I agree whole heartedly. I don't want to throw money at those that do not want to learn or succeed....

Not sure how to address the parent issue. I assume that quite a few parents who are lower income do not have an advanced education or even a high school diploma or equivalent. I suspect that they do not know the value of an advanced education and they are too busy scratching out a living to have time to participate in the their child's education. Other than time to break the cycle I do not have any other ideas.

I do not see how a person/student can believe that they are equal when the schools are not. Unless we s a society treat people equally, they have no reason to believe they are and we have no reason to say they are. Either everyone gets a fair shake or all the pomp and circumstance about freedom and justice for all is just that. Pomp and circumstance.

The cycle has to be broke somewhere. It will not happen instantaneously. I think it will take time.

One of the major issue I have with "breaking the cycle" is that most every group HAS broken the cycle at some time or other. The chinese when they got here were less than poor and had zero education. No real issues economically today with chinese/americans, they broke the cycle. The japanese same thing- they broke the cycle.- The irish broke the cycle. Indians from india broke the cycle. Some groups have not broken the cycle, and it appears they do not wish to do so. Remember that if a"nonwhite" tried to drink from a "white" fountain it did not matter if it was an indian, a chinese or anything. Some groups appear to like being disadvantaged. I understand no one wants to be, but there are clear steps to pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and most groups have figured those out and taken those steps, with little to no help from other groups. AA back when the chinese did so? Or when the irish did so? Or when the japanese did so? No, No and No.
You are right- we have to treat everyone equally- and that to me means the first step is to eliminate our self imposed walls to each other- and the biggest wall is the monster wall groups have made regarding race. It's a crutch that hurts the attempts to break the cycle. When groups want/desire/focus on/blame other groups actions for their own problems they no longer believe they can break the cycle on their own. They then focus on getting the most money/stuff from others instead of taking the steps on earning it themselves. It comes from the groups leaders. My younger brother did alot of that early in life. He would work harder and longer trying to get someone else to do his work than it would take to do the work himself. To make things equal you have to do that- not differentiate by "race"- because as soon as you have "race" some folks think they are higher or lower. If you don't have race those thoughts have little to hang on to. Equal but separate, equal but different- did not work. We have to stop making distinctions based on "race".

This is a great civil discussion on a touchy subject and I thank all who have not let it become derailed.

I do not think saying that a group likes to be disadvantaged is accurate. I think it is more accurate to say that certain groups/people do not have the self confidence to believe that they can do it. It can be somewhat debilitating. Personally, I do not like wandering out of my comfort envelope. Even though on most occasions I succeed.

I think blacks in this country have a more unique history then other cultures imported in for labor. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but who else was importing in solely for their labor, owned as property and given no rights what so ever till slavery was abolished, then treated as a sub-species till 1964? I think the fact that they were only given full legal status with in the last 50 years is the most relevant. The first generation to experience the legal right to be equal is still alive. That kind of experience takes a while to over come in my opinion.

I still maintain that the schools is the place where it has to start. If everyone is given the opportunity and the encouragement to function at what they are capable of, we as a society are better for it.

I am not willing to accept the notion that some people, who are willing to work hard but are not able for what ever reason to be a doctor or lawyer must live in squalor or poverty because their lot in life is to be a garbage man or cleaning person. They should be entitled to a clean, safe place to live. Good medical care. Good day care and schools for their kids. I think that if you give some one hope and respect they are more likely to pass that on to their kids.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking but what we are doing now sure as hell is not working so unless we wish to live our life as an idiot (doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result) we might want to try a different game plan.

Part of me agrees with much of what you have said, but the last part is the most important- the part about dong the same thing over and over. We've had nearly fourty years of AA and it has not worked. More money from one group to another group has not worked- and that is what needs to change. We cannot keep doing those things and expect a different result. We need to wind down AA, stop differentiating by race and let everything be equal. Humans trying to engineer society equality is akin to introducing a new species in a environment to counteract the problems from previously introducing a different new species in that same ecosystem. In this case however we can remove the first and second "species" and start from zero, (meaning removing "race" and the effects of calling humans by race and the results of that) which eventually the results in the system's balance. Will that be painful? Yes. What is going on now is painful. There really is no other way.

David,

I agree with much of that analysis.
I would add one piece to the equation----the demise of the black family. It survived slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and "separate but equal". The black family was strong all the way up until the Great Society programs drove the fathers out of the house in order for mothers and children to get welfare ( meager help though it was).

How do we rectify that great injustice? How do we help to rebuild the black family?