Agreed. Anyone who has been through a metro public school system has more than enough anecdotal evidence to know it's not race (and NOT the school), but the cu

Agreed. Anyone who has been through a metro public school system has more than enough anecdotal evidence to know it's not race (and NOT the school), but the culture and family the kid goes home to at night that makes the biggest difference. While I agree with the idea of picking specific metrics and asking about them, at a cultural level I think what is going on here is a little more complicated than simply not knowing. Frequently public schools teach things that the subcultures feel are simply not relevant, to their lives. Let me give you an example: When I showed up for day 1 of high school, I was immediately bombarded with the idea of applying to college. I was essentially told that the next four years would be spent preparing for college - that's what the "point" of hs was. This in an of itself is pretty bad, in terms of limiting intellectual exploration and all that good stuff. But imagine you aren't planning to go to college. Imagine no one in your family went to college, and it's likely you'll end up working a blue collar job where your degree doesn't matter. What exactly should your parents be doing/saying here to get their kid interested in school? And why even bother? TLDR: I think this is much more about subcultural groups feeling excluded from, and thus rejecting, mainstream education, and the cultural norms that are projected from it, than simply explaining the cultural norms more scientifically.