The Millennium Breach was sponsored by the Eisenhower Foundation

Eisenhower Foundation

The Eisenhower Foundation continues the work of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence The Eisenhower Foundation continues the work of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Riot...

 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Kerner Report on March 1, 1998. The Kerner Report was released by the Kerner Commission

Kerner Commission

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide...

, a committee established by President Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

 in 1968 to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. The infamous passage of the Kerner Report found, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—-separate and unequal."

Findings

The Millennium Breach was written by Fred R. Harris

Fred R. Harris

Fred Roy Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He served from 1964 until 1973.-Biography:...

, Lynn A. Curtis, and other Eisenhower trustees. The Breach presents the Foundation’s position on practical policy and how to replicate the grassroots non-profit, inner-city programs that have been effective since the release of the original Kerner Report in 1968. It targets private and public policymakers and inner-city community practitioners.

The breach documents the following trends since the release of the Kerner Report in 1968:

1. From 1977 to 1988, the incomes of the richest 1 percent
   Distribution of wealth
   The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It differs from the distribution of income in that it looks at the distribution of ownership of the assets in a society, rather than the current income of members of that society.-Definition of...
   
    in America increased by 120 percent and the incomes of the poorest fifth in America decreased by 10 percent
2. In urban public schools in poor neighborhoods, more than two-thirds of children fail to reach even the "basic" level of national tests.
3. During the 1980s, child poverty
   Child poverty
   Child poverty refers to the phenomenon of children living in poverty. This applies to children that come from poor families or orphans being raised with limited, or in some cases absent, state resources. Children that fail to meet the minimum acceptable standard of life for the nation where that...
   
    increased by over 20 percent, with racial minorities suffering disproportionately. In 1998, the child poverty rate in the United States was 4 times the average of Western European countries
4. Over the 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. tripled the number of prison cells and simultaneously reduced housing appropriations for the poor by over 80 percent.
5. In the early 1990s, 1 of 4 young African-American men was in prison, on probation, or on parole. By the late 1990s, 1 of 3 young African-American men was in prison, on probation, or on parole.

Recommendations

The report recommended the adoption of national policies based on what the Eisenhower Foundation believed to have been effective policies in education, employment, economic, development, race and criminal justice since the Kerner Commission. The following policies were recommended:

1. Fully fund the Head Start Program for all eligible children in pre-school
2. Replicate effective school and housing desegregation and renewing affirmative action
   Affirmative action
   Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
   
   
3. Create a national nonprofit "Corporation for Youth Investment" that will provide boys-and-girls-club-type safe havens after school for kids 6 to 16
4. Reform public schools by restructuring academic programs; providing focused intervention for children with mental health problems; creating safe environments during the day and supportive nonprofit safe havens after school; increasing involvement of and assistance to inner city parents; reducing class size
5. Reorder the budget in the "War on Drugs
   War on Drugs
   The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
   
   " from 70 percent enforcement and 30 percent prevention and treatment to 50/50.

External links

"The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation" http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/frames/main_frameMB.html