Unleashing Opportunity: Why Escaping Poverty Requires a Shared Vision of Justice

There is a perfect storm undermining something important about America: the opportunity for people born into poverty to advance over their lifetimes.

This book explores how to unleash opportunity in five key areas: early childhood, the graduation gap, foster care, juvenile justice, and predatory lending. For each issue Gerson explores the magnitude of the problem, Summers applies a theological framework for considering solutions, and Thompson tells the story of men and women who have journeyed through these issues.

Social mobility has become increasingly stalled in America and the result is a class system in which birth equals destiny. Unleashing opportunity is now more important than ever.

About the Authors:

Michael Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist appearing in The Washington Post.

Stephanie Summers is the CEO of the Center for Public Justice and a former executive and staff member with the CCO, a campus ministry organization in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.

Katie Thompson is a twenty-something writer, editor, and news junkie. She's the editor of SharedJustice.org, an online publication for twenty-and-thirty somethings published by the Center for Public Justice.