I disagree. It is really about culture. I grew up in southern California in a small, mostly Mexican (the meaningless word Hispanic hadn't been invented yet) town. Their culture despises accomplishment above the mean and therefore places no value on education...in fact they ridicule it. I remember being held back (and getting in trouble for reading ahead) by these other kids that were having to sound out monosyllable words like (and this is no exaggeration) "OF".
Just for the record, these were not illegal immigrants either. Almost all were natives and some could trace there families in California back to before most of the rest of us could find ours in North America.
Well, I'm a teacher who taught in an inner city for 5 years and am now teaching in a school where more and more poor kids are moving in (poor hispanic, black, white). There is a different culture with the poor no matter what the ethnicity.