Trying to comprehensively wrap one's mind around education in the United States with an eye towards reform is nearly impossible.  There is no "one thing" that will be the cure all. When we talk about equity, we are talking about not only access to the same resources such as computers and quality text books, but also to safe environments, to quality diets, and to an atmosphere that is supportive to achieving academic goals to name a few.  And these need to be in existence both inside and outside of the school - in the neighborhoods the children live, the homes in which they live (unfortunately there are many children whose families are homeless - studying in the family car is difficult).

There are, of course. definitely limitations to what a school can do in effecting the environment outside the school.  But the Harlem Children's Zone has demonstrated when a comprehensive approach is taken, poverty need not be such a barrier to academic success.  It means working with the parents from the moment they know a child is on the way into this world, working with the parents preparing the child to be ready to enter Kindergarten, and so on.

The most intriguing comment in the article for me was:

And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Puronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.

It would indeed require a major shift in the American paradigm for the perspective that "real winners do not compete" to take hold.  Although I would point out that there is surely competition in the Finnish culture (in and outside of school), just as there is cooperation in the U.S.  It is a matter of proclivity - the default perspective or approach.

[Having not been to Finland, and only knowingly met two people from this country, I cannot say whether this cooperative mind-set is more a reality or wishful thinking on Puronen and Sahlberg's part. But unless proven otherwise, I'll assume this is the case with Finland.]

As it came up in a thread here not to long ago, both cooperation and competitiveness were valuable survival techniques as our ancestors evolved and led to us today.  Much of what makes society what it is (and so dang interesting and unpredictable) comes from the fact that both of these coping methods are wired into us as a result of evolution. 

But this emphasis on the value of a community's cooperative approach to education demonstrates that all the legislation and funding will not be enough.  We need as a nation (or a plethora of  interwoven local communities) to begin to reflect and adjust how we view competition and cooperation.

I remember one class while working on my masters in education* when another student and myself suggested that schools eliminate all competitive extra-curricular activities (debate to football) and replace them with cooperative ones - both within and between schools.  The utter uproar this caused surprised even us, although we had partly suggested it to get a reaction.  It was a similar reaction that I witnessed once while watching the Phil Donahue show (in the pre-Orpah days when there wasn't the pressure to just have movie stars and sensational guests) where a couple was plugging their book that promoted cooperative games kids could play rather than competitive ones.  It wasn't long before someone called them commies and wanting to undermine what made America great.