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The first graders from the wealthiest homes have a 32-point advantage over the first graders from the poorest homes, and by the way, first graders from poor homes in Baltimore are really poor.
来自富裕家庭的一年级学生以32分的优势高于那些来自贫困家庭的学生——顺便提一下，巴尔的摩来自贫困家庭的学生的确很贫困。
But by fifth grade, four years later, that initially modest gap between the rich and the poor has more than doubled.
现在再看五年级这一列，这样看下来，接着是四年级，最开始不太明显的贫富学生间的差距开始成倍扩大。
This "achievement gap" is a phenomenon that has been observed over and over again and it provokes one of two responses.
这种差距已经被多次留意到，并引起了两种不同的反应。
The first response is that disadvantaged kids simply don't have the same inherent ability to learn as children from more privileged backgrounds. They're not as smart.
第一个说法是，贫穷的孩子不像有钱孩子一样拥有与生俱来的学习能力，他们不聪明；
The second, slightly more optimistic conclusion is that, in some way, our schools are failing poor children: we simply aren't doing a good enough job of teaching them the skills they need.
第二个更乐观一点的说法是，同样的，我们的学校中，那些贫穷的孩子之所以失败，是因为我们没有足够多、足够好地教给他们必要的技能。
But here's where Alexander's gets interesting, because it turns out that neither of those explanations rings true.
亚历山大在研究中得到了一些有趣的结论，证明了这两种说法都是不正确的。
The city of Baltimore didn't just give its kids the California Achievement Test at the end of every school year, in June.
在巴尔的摩，他们的学生没有在6月份的期末测试中做加利福尼亚测试题。
It gave them a test in September too, just after summer vacation ended.
他们会在暑假刚刚结束之后的9月份进行另外一个测试，
What Alexander realized is that the second set of test results allowed him to do a slightly different analysis.
就是这第二套测试的结果让亚历山大得出了不同的分析。
If he looked at the difference between the score a student got at the beginning of the school year,
我们可以先看一个学生每个学期9月开学时的分数，然后再看他/她在接下来的6月份得到的分数,
In September, and the score he or she got the following June, he could measure precisely how much that student learned over the school year.
这正好可以测到他或她在这个学期学到多少东西。
And if he looked at the difference between how a student scored in June and how they scored the following September, he could see how much the student learned over the course of the summer.
如果看到一个学生6月份的分数和接下来9月份分数的不同,就可以了解到这个学生暑假里学了多少课程。
In other words, he could figure out, at least in part, how much of the achievement gap is a result of things happened during the school year, and how much it has to do with what happens during summer vacation.
换句话说，他可以计算出——至少部分得出——有多少成绩的差距和整年的校内学习有关，又有多少差距和暑假中的学习有关。
