In relation to the story in today’s Times about black men which has obvious eduimplications (including the grad rate issue the article mentions) Joe Williams notes that “this problem is so much more severe than the “World Is Flat” problem that everyone seems to be talking about.”
I couldn’t agree more. One is a long-term problem, the other is staring us in the face, right now, every day. Good Brian Friel story in National Journal ($) getting at this a few weeks ago.
Erik Eckholm’s NYT article is a must read:
Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.
Especially in the country’s inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.