Affirmative Action Doesn't Work, It Never Did...

An educated populace is a great idea. Now get all families and their kids to believe this. If they don't, then give the resources to those who do want to learn versus flushing it down the toilet in the name of "fairness" which ends up being anything but when we treat hard work/good behavior on equal footing with the opposite behavior.
Ever hear of "use it or lose it?" You don't want to learn, sorry for you. I'll take your share of the pie and give it to someone who wants it.
So who gets the kids off on the right foot? Their families.

Start with nutrition and healthcare. "Belief" is for religion.

Yep, punish kids for their parents' mistakes. Very biblical. How much funding are you willing to allocate for - what? More juvenile detention centers? Bring back the debtors' prisons, maybe? Very cost efficient.

Nutrition and healthcare can help. Problem 1 - someone has to pay for it. Problem 2 - they're not the sole determinants. As frontline rightly points out, the only way to really enforce your vision is with pretty draconian measures. Which unsurprisingly is the way "progressive" movements always wind up going.

You really want to fix these things, it has to be a bottom-up reformation of the entire culture. Just as an example, get Hollywood to stop glamorizing idiotic behavior. Get the 24/7 news channels to drop all their "infotainment" crap and report actual news again. And we're right back to draconian measures to control the populace, at least if you want quick results. Otherwise you're looking at change on a generational scale.

We already punish kids for their parents mistakes Garamet. You think that the thousands of kids who have a parent sentenced to jail for a crime don't suffer?

Go away, dipshit. I'm trying for once to have an actual debate with Garamet instead of the usual and don't need you in the middle of it.

Start with nutrition and healthcare. - Garamet

Yes! We can assign a live-in armed nutrition expert to every "at risk" household in America. They can lead the families by the hand and approve every item that goes into their cart, or down their pants if they are shoplifting. The nutrition expert can of course read the labels for the families, and teach as they shop. Once home, the nutrition expert has the option of forcing the families at gunpoint to consume all the healthy food. And don't forget purging the homes of all tobacco, booze, and other unhealthy things, again at gunpoint of necessary. That should do it.

Failing to be respectful to me just makes me more inclined to stay as directly involved as possible.

Hey, you want to display your usual stupidity to the world, knock your self out.

I already presented proven non-draconian methods than go a long way towards mitigating the effects of shitty family/household situations on student achievement.

Something I may have missed, but has personal responsibility been mentioned as a factor for turning things around?

I was thinking of the 40K per year it takes to keep an inmate in prison, if punishment's your "solution."

I was thinking of the 40K per year it takes to keep an inmate in prison, if punishment's your "solution." - Garamet
Just because society spends 40K a year doesn't mean it really takes 40K a year.

Get back to me when they're being delivered; then we'll discuss the rest.

Problem 1 - someone has to pay for it.

And that gets back to what you said about long-term versus short-term thinking.

Long-term, will healthier, better-educated kids be more likely to become productive citizens and less likely to end up on welfare or in prison? You decide.

Good news! You can be that somebody! For only 50 cents a day you can sponsor a child in war-torn Chicago.

Most likely. But we determined that more money won't help if the would-be citizens don't give a shit.

Whose? The kids'?

Whattaya trying to do, put Zombie out of a job?

No, you've decided the kids don't give a shit. Based, no doubt, on years of data gathering, which you'll be happy to share with us.

If you're going to be singing the "Moar Money" song, you can also explain how prenatal nutrition and after-school programs will cost 40K a year per kid.

I think where I diverge from some on this view is in who we write off. It's easy to say write-off those who don't reach for the educational brass ring, but maybe some mean by that, those who don't grab hold of it, while others mean those who need a longer arm.

Indeed. Seems half of Wordforge's owners have taken that path.

Yeah, I think we can afford that, especially when you consider it's an investment that pays off in a more productive workforce down the line.

Personally I'll be fortunate to have raised two functional, responsible, adult women. (With driver's licenses, of course) I guess I don't presume to be able to engineer an entire society.

Hell of a lot cheaper to pay a little upfront to educate someone so they can be productive tax payers than to write them off and have to support them forever both in and out of jail.

Or, instead of deciding, we can look at the real world, right now. Because you're not talking about a new idea here.

We don't have to predict how it will turn out when we can look around and see how it has turned out.

"Here, try a bite of this burger!"
"Gah, oh man, that's nasty!"
"Isn't it? Now just imagine how much better a bite of this burger will be!"
"What?! Dude, it's the same burger!"
"You're a racist!"

Neither does anyone else here.

What good is education to someone who drops out of school?
I don't give a shit if you had Carl Fucking Sagan clones teaching, gold plated urinals, and world renowned chefs cooking lunch - if the kids aren't there (or present but checked out mentally)
it doesn't do any good! If a kid says "fuck school" they probably say "fuck the system" and become criminals of their own choosing. I still haven't met a criminal that had someone twist their arm to rob a store.