Lags in Minority Achievement Defy Traditional Explanations

By Debra Viadero

Second in a four-part series

If the researchers studying the reasons why black and Hispanic students continue to trail non-Hispanic whites in academic achievement were pressed to say one thing for certain about their work, it might be this: The usual explanations aren’t good enough.

Poverty can’t explain all of the achievement gap, they would say, because grade and test-score disparities crop up even in middle-class communities with integrated schools.

And peer pressure—fears that classmates will accuse fellow minority students of "acting white’’ for excelling in school—won’t do it either. If that were the reason, why would learning differences show up even in kindergarten—when children of every color want nothing more than...