I am pleased to join the Star Tribune in applauding our noble but halting struggle to come to grips with the education disparity in our state ("A business boost for K-12 education," March 18 editorial). Indeed, we have a lot to learn from Hong Kong, Germany, South Korea and many of the world's ethnically homogenous nations. These nations have no significant cohort of the racial "other." They presume intellectual equality across their populations and are driven to produce uniform results. On the other hand, America still struggles to value its "other" children. The trajectories of slavery, Jim Crow and displacement still warp the arc of justice in America. Disparity in education is still all too normal in America and stirs no dramatic compromise or call to action. We must learn a lesson from our global neighbors. We treat each child as fully capable of being educated. We must see the failure of minority and poor students as the vile squander of human resources that it is and rush to harness these vast intellectual assets before they turn into liabilities. Let's make Teach for America a model for our state and attract the best minds to the teaching profession. Use good data in unrelenting pursuit of excellence. Find excellent urban schools and replicate them. The Itasca Project and the Minnesota Business Partnership should talk to Dacia Toll from Amistaad Academy in New Haven, Conn., and Achievement First Charter Schools in New York; Chris Barbic from YESPrep in Houston; Sharon Johnson from Withrow University High; Lawrence Hernandez from Caesar Chavez Academy Charter School in Pueblo, Colo., and Dan French from Boston Pilot Schools. They can speak of the ways to guarantee success for poor and minority inner-city kids, equal to any suburban school in our state. We are the most diverse of countries, but for too long we have gone the way of history's diverse and unequal nations. We must finally live out the true meaning of our compelling creed and consider all minds equal and equally endowed. And we must move heaven and earth to see them equally developed. DON SAMUELS, MINNEAPOLIS; CITY COUNCIL MEMBER