"For nearly 50 years, the federal government has tried - but largely failed - to find the right formula to close the achievement gap between the highest-performing students in America's public school classrooms and those who get left behind."

"Scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were analyzed in a sample of 7-year-old twins from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. A substantial proportion of the twins were raised in families living near or below the poverty level. Biometric analyses were conducted using models allowing for components attributable to the additive effects of genotype, shared environment, and non-shared environment to interact with socioeconomic status (SES) measured as a continuous variable. Results demonstrate that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse."

"Windsor Farms is a historic neighborhood in Richmond's West End just north of the James River. Its streets are lined with colonial-style homes meant to mimic an English village. Seven and a half miles away is the Gilpin neighborhood in Richmond's Northside, next to Interstates 64 and 95. Its streets are lined with one of the largest public housing projects on the East Coast, Gilpin Court.  Windsor Farms Gilpin Court Though it's just a 15-minute drive between Windsor Farms and Gilpin, the two neighborhoods are worlds apart in terms of socioeconomics. The average annual household income for residents in Windsor Farms is about $185,000; in Gilpin, the figure is less than $10,000."