<p>This is a NY Times story about how the first lady is going around trying to motivate poor minority kids to do well in school and to go to college. I am posting it here in the main forum because I think it belongs here. I hope we can keep partisan politics out of this discussion.</p>
<p>I hope it works. There have been a number of programs designed to expose inner city and other poor kids to successful role models: bringing in African-American fighter pilots, attorneys, doctors, etc. to speak. They have had limited success and the main reason, according to the social science types who look at the data, is that peers have much more influence than older role models.</p>