The central purpose of this book is to help leaders and professionals in government, education, business, philanthropies, and the media think about what needs to be done to ensure that minorities reach educational parity with the majority population as soon as possible. Chapter 1 discusses society's interest in the educational advancement of minorities. Chapter 2 examines U.S. trends in majority and minority educational attainment. In Chapter 3, the focus is on educational achievement and differences among racial and ethnic groups on standardized tests. Chapter 4 lays the ground work for the exploration of why achievement and educational attainment gaps between minorities and whites persist. These gaps are examined in greater detail in Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 explores whether standard measures of socioeconomic status (family income and parent education) account for differences in academic achievement. Chapter 7 considers differences in standardized test scores in more detail. Chapters 8 and 9 consider prejudice and discrimination and the roles they have played in academic underachievement. Chapter 10 reviews research on the relationship of cultural differences to academic achievement, and Chapter 11 provides estimates of the variation in education-related family and school resources available to minorities. Chapter 12 offers criteria that can be used to set priorities for accelerating the educational advancement of minorities, and Chapter 13 considers the larger meanings of the changing demographics of the United States. (Contains 61 references.) (SLD)