Brooks makes an interesting point:

At home, we spend more money on education than any other nation. We have undertaken a million experiments to restructure schools and bureaucracies. But students who lack cultural and social capital because they did not come from intact, organized families continue to fall further and further behind — unless they come into contact with some great mentor who can not only teach, but also change values and behavior.

I think he means "mentor" in a broad sense, which would include entire schools, because every successful school I've seen serving low-income minority communities (which, it goes without saying, usually lack the cultural and social capital the Brooks is talking about) somehow instills this capital (certainly KIPP does).

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February 19, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/opinion/19brooks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Questions of Culture

By DAVID BROOKS

Once, not that long ago, economics was the queen of the social sciences. Human beings were assumed to be profit-maximizing creatures, trending toward reasonableness. As societies grew richer and more modern, it was assumed, they would become more secular. As people became better educated, primitive passions like tribalism and nationalism would fade away and global institutions would rise to take their place. As communications technology improved, there would be greater cooperation and understanding. As voters became more educated, they would become more independent-minded and rational.

None of these suppositions turned out to be true. As the world has become richer and better educated, religion hasn't withered; it has become stronger and more fundamentalist. Nationalism and tribalism haven't faded away. Instead, transnational institutions like the U.N. and the European Union are weak and in crisis...