Minority Gaps Smaller In Some Pentagon Schools

By Debra Viadero

Baumholder, GermanyThird in a four-part series

If statistical odds really could predict academic success, Tieasha, a 12th grader at Baumholder High School, should be just barely making it. For starters, she is an African-American on her fifth school in 13 years. Neither her mother nor her stepfather finished college. And two-thirds of her schoolmates at the school—which serves the children of U.S. military personnel stationed here—come from families that qualify for price breaks on school lunches.

In many U.S. schools, those factors would be warning flags of potential failure, signaling what are widely considered leading causes of

higher dropout rates and lower academic achievement among black and Hispanic students compared with their...