In 2015 I published Ain’t Nobody be Learnin’ Nothin’: The Fraud and the Fix for High-Poverty Schools, about my frustrating years teaching math — babysitting really — at high-poverty public and charter high schools. These schools, like their neighborhoods, are segregated by race. They are modern, well-funded, and staffed with dedicated staff, but they produce meager results. Few students gain the academic skills and work ethic needed for a job or middle-class future, let alone for college.

These schools have operated for 30 years under “school reforms” imposed on previously-independent school boards. Hillary Clinton led the way. As “the education first lady” she led the Arkansas school reform effort. From 2001 to 2015 school reform was enforced by No Child Left Behind, which punished teachers and administrators for failing to raise poor children’s average test scores to middle-class levels. Contrary to the claims of the school reformers, ZIP code does indeed matter in child development and academic success.