In fact, the Harvard study data indicates that 70 percent of African American children attend schools that are predominately African American, about the same level as in 1968 when Dr. King died.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.

Another example of the educational inequality is the current debate over publicly financed school vouchers which will provide educational opportunities to a privileged handful, but deprive public schools of desperately needed resources.

Rather than following through on the proven crime and violence prevention techniques that work, we are back to tough-talking sound byte policies that have been proven to not only fail to reduce crime but actually increase crime, waste taxpayers' money and discriminate against minorities.

Studies have shown that inmate participation in education, vocational and job training, prison work skills development, drug abuse, mental health and other treatment programs, all reduce recidivism, significantly.

Unfortunately, the elimination of incentives such as parole, good time credits and funding for college courses, means that fewer inmates participate in and excel in literacy, education, treatment and other development programs.

Unequal funding resources also results in unequal educational opportunity when you consider studies that show that one half of low income students who are qualified to attend college do not attend because they can't afford to.