We tend to underestimate the value of social capital in trying to assess equal opportunity. A high schooler with two college-educated parents may have very similar aptitude to a fellow student with one parent who finished the sixth grade. When it comes time to prepare for college and apply for admission, the educated parents can provide significantly more help with the hidden, inner game of transcript building, standardized tests, application essays, and school selection…

There is mutually assured damage from continuing the way we’ve been going. The United States needs those young people educated. And those young people need us, concerned adults ready to step out of their daily routine and intrude in the steady production of dropouts who go on to less promising adult lives. We can do better.