Seventy percent of American children growing up in poor households will not reach the middle class. What role do family structure and early-childhood parenting play in making the ladder of economic opportunity easier or harder to climb? And how should public policy address these challenges?

Join AEI and the Institute for Family Studies for a discussion of how education reform, vocational programs, and family policy can better engage America's new family structure landscape and give a new generation of children a better chance at success.

Isabel V. Sawhill, Brookings Institution

Robert Lerman, Urban Institute and American University

Michael Petrilli, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

W. Bradford Wilcox, AEI and University of Virginia

Eleanor Barkhorn, The Atlantic