Public Education Primer

The information given in the Public Education Primer was quite revealing information for me. Also these are statistics that were relatively accurate when I was in high school and I am certain much of the information applied almost certaintly to where I went to school, Bayonne High School. The questions that circle my mind after reading this are, why these numbers are what they are? Is there something society can do about it? Is it societies fault? The school systems fault? I can say that there is positivity in the increase of how well the students are achieving, particularly students of color, because of where a lot of these students come from and where most of them go to school according to the numbers. That shows that at least these children are working hard to become a greater "statistic" for lack of a better word. I also wonder where the core of the problems begin because if you think about it, if lesser numbers become greater and vice verca for majority of the information gathered there will have been change for the better in our school systems. So what set of numbers on which table or pie chart needs to be focused on so that possibly the domino affect could take place in these areas?
I believe all the information in the readings was a broad over view of what we will be going more in depth with through the semester. My main question and concern is, as future teachers, are there ways we can approach these numbers where ever we end up teaching in which ever school district under whatever board... Are there possible ways we can bring concrete change? Or are we left to get in where we fit and just jump on the band wagon? My expectations at the end of this semester is to be more knoledgable in this field and the way it operates and works for the children and around the children, so that maybe I can find an answer to my question.