I work in a poor, rural area in the southern US. While it is only their opinion, the older black teachers I have worked with through the years have all said the problems around here started with the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. They remember government workers going door-to-door telling the young ladies they could get this, this, and this but they couldn’t have a man of the house. This is strikingly similar to how they proceeded when creating the Chicago high-rise housing complexes. 30 years later we had NAFTA take all the manufacturing businesses from our area. Add these things together and you have a majority of the population, whether white, black, or Native American, that doesn’t value education at all because they have never seen anyone use theirs. Some of my students are already 4th generation welfare recipients and have never seen anyone in their family work a steady job.