Doing Right by Kids: Leveraging Social Capital and Innovation to Increase Opportunity

Akers, Beth; Cooper, Preston; Crawford, Joshua; Finn Jr., Chester E.; Lerman, Robert; Lettieri, John W.; McShane, Michael Q.; Rachidi, Angela; Weidinger, Matt; Wilcox, Brad

ISBN 10: 084475076X / ISBN 13: 9780844750767

Published by AEI Press, 2024

This book is in Very Good condition. The cover and pages have minor shelf wear. Binding is tight and pages are intact. Seller Inventory # BRV.084475076X.VG

Synopsis:

Material hardship among American children has never been lower. This seeming victory in the War on Poverty, however, has failed to loosen the connection between family origins and where kids end up. Children born to the most disadvantaged parents today are no less likely than in the past to become the most disadvantaged adults when they grow up. Indeed, because of the perverse disincentives in our safety net, policy may have simultaneously reduced hardship while impeding upward mobility. More generally, the progressive assumption that what poor children need to advance primarily involves more money is a dubious one.

But if progressive proposals to expand the opportunities of poor kids have disappointed, the challenges those children and adolescents face have never sufficiently preoccupied the right. Conservatives are appropriately skeptical of government's ability to influence behaviors and values or to manage initiatives effectively. Their concerns about the federal government's proper role in social policy are well-grounded. But the moral imperative to do right by kids--to affirm the American Dream--remains.

This volume provides a set of ideas to do just that. The proposals are grounded in the insight that greater opportunity requires shoring up the relationships of children and adolescents and the strength of the institutions to which they are connected--in short, rebuilding social capital. And they embrace a spirit of innovation. Expanding opportunity requires experimentation with new approaches, many of which will fail, to identify scalable effective policies. But identify them we must.

About the Authors: Beth Akers is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on the economics of higher education.

Preston Cooper is a senior fellow in higher education policy at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.

Joshua Crawford is the director of criminal justice initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity.

Chester E. Finn Jr. is a distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a Volker Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Robert Lerman is an institute fellow at the Urban Institute and a professor emeritus of economics at American University.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Doing Right by Kids: Leveraging Social ...
Publisher: AEI Press
Publication Date: 2024
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: very_good