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.