While it is quite clear that black and Latino students in general, and poor black and poor Latino students in particular do not do as well as white students in school, the road to real solutions to this very important and vexing problem is far from clear. Some champion vouchers and charter schools as the ideal solution, despite strong data suggesting that neither is particularly effective. Others point to smaller classes. Increasingly scholars and politicians support more accountability on the part of teachers, despite the reality that teachers do not have a great deal of control over much that influences performance. This book addresses the various "solutions", and suggests that any solution to the gap that ignores the role of families is limited at best, and misguided at worst. The book details an effort to help poor black and poor Latino families learn to do the things necessary to help their children to do better in school, and argues that this family centered approach, while complicated, should be considered along side the school centered efforts.

While it is quite clear that black and Latino students in general, and poor black and poor Latino students in particular do not do as well as white students in school, the road to real solutions to this very important and vexing problem is far from clear. Some champion vouchers and charter schools as the ideal solution, despite strong data suggesting that neither is particularly effective. Others point to smaller classes. Increasingly scholars and politicians support more accountability on the part of teachers, despite the reality that teachers do not have a great deal of control over much that influences performance. This book addresses the various "solutions", and suggests that any solution to the gap that ignores the role of families is limited at best, and misguided at worst. The book details an effort to help poor black and poor Latino families learn to do the things necessary to help their children to do better in school, and argues that this family centered approach, while complicated, should be considered along side the school centered efforts.

In recent times, actor, comedian, and educator, Bill Cosby sparked a national debate over the role of poor black families in raising their children. Additionally, scholars including Reginald Clark, Annette Lareau, John Ogbu, Javier Tapia, James Comer, and William A. Sampson have done research that suggests that many poor black and Latino families have child-rearing strategies and home environments that are inconsistent with school achievement. Each of these educators contend that in order to increase student achievement, minority families need to change if their children are to do better in life and in school. Race, Class, and Family Intervention: Engaging Parents and Families for Academic Success reports on efforts to intervene in the home life of a group of nonwhite parents and grandparents who have low-performing children. Each family was asked to adopt the characteristics of middle-class families. This research_conducted on eight disadvantaged black and Latino families_details the author's analysis of the intervention and a conclusion based on actual results. Race, Class, and Family Intervention will be of interest to anyone striving to improve the education of minority students.