“There’s only one way out of Greater Cleveland’s daunting poverty problem.
“Sure, there are worthwhile glimpses of an escape route in ‘Say Yes to Education,’ the latest of dozens of efforts in this community’s 50-year search for a solution.
“But evolving brain science, statistics and common sense all say the same thing: Most kids who start behind, stay behind.
“If you don’t rescue them early in life, most don’t get rescued at all. And if you don’t rescue them at all, poverty’s death grip on this community will strengthen its hold for yet another generation. And it will draw Cuyahoga County’s demise as an important center of business and commerce nearer still.
“As I’ve suggested dozens of times, the wisest investment in this community’s future is quality preschool and parental counseling for every needy 3-year-old and 4-year-old.”
Eye on Early Education is a blog of Strategies for Children, an organization that works to ensure that Massachusetts invests the resources needed for all children, from birth to age five, to access high-quality early education programs that prepare them for success in school and life. The blogger, 
eyeonearlyeducation.org 
The problem is political, systemic and apathy cloaked in unconscious and sometimes conscious bias. And…it is not their fault; it is our fault-the do-gooders who do nothing, almost akin to the bystander effect. Being a bystander helps no one, and thus we become part of the problem, not the solution.