Common purpose

This refreshing book is an antidote to despair. For Americans skeptical about our national capacity to turn around inner-city devastation and reverse high rates of illegitimacy, school failure, and intergenerational poverty, Common Purpose offers inspiring tales and hard evidence of success on a scale that is large enough to matter. Since the publication of her 1988 book, Within Our Reach, renowned social analyst Lisbeth B. Schorr has been asking why the pilot social programs that succeed in helping disadvantaged children and families toward better lives are so rarely sustained or expanded.…