Improve public schools; unify them
There's no surer ticket out of poverty than a solid education. But that education has to be affordable (modern college isn't) and it has to be equally distributed. It would be impossible to argue that's true of America's public schools, which are supported by property taxes. Big houses equal better schools. And poorer kids, of course, lose out. That's a tragedy, and leads, according to a recent Stanford study, to poorer students who are years behind their richer peers.
In Lake Providence, richer kids go to a private school, which has no formal scholarship program. Poorer students go to a public school that does not perform as well. Education should be a great equalizer, not a source of division. The community would benefit from closing its private school, Briarfield Academy, and creating a shared asset in the public school system. Right now, as some locals explained it to me, the business community and richer families have almost no reason to fully invest in the public schools.