The word "minority" is becoming a misnomer in many parts of the United States. More than 40% of American public school students belong to a racial or ethnic minority group, according to the latest figures from the US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. And in many Western states, nonwhite students now outnumber their white peers.
But while the number of nonwhite students enrolling in public schools has been rising for decades, the system is still struggling to find ways to serve them successfully. Latino, African American and Native American high school students perform poorly in the classroom compared with their nonminority peers, are more likely to drop out of school, and are less likely to pursue college degrees.
"There is ample evidence from at least high school, if not before, through graduate school that minorities are way behind in science in particular and academia in general, and ...
