According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 43 percent of black fourth-graders do one hour or more of homework per night, as do 45 percent of whites and 47 percent of Hispanics.
In fact, black and Hispanic fourth-graders are both more likely than whites that age to do more than one hour of homework, with 18 percent of Hispanics, 17 percent of blacks, but only 15 percent of whites putting in this amount of study time daily.
Although Asians demonstrate more study time at this level, the differences between them and other students of color are not substantial: about 21 percent of Asian students in fourth grade study more than one hour.
There is also no evidence that black parents take less interest in their children's education, or fail to reinforce the learning that takes place in the classroom once their children are home. Once again, NCES statistics indicate that black children are more likely than whites to often spend time with their parents on homework. Black students are twice as likely as white students to get help from their parents on homework every day of the school week (twenty percent compared to ten percent), and while roughly half of black students get help from parents on homework at least three times each week, approximately two-thirds of whites get such help two times or less, with whites a third more likely than blacks to work with parents rarely if ever on their homework.
Of all the evidence disproving the notion that blacks place less value on education than whites, nothing makes the point more clearly than attendance information. Black twelfth graders are more than twice as likely as whites to have perfect attendance (16 percent versus 7.4 percent), and are even more likely than Asians to have perfect attendance. Whites are more likely than blacks to have missed seven or more days during the last semester, while blacks are the least likely to have missed that many days of school. There is also no significant difference between whites, Asians and blacks in terms of their likelihood to skip classes.