[Bernard]

I saw a small part of the Tavis Smiley segment, and it looks like he just wrote a book about education in the black community, or just adopted some back education charity/government program, and now Tavis is convinced that we can fix education in a vacuum. Black kids don't need a daddy who lives with them, or a decent neighborhood, or a stable environment, just more money spent on the schools. That’ll fix it.

[kabar]

By 2019, half of the children 18 and under in this country will be minorities as defined by the USG. The largest and fastest growing segment of this minority growth is comprised of Hispanics and blacks.The out of wedlock birth rates for Hispanics is 50% topped only by the black rate of 71%. And the school drop out rates for both groups is around 50%. This is the social pathology for failure in this society, greater dependence upon government, and higher crime rates.

Our future compeitiveness in the global economy will rest largely on how well we can educate more than half of our children. The prognosis is bleak given past performance. Tossing more money at it won't solve the problem. Our educational system is broken, especially in the inner cities. Demography is destiny.