continue conversations about the achievement gap. I argue that this will be a fruitless exercise if the members of such a group continue to perpetuate the false notion that achievement gaps have nothing to do with race and ethnicity.

Actually, race plays a large role in what researchers across the country have observed and conceptualized as the achievement gap. Even when researchers control for the issue of socioeconomic status, they find that outcomes for white students are higher than those for Latino, black and American Indian students.

If the governor does, in fact, institute a permanent commission to look at achievement gaps, its members must admit that achievement gaps exist and that they are based in difference.

Achievement gaps exist precisely because we have not found adequate ways to use our students' differences to their advantage. Our children are not disadvantaged because of their skin color or because they speak Spanish as their primary language. They are disadvantaged because we have not found ways to celebrate these gifts and to utilize them to enhance educational opportunities at school.

Because I suspect that the working group's recommendations are not rooted in a desire for equity and social justice, I have developed my own five recommendations. It is my hope that they will creep their way into future discussions about the achievement gap and be reflected in future, more honest recommendations:

l The governor should form a commission to discuss achievement gaps. The appointees to this commission should not be individuals who debate the role difference plays in Utah politics. Nothing in this state is race-neutral and disparities in achievement are no exception.

Indeed, this commission could learn a thing or two from the already-functioning Utah Achievement Gaps Coalition. Maybe the governor simply ought to visit a few of our meetings.

l School and teacher accountability ought to reflect multiple indicators where achievement gaps surface: the number of teachers and administrators of color, the experience of teachers working in areas of most need, high school completion, higher education admission and tracking (referring to who gets placed in the rote, basic academic tracks and who gets assigned to advanced-placement tracks). These categories are rarely reflected in accountability reports and they should be.

l Make the issue of equity and social justice the core of teacher and administrator preparation programs. All educators must affirm rather than tolerate difference, which means finding ways to utilize it as a central component of the curriculum.

l Eliminate all references to school choice and retention from the dialogue about achievement gaps. Neither has been shown to make the slightest impact, especially for those students who need the most support.

l Stop referring to students and families as disadvantaged or at-risk. It is our system, which places students in situations of struggle, that is at-risk and in need of reform.

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Jim Martin is a member of the Utah Achievement Gaps Coalition and a doctoral student in educational leadership and policy at the University of Utah. His emphasis includes issues of equity and social justice.