2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?(mercurynews.com)

  The [1996 welfare reform] legislation asserts that public assistance (i.e. 
  welfare dependency), not poverty, reinforces personal moral failures, which
  causes social pathologies. In other words, the consequence has become the cause.
  Moreover, there is a subtext underlying the "family values" agenda. It is the
  moral condemnation of alternaitve family structures and particularly the
  degradation of poor single mothers of color.
  
  "Family values" reinforce the racially motivated stereotypes of "poor ghettos",
  which are supposedly charcterized by promiscuity, irresponsible parenthood, an
  "epidemic" of teen pregnancies and debilitating welfare dependency. In fact,
  poverty, unemployment, low wages, and lack of human and social capital are the
  major causes of single parenthood and marital instability, teen pregnancy, and
  stunted child development.

  Finally, the growing income achievement gap does not
  appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap
  between children with highly and less-educated parents.
  Indeed, the relationship between parental education and
  children’s achievement has remained relatively stable
  during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship
  between income and achievement has grown sharply.