Having spent time in inner city schools, I believe that getting fathers in the home would be enormously helpful. Single mothers can be heroic in their efforts, but they can’t be fathers. When home lives are broken and chaotic, students bring the chaos with them to school.
I also don’t believe that getting an education is an important value in the inner city. Again, there’s no one solution, but preparing all students for college is not realistic. Not everybody goes to college. Not everybody wants to. I’ve seen some kids who act out but are happy to do practical tasks, like getting the projector to work. IMO, we need more job training in high school. This can become a touchy subject because of the “racist” label, however.
The problem will not be easy to fix, but we need to at least aim in the right direction and slowly make progress.
For the most part, there are no fathers in inner city schools...there are only sperm donors.