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Equal access to educational opportunity is the philosophical cornerstone of the U.S. public education system. Although significant advances toward realizing this goal have been made over recent decades, educational quality still varies widely across social strata. The agents of this inequity are familiar to most in disadvantaged educational environments: educator stress, low academic expectations, and impaired relations with students; ecological instability; and a culture that discourages academic achievement and healthy behavior—as well as a host of other circumstances that demand the attention of students and educators at the expense of learning. Although years of policy initiatives have worked to eliminate these problems, U.S. public education still falls far short of Mann's vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]