The ethnic factor in public education is the main focus of this paper. Among those playing leading roles in the society, there is a general tendency to underestimate the importance of ethnicity as a factor in group life, and usefulness of knowledge about ethnic groupings in America as an aid in coping with social problems, and, perhaps more vital, as a resource available for strengthening and enriching our national existence, including the educational experience. Along with down grading of ethnicity, a series of other issues is addressed: the public school's failure to live up to its expectations to serve as a means of upward mobility for the lower socioeconomic classes, the necessity of ethnic studies, the salience of ethnicity, and ethnic succession. The relative neglect of the historical and contemporary fact of the very close correlation in American life of both class and ethnicity has led to a lack of preciseness and a lack of appreciation of the relative importance of differential ethnicity. It is suggested that perhaps the single most important goal a complicated, dynamic, and diverse society must learn in order to achieve and to educate its young to strive for, is the fostering of a new pluralism. (Author/AM)