I was ready to like Peter Sacks' new book, "Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education." He is a terrific reporter with a keen sense of weak spots in conventional wisdom about schools. And since the word "class" in the title of this column has always had a double meaning, I was eager to read the work of someone who shared my view that socioeconomic differences are at the root of our failure to help many of our brightest kids get the educations they deserve.

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