As black leaders figure out their mission in a Barack Obama America, former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige offers direction on what they should really concentrate on: Addressing the achievement gaps that have condemned far too many young black men and women to crime and poverty. Estimating that just a five-percent decline in the number of dropouts would result in $8 billion in additional economic productivity, Paige (now back in Houston) argues that the conventional focus of civil rights activists on institutional racism and disputes over flags are meaningless given that so few blacks can actually reap the gains.

Paige, whose book The Black-White Achievement Gap: Why Closing It Is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time is now in print, offers some thoughts in the following short video, taped yesterday during his presentation at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in D.C. Watch and consider (mobile viewers can also download the video).