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Embarking on what proved to be a relatively short-lived career as a high-school math teacher, I was surprised to discover a wide range of experience and ability among my students. I quickly found that lesson planning and teaching were much more complicated than I could have ever imagined as I struggled to move through the required material at a pace that didn’t terrify on the one hand or bore on the other. While I felt that I knew what each of my students needed to take the next step, there simply wasn’t enough time to work individually in the way they needed. So, I did my best and my students did their best, and next year the cycle started all over again with a fresh crop of students.

Unfortunately, my youthful experience was not unusual. Teachers all across America face similar limitations of time and resources, which unsurprisingly lead to the same less-than-ideal outcomes. Said another way, our public schools are much more engines of equality than equity: we are very good at ensuring that every student receives access to a teacher, a classroom and a curriculum, but we are not able to guarantee that each student receives the individual support needed to reach her or his potential. This is particularly troubling for children who are behind—the statistics show unequivocally that these children cannot catch up.

So what if we got every child to the starting line on day one?

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