Bill Moyers: America 101

Let's be honest about what we mean by "urban education." We are talking about the poorest and most vulnerable children in America - kids for whom "at risk" has come to describe their fate and not simply their circumstances.

Their education should be the centerpiece of a great and diverse America made stronger by equality and shared prosperity. It has instead become the epitome of public neglect, perpetuated by a class divide so permeated by race that it mocks the bedrock principles of the American Promise.

It has been said that the mark of a truly educated person is to be deeply moved by statistics. If so, America's governing class should be knocked off their feet by the fact that more than 70 percent of black children are now attending schools that are overwhelmingly non-white. In 1980 that figure was 63 percent. Latino students are even more isolated. Brown v. Board' s "all deliberate" speed of 1954 has become slow motion in reverse. In Richard Kahlenberg's words, "With the law in retreat, geography takes command."