I feel a little stupid making the case that a child’s environment matters. We know it does, which is why many of us expend so much energy and treasure fortifying our own schools and neighborhoods, hoarding the promise and security that come with them. What are we teaching our children when they plainly see us barring the doors of opportunity for other children—and doing it in their name? America has backslid since Brown, so much so that our children’s schools today are less economically diverse than their grandparents’ schools were, and although we have taken baby steps toward racial integration, most of our communities remain sharply segregated by race as well. As our cities become more unaffordable, the sheer distance separating the haves and the have-nots will only grow wider. We used to gossip about poor families who lived on the other side of the tracks. Now we talk about those who live in the next county over. We remain very separate and very unequal. But this corruption of opportunity can end with us.

— Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond