The achievement difficulties that minority students experience due to ethnic and cultural differences are compounded when these students are from poor backgrounds. Research establishes a moderate correlation between students' socio-economics status (SES). parent's level o* income, and academic performance.   African American and Hispanic households have 60 percent the median family income of White households.   Moreover. African American and Hispanic children are twice as likely as White students to come from homes at or below the poverty level, often placing them more at risk for poor school outcomes. These factors are imponani for schools to consider in addressing student needs.
Factors external to the school, such as poverty and parents' education attainment, can adversely affect these students educational progress. However, conditions in the school continue to play a pivotal pan in these students' academic success. The charge to schools is obvious and unavoidable. Schools have to adequately meet the needs of these students and develop educational interventions to eradicate the insatiable culture of poverty thai schools across this nation have incessantly fed for years, contributing to a relentless cycle of poveny in - poverty out.
Man-land ranks 15:n among the states for child poveny. The percentage of children under age 18 living in poverty has risen from 10.9 percent in 1989 to 15.1 percent in 1995. an increase of approximately 50.000 children. Maryland is one of eight states in the nation where over 70 percent of the children in poveny live in a single ciry. Baltimore. However, achievement gaps for minorities in Man-land can not be attributed wholly to poverty. For there are districts in Man-land thai, while the poverty rates among students are relatively low. still exhibit substantial achievement disparities.
Issue: Perspective on Disparities and Schools
The schools meet their commitment to train for the existing social order in a curious \\-ay: they simultaneously homogenize their students and differentiate among them. School socializes as 11 stratifies.   A. WadeBovkin
Achievement disparities experienced by poor and minority students are due to a number of factors, social, political, and educational. Throughout history, social, political, and educational institutions have not appropriately met the needs of these groups. Some researchers pessimistically propose that the situation has become so bad. any hope of substantive change must be viewed in an imergenerational context, meaning that it took generations 10 reach this dismal state of affairs, and it will take generations to escape it (Miller. 1995). Whether or not this theory is accepted, the reality is that changes are long overdue and must begin immediately. The lack of academic success among many minority students, despite some gains, is a continuing problem in American education. As the minority student population in public schools has increased, the need to resolve this situation has intensified radically throughout this country. Trueba and Banolome (1997) comment that Hispanic students are "worse off today than in previous decades." The authors also assert that, due to predominant and increasing numbers, in the Twenty-first Century, the nation's technological and economic future depends on the educational success of these students as well as African Americans and Asians.   Essentially.