This paper reports on a two generation study which began in 1965 with the interviewing of 223 black men who were in their thirties. The study incorporates data on the wives and children of the men. It focuses on the extent to which the school achievements of one generation are repeated in the following generation and the extent to which such transmission appears to be explained by circumstances in the child's home life. The original sample was composed of men born in St. Louis in the 1930's. Based on the ages of the children reported by these men, those children who would be at least l8 years of age by the end of 1973 were chosen. The results of the study show that mothers and fathers tend to pass on to their children their own likelihood to be truant, to have low IQs, and to drop out of high school. The parents' school problems were powerful predictors of their own later problems. Elementary school problems predicted the high school dropout. Mothers' elementary school truancy predicted their later behavior problems. Fathers' elementary school truancy predicted they would marry a woman with behavior problems. These observations seem to rule out the possibility that the genetic inheritance of low intelligence, by itself, explains the transmission of school problems from one generation to the next. (Author/AM)