Zip Codes Matter

My friend, Ralph Smith of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, posed this question to a Pew Partnership gathering some years ago: "What is the one statistic that tells you more about poverty than any other?" The answers were predictable: race, socio-economic status, pre-K experience... you get the drift. The answer Ralph gave us: zip code. You can predict certain characteristics based on where people live. That fact has not been lost on Kansas City. An article today in the Kansas City Star identified one area of Kansas City where educational attainment is low and poverty is high. They are beginning their change for the future in that neighborhood. A new study from the Pew Center on Economic Mobility confirms that the children of middle class Blacks who live in high poverty are disadvantaged in education and other outcomes. Zip code matters folks and it is a great organizing point to start the process of providing equal opportunity to all.