[Arthur McGowan]

Poor children:

Government school;
Little contact with parents;
Lots of television;
no reading.

Rich children:

Private school;
More contact with parents;
less television;
reading.

[Othniel]

I've known several poor kids who are very smart. One of them is in a magnet high school for kids interested in the health professions. My own boys get A's, top out on the state tests (my ten year old scored 100% on four of the seven sections.), and we aren't poor. What we did, though, was talk to them from day one, spend time reading with them, and took advantage of opportunities to stimulate their little grey cells. It depends a lot on the parents whether a kid does well. Some genetics, sure, but qualities the kid has, like attention span, linguistic ability, and abstraction, are things parents can teach.