The plight of African American students' educational attainment has been a major topic of discussion in past and current literature. African American Students are documented as performing below proficient levels in all subject areas (NAEP, 2009). Current research confirms an increase in performance scores for African American students; however, an academic achievement gap still exists between African American students and their Caucasian counterparts. Furthermore, African American students have the lowest scores in reading in comparison to other groups. Research from deficient perspectives has proposed the decline in African American performance being correlated to factors such as culture (Lewis, 2008). According to Neal (2003), there is a cultural discontinuity in misinterpreting African American students' culture and learning styles based on teacher perceptions. Unfortunately, the lack of cultural competency has led teachers to rely on talent-sorting practice to group students according to their ability. Although theoretically enhancing, ability grouping has been documented as an unjust practice being over-represented with African American students. Many theorists claim that grouping placement is based on many factors such as race, prior achievement scores and prior group placement. Decades of research (Rist, 1970; Kershaw, 1992) have revealed that recommendations for lower group placement are initiated from low teacher expectations for the students.

Using a Talent Quest Model (TQM; Boykin, 2010), this study showed positive gains for students who have been "placed at-risk." By employing the TQM with a (low) ability group population, this study proved that all children can learn when given high expectations while placed in a supportive, yet demanding environment for student learning, showing in increase in reading comprehension skills. Furthermore, students who were given high teacher expectations showed an increase in task-motivation.