And even then sometimes successful parents can have unseccussful students or sucessful students can come from unseccuesfull parents.
My parents while they have everything they need both barely graduated high school. My wife's parents neither made it though high school. We both have made it through college so in that sense we are more successful.
Its the student that has to want to be successful and that will be the biggest factor in their outcome. There have been many successful people who made it with nothing and there have been many unsuccessful people whom had everything handed to them.

But Eugene, what is it that put the "want to" in them? It aint genes. Sure, raw intellect is a lot of it. I've handled some really bright lifetime criminals. I've also represented a lot of very successful people with IQs under 100.

Don't get me wrong -- I agree with you entirely on the unpredictability of the outcome. I just don't understand the beginning. I think that any adult that intercedes in a meaningful way can turn the tide. What do I know, though, I've no kids, and want none.

Yep, that is the trick. I can't really say what put the want to do better into me, for some reason I just did and all those I went to school with or worked with who don't want to do better I don't understand why not either. My wife has a college degree in psychology and she still doesn't either.
I think it is possible for an adult to intercede. Looking back in history before schools were a classrom with a teacher who follows a government mandated lesson plan you usually had one on one teaching where you worked hard to prove yourself to someone who would become your mentor and work as their assistant for years to strive to become as great or greater than them. As we move to a classroom environment the quality of the education goes down I think because you don't get to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the point is to make it through the class day in and day out and get a piece of paper, where is the motivation in that?

An exception does not disprove a truism. My wife works as a PT in our school district. She has a lot of contact and conversations with teachers, students, and parents. It is universally understood that the students that do well are the one with involved parents. The students that tend to do poorly are the ones that have parents that can't be bothered to take the time and energy to work with their child. I have seen it myself with the Boy Scouts. The parents that take an active interest and participate tend to be the ones that end up with an Eagle Scout. We have one boy that has been at the rank of Scout for about two years. His parents are too busy (drinking a beer in front of the TV) to work with him.

I also consider myself an exception. My parents both had a 6th grade education. They did not consider education important. As a result I did poorly in grade school. I joined the army after high school (dropped out and had to retake 12th grade). When I was in the army I realized that education makes a difference in life. I got out and used the GI bill to get a bachelors of Science in computer information systems. After I was working as a programmer my company paid for me to get a master's in management information systems.

Involved parents = good students.

Money + government = @#$%^

Now that the storm has passed through the Houston area--I haven't seen any news coverage of whether any people were caught on the highways trying to evacuate when Rita came through. Apparently, the traffic jams eased up before Rita arrived, but then again, what about all those people who ran out of gas/broke down the day or two before?

Another related question--when everyone was bugging out, were the gas stations open? Not "did they have gas?" but were the stations actually open and staffed? For example, if you only had cash, was someone there who could turn on the pump? Well, in a pinch, you could always ask another motorist to put it on their card and just pay them the cash, too, I guess. Anyway, I'm just curious since from the TV, it seemed like just about every business closed in anticipation of Rita and I'm wondering about the most important businesses that day--the gas stations.

" in a pinch, you could always ask another motorist to put it on their card and just pay them the cash"

This happened quite a bit actually. The credit card "pay at the pump" was all that was available in some cases because some of the stations closed the convenience store part and locked the doors due to shoplifting and irate patrons. Things got ugly so they took sensible meaures to protect themselves. People still got gas, but couldn't get twinkies and beer!