A study of 3 schools in a severely impoverished rural Arkansas school district sought to determine the effects of an enrichment program initiated in one of the schools. Efforts were also made to determine and compare the achievement and resultant gains in intelligence, personality, and academic advancement of welfare recipient and non recipient children in each school. Analysis of variance indicated that there existed no significant differences between the 3 schools with regard to achievement of all students studied. Welfare recipient children performed at a lower level than non welfare recipients on the academic test. Children enrolled in the enrichment program at the experimental school made significantly higher gains than children at the other 2 schools. It was concluded that an enriched, small-group instructional setting is much superior to a nonenriched program of any size. (DA)