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Single mothers accounted for a record 37 percent of births in America in 2006, up from 5 percent in 1960. In 2006, they gave birth to 1.64 million children who will be prone to dropping out of school, abusing drugs, experiencing unemployment and poverty, landing in prison and giving birth to children out of wedlock. Those 1.64 million illegitimate children were in addition to the nearly 1.6 million born in 2005, the more than 1.5 million born in 2004 and so on. Not surprisingly, public education and the culture generally are on opposite trajectories. Society should be alarmed, but instead...

LIMA, Ohio — Darla Jennings walked through the streets of south Lima last night sobbing as hundreds of people behind her called for justice after the shooting of her daughter, who was killed by police as she held her baby. Tarika Wilson, 26, was shot and her 1-year-old son was wounded when Lima police conducted a drug raid on their home Friday night, prompting members of the black community to organize a candlelight vigil and demand answers from police. "They shot my daughter and her baby," Ms. Jennings said through tears while being consoled by other family members.

BALTIMORE (AP) For the first time, the non-white children enrolled in Maryland's public schools outnumber the white children. Enrollment data show 48 percent of the students in the state's public school systems are white. African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American students combine for 52 percent. The evolution has meant gradual changes. Schools are expanding classes for non-English speakers and creating smaller classes in schools with large numbers of minority students. Demographers say a decline in the white birthrate is one factor in the changing faces of the state's school children.

Former professional basketball player Jason Caffey had two children with his wife, and at least six other children with women in metro Atlanta, Alabama, Louisiana and Illinois. Professional football player Travis Henry, a Denver Broncos running back with a $25 million contract, has nine children by nine women in four Southern states, including a Lithonia boy fathered out of wedlock three years ago. Caffey, who earned as much as $5 million a season in a 10-year NBA career with the Chicago Bulls, Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks, filed for bankruptcy in Alabama in August. His wife, who lives in...

New Mexico's birth rate in 2005 exceeded the national average, despite a long-term decline in the state's birth rate for teen mothers, according to a new health department report. The New Mexico Department of Health's 2005 New Mexico Selected Health Statistics Annual Report says: # New Mexico residents gave birth to 28,822 babies in 2005. The state's 2005 birth rate of 14.6 percent slightly exceeded the U.S. rate of 14 in 2004, the latest year available. # Single mothers accounted for half the state's births in 2005. # The birth rate of New Mexicans ages 15 to 19 decreased 22.8...

Illegitimacy has risen despite--indeed, because of--legal abortion New York, Jun 19, 2007 / 05:04 pm (CNA).- Abortion may eliminate "unwanted" children, but it increases out-of-wedlock births and single parenthood, says John Lott Jr. in today’s Wall Street Journal. Mr. Lott provided some astonishing numbers to back up his claims. “In the United States from the early 1970s, when abortion was liberalized, through the late 1980s, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, rising from an average of 5% of all births in 1965-69 to more than 16% two decades later (1985-1989). For blacks, the numbers soared...

Bill Cosby's popularity in the African American community hasn't been the same since he started speaking his mind about it. He has told parents to start parenting. Told the community it was complicit in the misogyny, vulgarity, violence and racism in black culture.

When considering violence in Milwaukee Public Schools, I find myself recalling a School Board meeting years ago where the discussion centered on rising suspension rates. One mother demanded that School Board members explain why her 15-year-old African-American son kept getting kicked out of school for misbehaving. "I can't do anything with him at home," she complained. After the meeting, I interviewed the mother away from the microphones. That's where she told me why she thought her son kept getting expelled. "They afraid of him," she said of the teachers. "He's 15, but he's 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs...

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Connecticut has a multitude of social ills, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell proposes to address one the old-fashioned, liberal Democratic way: throw more money at it. Her 2007-08 budget proposal contains $55 million to pay for or subsidize HUSKY program premiums for babies born to mothers without health insurance. Her reasoning is that during her administration, 2,800 babies have been born in Connecticut without health insurance: "That number should be zero." But Gov. Rell's proposal proves that demagoguery doesn't make for good public policy. According to data from government and industry sources, mothers who never have been married are six...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call to cut off welfare assistance to children whose parents fail to meet work requirements could place thousands of East Bay children at risk of hunger and homelessness, critics warn. The penalty, known as "full family sanctions," has been imposed by many other states since welfare reform began 10 years ago. California's CalWorks program allows children to continue to receive a reduced level of aid even if their parents are sanctioned for failing to show up for job-search clubs or participating in other mandated work activities. "The program itself was founded on the premise that the children...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - No charges will be filed in the case of a 9-year-old boy who fatally stabbed a 2-year-old girl in a Texas home where a teen-ager was babysitting 12 children, Dallas police said on Tuesday after an investigation. The stabbing occurred on December 22 in a home in southeast Dallas where a 15-year-old was left to supervise at least 10 siblings and 2 other children, including the victim. The toddler, Damya Jefferson, was stabbed twice in the chest by a 9-year-old boy who lived at the house, according to published reports. No charges will be filed against the...

Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.

Call it the backlash against the backlash. Over the past decade, Americans have increasingly understood that the divorce revolution, fatherlessness and single parent households are harming our children. Now those who view the traditional family as disadvantageous to women are firing back, defending women who choose single motherhood and depicting fathers as superfluous. Last fall Stanford University Gender Scholar Peggy Drexler penned the highly-publicized book Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men. This month Oxford Press released Wellesley College Women's Studies Professor Rosanna Hertz’s Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women...

The Census Bureau last week released its latest estimate of the U.S. poverty rate... The 2005 poverty rate of 12.6 percent...was substantially higher than the 11.1 percent level back in 1973... The results seem to suggest a prolonged failure of national policies to address poverty. However, the problem here lies less with actual living conditions than with the flawed and misleading poverty measure .... Today's poor households are more likely to have telephone and television sets than non-poor households in 1970; much more likely to have central air conditioning than the typical home of 1980, almost as likely to have...

Fla. Teens Surrender in Homeless Beatings By DENISE KALETTE, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Two South Florida teens suspected in the beatings of three homeless men turned themselves in to police Sunday, authorities said. Family attorneys negotiated the surrender of Brian Hooks, 18, and Thomas S. Daugherty, 17. They will face murder charges in the death of Norris Gaynor and aggravated battery charges in the videotaped beating of Jacques Pierre, said Capt. Michael Gregory of the Fort Lauderdale police. They also are suspects in the beating of a third man, Raymond Perez, 49, whose case...