No More "Scissor Charts"
Robert Putnam's latest work, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis , is alarming. Like his previous works, Putnam, in the research terms of sociology, tells us what we already know. This time, as usual the bearer of bad news, he tells us that "our kids" are in trouble. We've known that, but we prefer not to see those "other kids" as "our kids." "Scissor graphs," as Putnam dubs them, demonstrate the expanding gap between upper-class and lower-class parents and children in the U.S. (68). He includes 13 critical graphs in his work, and each one should raise an alarm. The word "gap" appears on at least 74 pages of the 277 pages of text, fully a quarter of the book (excluding acknowledgements, notes, and index). "Gap" would appear more frequently were it not for the rich illustrations of how so many American youth live. Perhaps the measured tones of the Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John...