Education for all?

On Monday, I turned in my Junior Theme, the paper that many consider your "most important paper".  My topic was consumer debt, but I was also thinking about doing something about education.  I came across this article and thought it was very interesting and telling.  It is about how the gap between education of the rich and poor have increased, particularly in test scores.

This was one significant stat: "In the 1980s, on an 800-point SAT-type test scale, the average difference in test scores between two such children [rich and poor] would have been about 90 points; today it is 125 points".  When considering standard deviation, this 35 point different is actually a bigger gap.  One would expect wealthier people to receive better education, but why should the gap between rich and poor education rise?  Shouldn't it remain consistent?

I think that nowadays, people spend extra money on tutors and resources in order to improve test scores.  I know that I took countless tutoring sessions for the ACT, which definitely improved my score.  I highly doubt poor children have this luxury or even option.  But why does it even matter that the gap is getting wider?  I'm not completely sure, but I would say that it contributes to a greater difficulty to move up social classes, as well as increasing the difference in income down the road.  So this is a national issue and should be concerning to the government, who is trying to improve the education of the country nationally.

Why does it matter if there is a big gap between the rich and poor test scores?  And why do you think the gap has widened?  Comment below.