IMO the central problem with US schools isn't the schools. It's our broken policing and justice system, our bad social safety net, and our poor worker protection, among other things like the ongoing consequences of racist city planning. We will never move the needle very much, on school quality, by focusing on schools.

I'm not sure the broken policing and justice system account for a culture which glorifies violence, rejects education, promotes drug use, and encourages irresponsible procreation. In fact these things are relatively recent changes in poor urban culture, this isn't the mindset poor people had in the 50's (when policing and justice were much, much worse).

I'm not saying that these things are inherently "wrong" (save the violence), only that they can't be expected to produce the same outcomes as cultures which highly value education, nuclear family, sobriety, and hard work. This holds true no matter how much money you add. Any attempt to equalize outcomes without confronting this core reason is doomed.

It doesn't create a poor educational culture on its own, but excessive incarceration leads to more single-parent (even zero-parent, in a sense—think: living with aunts/uncles, grandparents, et c.) families, worse job opportunities, et c, while ineffectiveness at actually curbing crime (despite our high incarceration rate) leaves lots of these kinds of areas wracked with criminality and violence on top of the damage that our policing and punishment approaches do.

That and the school-to-prison pipeline are contributing to the overall problem of—at the heart of this issue—multi-generational, persistent slums. The justice system is far from the only problem, which is why I listed others and left things open-ended to account for the huge list of other things that contribute, but it's part of it. However, I don't think much can be done about it by addressing only issues with the justice system, absent broader social reforms.

Single parent households are perfectly capable of raising children who value education, cooperation, sobriety and non-violence. I would know, I grew up in one, as did many of my peers. The key difference was and continues to be culture. The question is who is accountable for culture? Is it "society", or the individuals who perpetuate that culture in their own households?

It can both be true that a particular single-parent household is very successful, and that if you study an entire population and control other variables, single-parent households are less successful than two-parent households.

Yes it can, but it doesn't follow that these studies are justification for removing accountability from individuals, their households, culture, and practices. Nor does it follow that the solutions are not found in changes to individual behaviour.

> but it doesn't follow that these studies are justification for removing accountability from individuals, their households, culture, and practices.

Cool. I never called for that, so we're not disagreeing.

> Nor does it follow that the solutions are not found in changes to individual behaviour.

This is one of those things that's both true and useless.

> true and useless.

I'm not sure it is useless. If the problems are individual, not systemic, then the solutions lie with individual accountability, not systemic change, right?

My pet theory that 2-parent homes make a world of difference. Maybe if there was reliable male birth control there wouldn’t be so many single moms working 3 jobs because dad left and the children don’t have a second parental role model, or even a first because they never see mom.

Condoms are a very reliable form of male birth control. And, it may be hard to understand, but there are certain fairly popular subcultures where men brag about how many different kids they have with different women.

Why would that be hard to understand?

Because mainstream culture generally looks down upon "deadbeat dads" and doesn't celebrate impregnating multiple women?

Certainly, the first time someone told me they had 12 kids through 8 women, with more kids on the way, I was completely shocked. Even more shocked when I realized he was bragging about his masculinity, not lamenting "What have I done?!"

Oh, I guess it’s me then, I wasn’t surprised at all when I encountered this.

It's a factor among many. The other POV is that single parenthood matters less than you might expect, because others in the broader family or community can contribute to raising those kids. Which might actually work if you had that community orientation in the first place!

At least one resource disagrees [1]

> According to Amato’s research, sociologists warn that many children of single parents are born into undesirable circumstances. These children have a higher likelihood of being poor, committing crimes or using drugs. Many sociologists agree that childhood’s adverse effects outlive youth.

[1] https://www.everydayhealth.com/kids-health/what-are-effects-...

I don't think you are correct. Parents not caring is probably one of the biggest issues.

My grandmother would call a student's parents on their home and work numbers multiple times over multiple weeks. She would even provide her home number and say they could call anytime, day or night.

Do you think she frequently got calls back? If you can't even take 20 minutes to call your kid's teacher then you don't care about getting your kid out of an area with bad policing and justice system, racism and bad jobs.