> what is the educational divide?
My personal view is that it is largely family background. If your father is, say, an engineer and has tons of books, this is a huge advantage against coming from a family where the only printed matter is the daily mail.
Nowadays with the internet offering all information for everybody one may think that the above is much less important. I'd argue this is not the case: kids still need guidance in order to find/pick useful stuff and not just sink in a torrent of crap.
> To my mind, the key to all success in education is teachers.
Yes, a thousand times. As far as I know this is the *only* parameter that significantly determines learning success. There is a current thought in Germany (and surely elsewhere as well) that if teaching becomes "digital" (whatever this means) everything magically gets better. Whenever I hear this, I really want to slap someone in the face.