The Only Way Out for Black Youths

How do we end cycles of economic and social poverty that trap far too many black children into adulthoods of misery? While traditionalists argue that the problems lie in anti-poverty programs that offer short-term relief from those issues, the reality remains that the path to helping all black children (and all children regardless of background) succeed goes through the schools at the center of their lives. But it isn’t just about transforming American public education. The nation’s so-called war on drugs other than alcohol, now into its second century, has put far too many young black men — many of whom, thanks to the education crisis, are high school dropouts with few prospects for earning family-sustaining wages — into prison, and in turn,along with welfare programs that disincentivized marriage and two-parent households, have led to generations of fatherless children.