ABSTRACT
This chapter provides trends that have shaped the policy proposals for child poverty. The big picture also reveals many negative trends, however, about which leaders, pundits, and mass media have largely kept silent. The economic expansion of the 1990s overturned much of the conventional wisdom about race and poverty, and their nexus, dating from the 1980s. The chapter proposes a commonsense policy that stops spending on what doesn't work and starts replicating what does work-but on a scale equal to the dimensions of the problem. Based on what evaluations show yields the highest long-term cost-benefit ratios, top priorities on the policy agenda should be reform of the urban public education system; a full employment policy for the inner city; and complementary reforms to create more racial and criminal justice. The challenges within America require vision, not incrementalissm and policy bites. Vision is needed from the grass roots to the White House.
