This is perhaps the cruelest legacy of racism in the U.S. because you can't reliably fix it once you've already failed to give a good education, and it impacts people for their whole lives. Even if phrased in a completely race-blind way now, it's still completely atrocious: "unless you're rich or lucky, your kids deserve to be dumb". What?!

We can't give everyone the parents you had who gave you an option of a path towards success, and we can't give everyone the drive you had to follow that path, but we absolutely could give almost everyone in the U.S. an option of good education that would cover most of the path.

If anyone doubts it can work, they just need to look at Harlem Children's Zone. Do they produce spectacular results compared to other places that invest similar funding per student? No. Was anyone else willing to invest in the education of those particular kids? No! Did the investment work? Yes!

Now, one can't just throw money at things and assume the problem is fixed--some school districts are very good at eating up ungodly amounts of money and producing poor results. But the privilege of education is one that can be given to everyone, and it is to everyone's benefit in the long run. I hope we do it.