November 2, 2011Dear Sir,There has been much talk about recently underachievers and dropouts and the importance of educating our youths. Why has Dr Ronald Mincy’s study on black males, “On The Wall Or On The Margin” been ignored? Were race, employment, and earnings, the only important factors? How does that reveal the true outcome of our youth?On Page 86 of Dr Mincy’s study, he states: “In a study of high school males in the US, Jackson and Meara (1977) revealed that paternal relationships with high degrees of communication and warmth, predicted greater occupational and educational achievement five years later. As seniors in high school, boys with these engaged fathers were more optimistic about their futures than those without highly engaged fathers. Five years later, these boys held professional or managerial positions, exhibited long term and ambitious professional aspirations and high levels of educational achievement.”Could the above study be a dark cloud revealing what most may want to hide, to avoid the necessary implementation of “shared parenting”? Do we really want to help the young black males to achieve success?Are we spending so much money on research and consultants and extracting only some snap shots of certain viewpoints and ignoring others to detract from what should be implemented? If so, we will not solve the problems we face.We are looking to the US for help, with very expensive $500,000 programmes to alleviate our gang problem, which started in the US with people estranged from their families.According to the latest US Government research, revealing that gangs are on the rise across the fifty states, British Columbia and Porto Rico, with 1.4 million members and 33,000 gangs. How are they going to solve our gang problem?“Shared Parenting”, which many countries have implemented, has had much success with children’s outcomes. In Sweden, 90% of children have both parents and are doing well. “Shared Parenting” will not cost anything; it would only take a legislative change with no burden on taxpayers or Government. Government is asking us “to do more with less”. We can do so much with so little for the betterment of our children.EDDIE TAVARESChildWatch Co-founder