Poor Asian kids in identical schools with Black , white and Hispanic kids out perform all of them . They typically outperform even the private school kids on ACT and Sats . There is a familial expectation of acedemic success in the home of the Asian kids. They typically attain professional degrees that are somewhat isolated from the social requirements of society. Money is often cited as the number one reason schools fail. However we are exponentially increased the amount of money we through at schools in the past 50 years and scores have stayed flat of gone down. We need to move to a two tiered system. Tier one is pre college , you competitively earn the right to attend. Everyone else goes into a basic program geared years the trades. Who gives a shait of Shaq or Dewayne can do algebra, if the m'fr can weld he will always have work available. I retired this year so I have been able to see how this can work. I have had a 19 year old homeless kid living with me since the first of the year. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade. Horrible home life but never did drugs or alcohol. We coached him up on the basics every night after he worked an 8 hour day. He passed his GED exams last week with scores in the top 10% . He had tears in his eyes when he got the news. He had never experienced success in his life because third was no one to set the expectation for him. He had no idea that he was worth something to the world. He leaves for basic training in the U.S. Army in two weeks. He did this all on his own all we did was give him direction. Thousands like him clogging up the system.