We Need to Have a Second Conversation

This chapter argues that the need for two conversations about reducing poverty. Although it is important and valuable to continue on with our usual "poverty reform" conversation, there is also a need for a more assertive strategy. A precisely focused, science-based conversation that identifies social problems and offers specific, evidence-informed solutions. The chapter focuses on a single problem—the reduced educational investments of poor children—to illustrate how "Conversation One" works. In Conversation One, narrow solutions are proposed to overcome tightly defined problems, where the problem being solved may be but one manifestation of a much wider inequality. At worst, Conversation one may divert our attention from the root problem that the carefully delineated interventions are designed to address. Conversation Two insists that in addition to any discussion about expedient, small-scale interventions, we have a wider discussion about where poverty comes from and what types of larger-scale changes might be needed to eradicate it.