NYT: Middle class 6th graders two years behind upper middle class 6th graders

The professor of victim studies in education has an answer for you:

“In some communities where both blacks and whites or Hispanics and whites came from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, academic gaps persisted. Mr. Reardon said that educators in these schools may subliminally – or consciously in some cases – track white students into gifted courses while assigning black and Hispanic students to less rigorous courses.”