I grew up in a very poor neighborhood in Saginaw, Michigan. I lived in a 900 square foot house with 7 other people. 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom.

My mom was a teenager when she had me. My mother and I, and later my two brothers, all lived with my grandmother, also a single mother, who still had 3 kids of her own at home.

Yet, by some stroke of luck, our part of the neighborhood was included in a very good school district. Six houses separated us from a very poor inner-city school.

Sometimes, I’m amazed by what some of the neighborhood kids grew up to become given their home environments, especially compared to some of the kids who were inside the city’s school district. Several kids who grew up on my street, including myself, have graduate degrees. One of my closest friends as a kid is an attorney in Chicago.

It’s sad to think schools can have such disparate impacts on kids. The families on either side of the line weren’t any different from ours in terms of socioeconomic status.

As a humanitarian, as a city planner, I wish we could solve the problem of our schools. Good, properly funded schools would go a long way toward solving so many of our societal ills. I think a decent education, along with affordable healthcare for all, are human rights, and the bare minimum any wealthy society should provide to its citizens.