No, the focus is not wrong at all. In order to close the gap between Americans and the internatinal community, you have to do something about the incredible gap now existing between white and minorities. I am shocked you can not grasp the obvious truth in that.
The Black - White gap dropped from 40% to to 28%
The Black - Hispanic gap dropped from 20% to 15%
The Hispanic - White gap dropped from 20% to 13%
If reducing the gap to zero is the real goal, why not try to make white children do poorly?
This focus on the gap will tend to dumb-down education. They will try to make the test easy as a way to improve the scores of everyone. If you compare the students to those of other countries, there would be no incentive to dumbing-down education.