ABSTRACT
The diversity of minority ethnic groups in Britain and the educational progress of British children of parents of minority ethnic group origins is one important current public concern. Britain has increasingly become a multicultural society. One index of this is that a senior official from one large LEA has stated that 127 different languages are spoken by children attending the authority's schools. One of the largest of the ethnic minority groups represented in our schools is British children of parents of West Indian origins. Political and popular demands that LEAs and schools demonstrate their accountability to the society that funds the service, have increased over the past decade. BWI pupils and their parents are understandably resentful of the relatively poor reading attainments the children currently tend to achieve. In the interests of the children and society that LEAs exist to serve, it is doubtful whether a continued self-imposed ignorance of the relationship between reading attainment and ethnic group is desirable.
