Concentrated poverty is a problem that is hardly unique to our community. Indeed, the issue is being wrestled with in communities all across our country.  

  

As Elizabeth Kneebone of the Brookings Institute noted, the clustering and concentration of poverty has "erod(ed) the brief progress made against concentrated poverty during the late 1990s....The challenges of poor neighborhoods-including worse health outcomes, higher crime rates, failing schools, and fewer job opportunities-make it that much harder for individuals and families to escape poverty and often perpetuate and entrench poverty across generations. These factors affect not only the residents and communities touched by concentrated disadvantage, but also the regions they inhabit and the ability of those metro areas to grow in inclusive and sustainable ways." 

Our community is evaluating how to correct the educational, health, and economic problems created by the concentrations of poverty we have created in more than a third of our public schools.  After 13 years of experimentation with the "neighborhood schools" plan of student assignment, our community has learned that we have found the most expensive and least effective way to teach far too many of our children.

  

The issue is in front of the current Board of Education, and it is a factor in the Board of Education, Mayoral, and City Council races that will be decided this fall. The topic is in the news, and is the subject of meetings held weekly by many groups, including the Opportunity Task Force, MeckMin, and OneMECK. Almost everybody agrees that somebody should do something, but the fingers point in many directions and every solution seems to involve more consultants and focus groups than leadership.

  

As Robert Putnam, the author of Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, has said, a community can deal with concentrations of poverty in public schools in three ways: move money, move children, or move families.