George Will on Achievement Gap and Family Instability

In a recent column, George Will hints at a link between the academic achievement gap and out-of-wedlock birth rate among blacks. An excerpt (emphasis added):

“Because changes in laws and mores have lowered barriers, the black middle class has been able to leave inner cities, which have become, [Nathan] Glazer says, ‘concentrations of the poor, the poorly educated, the unemployed and unemployable.’ High out-of-wedlock birthrates mean a constantly renewed cohort of adolescent males without male parenting, which means disorderly neighborhoods and schools. Glazer thinks it is possible that for some young black men, ‘acting white’ — trying to excel in school — is considered ‘a betrayal of their group culture.’ This severely limits opportunities in an increasingly service-based economy where working with people matters more than working with things in manufacturing.”

(Back in my day, black kids ragged on other black kids for “talking proper,” that is, speaking standard English.)

Will comments on the newly released Educational Testing Service report, “The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped.” (PDF) According to the report, whatever progress was made in narrowing the gap occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Did the rising illegitimacy rate play a role in the present lack of progress?

Will lists the problems associated with family instability, which includes poverty, and quotes from the report:

“It is very hard to imagine progress resuming in reducing the education attainment and achievement gap without turning these family trends around — i.e., increasing marriage rates, and getting fathers back into the business of nurturing children…It is similarly difficult to envision direct policy levers” that will make it happen.

Considering that an individual’s decision to have a child without the benefit of marriage and a stable home life is not subject to government interference, how does the government go about “fixing” the high illegitimacy rate among black Americans? I argue that the government can’t fix the problem. But it wouldn’t be its big, old bloated self if it didn’t try.