Research demonstrates that student performance is strongly related to the educational backgrounds and aspirations of other students in a school. Equity can be measured across several types of resources, including differences in class size, types of programs offered, levels of teacher qualifications, teacher salaries, and so on. In general, children of parents with higher levels of education perform better, on average, on assessments of academic achievement. In 1995, the dropout rate was 44 percent for those who had difficulty speaking English, compared with a dropout rate of 12 percent for those who did not have difficulty speaking English. High school graduates from low-income families were more likely to attend college in 1995 than they were in 1972.
Poverty is associated with poorer school outcomes for children.
Poverty rates are much higher in the United States than in many other industrialized countries. The percentage of children whose families live in poverty is greater in the United States than in Canada, France, the former West Germany, and the United Kingdom. The proportion of children living in single-parent families has more than doubled since 1970. In 1994, black children were three times more likely than white children to live in a single-parent family. Minority students are more likely than white students to attend high-poverty schools.