How do we end cycles of economic and social poverty that trap far too many black children into adulthoods of misery? While traditionalists argue that the problems lie in anti-poverty programs that offer short-term relief from those issues, the reality remains that the path to helping all black children (and all children regardless of background) succeed goes through the schools at the center of their lives. But it isn’t just about transforming American public education. The nation’s so-called war on drugs other than alcohol, now into its second century, has put far too many young black men — many of whom, thanks to the education crisis, are high school dropouts with few prospects for earning family-sustaining wages — into prison, and in turn,along with welfare programs that disincentivized marriage and two-parent households, have led to generations of fatherless children.



In this excerpt from his new book, The Black Poverty Cycle and How to End It, Schott Foundation for Public Education research czar and Dropout Nation Contributing Editor Michael Holzman elaborates on how the nation’s education crisis and the nation’s war on drugs have come together to condemn generations of young black men and women to economic and social despair. Read, consider, and take action. And don’t forget to buy the book.



It is becoming fashionable to argue that the low education achievement levels of African-Americans and Latinos are caused by poverty. This is tantamount to an argument that the problem is insolvable, as poverty, especially black poverty, is unlikely to become the focus of governmental action any time soon. In any case, I think that the premise is incorrect. The cycle of black poverty is driven by under-resourced schools and mass incarceration. These underpin a vicious cycle, including high rates of violent felonies, resulting in yet more poverty. The way out is through better schools and an end to mass incarceration. Neither is sufficient in itself.

The lack of educational achievement of many Black children follows from the extraordinary rates at which their fathers are arrested and incarcerated. Imprisoned men can contribute little or nothing to save their children from lives spent in poverty. Even formerly imprisoned men all too often have little chance of finding work that can support their children above the poverty level, particularly given their own usual lack of effective educational attainment.

As housing patterns are strongly associated with household income, the families of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated men, especially if they are African-American, are among the most likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Traditional public schools in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are all-too-often inadequate to their mission. A black student in an under-resourced, urban school, regardless of their economic class, is unlikely to receive an education that will graduate him from high school on-time and college- or career-ready.

Because of the peculiarities of the drug laws and matters at the level of detail of police officer reward systems and the career patterns of district attorneys, concentrated poverty leads to disproportionately intense police activity and prosecutions in predominately Black neighborhoods. Quite apart from this, or, more exactly, in addition to this, neighborhoods and communities of concentrated poverty, black or white, in themselves foster high rates of violent felonies.

High rates of incarceration of young Black men lead to high rates of concentrated poverty for their neighborhoods, neighborhoods where ineffective schools contribute to high rates of incarceration and poverty, which foster high rates of violent offensives, and so on and on. The combination of these factors put astonishing numbers of young adult Black men at risk of incarceration and give another turn to the wheel of disadvantage for their children.

Most people, particularly most African-Americans, are familiar with this situation. The question is, then, what is to be done to end disproportionate black poverty?

The common response to the question is a resort to the American doctrine of individual responsibility. Issues of culture, community and psychology are, no doubt, important contributors to differing levels of achievement in education as well as to the disparities in incarceration rates. We are told that young black men should pull up their socks (and their trousers) and simply do better in school and act better in the community. Examples of “beating the odds” and “resiliency” are featured by the media, foundations, community groups and inspirational speakers. These responses are ways of blaming the victims of racism and each in their own manner is a way of maintaining the system of racism. On the other hand, institutional policy decisions are clearly causal, definable and quantifiable and, possibly, given the public will, amenable to change. The goal, after all, is not for individuals to beat the odds. The goal is to change the odds, or, rather, to change the game.

How is that to be done? Combining programs to improve educational attainment for black male students and to eliminate disparate rates of incarceration for matters such as drug offenses would cause the poverty rate for black children to decline significantly and the income of the black community to increase. As the black community’s income increased, the rate of violent offenses and incarcerations for those would decrease, further increasing the community’s income and educational attainment.

Disparate black poverty would begin to come to an end.