CLASS, NOT RACE: Study: Americans care more about poor students than black or Hispanic students.

According to a new study published in the Educational Researcher, Americans care more about the academic gaps between poor and wealthy students than they care about gaps between minority students and white students.

“We find that Americans are more concerned about — and more supportive of proposals to close — wealth-based achievement gaps than Black-White or Hispanic-White gaps,” researchers wrote. “High-income, low-income, and White respondents all indicated it was a higher priority to close poor-wealthy gaps than to close Black-White and Hispanic-White gaps.”

Almost two-thirds of American adults say it is “essential or a high priority” to close the test score gap between poor and wealthy students. Roughly one-third say the same about the gap between black and white students or Hispanic and white students. “Respondents were also more supportive of proposals to narrow wealth-based rather than race- or ethnicity-based gaps,” researchers wrote.

Among black respondents, the average response was roughly the same when they were asked how high a priority it was to close the poor-wealthy gap and the black-white gap.

But politicians want to tribalize us along race lines.