Duncan vs. Duncan
Cover of Whither Opportunity? report. Click to enlarge.
“Poverty isn’t destiny,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is fond of saying. Taken literally, it’s a ridiculous statement. If “destiny” is defined as an inevitable or predetermined end state, it only takes one instance of someone escaping poverty to refute the claim that poverty is destiny. Race isn’t destiny, either; but that’s little consolation for the one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34 who are incarcerated, many for offenses that resulted in harsher sentences than for whites found guilty of engaging in similar behaviors.
So if the phrase “poverty isn’t destiny” isn’t to be taken literally, what might Arne Duncan mean? Presumably, he
