Sidebar: inequality slowly destroys a once-great black high school.

• Author: Chancellor, Carl
• Position: AMERICAN LIFE: AN INVESTOR'S GUIDE - John F. Kennedy High School

I visited my old high school in the Lee-Miles neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, not long ago. It was hard to believe that it has been forty-three years since I walked its halls. For the most part, John F. Kennedy High School, a fortress-like brown-brick building devoid of any architectural flair, looks very much as it did the day it opened in 1965.

Likewise, its students, who go by the collective moniker "Fighting Eagles," outwardly mirror my former classmates. Back then, the school was 99 percent black. It was heavily black when it opened in 1965; it remains that way today. (With our Afros, dashikis, bell-bottoms, and platform shoes, the Class of '71 exhibited a bit more style than today's students. But to be fair, it's tough for this generation of Eagles to stand out sartorially: they are saddled with the school district's mandatory uniform--white or blue polo shirt; dark or tan cotton pants or skirt.) Two things, however, have dramatically changed since 1971: Kennedy's economic mix and its academic profile.

Four decades ago, Eagles were the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, small-business owners, and white-collar professionals, factory workers, civil servants, and skilled craftsmen. In short, we were solidly middle class. But that's no longer the case. Kennedy today is an extremely high-poverty school. According to the district, 100 percent of the school's 823 students were "economically disadvantaged" in 2013. This drop in income, which reflects the neighborhood's overall economic retreat, has been accompanied by a decline in academic outcomes. Kennedy's most recent state report card? Fs across the board. That means that at least 75 percent of students can't pass the state test at the minimum level in any area: mathematics, reading, science, social studies, and writing. Equally dismal was the school's four-year graduation rate of 50.2 percent--though that was a significant improvement over the rate in 2010, 38.9 percent.

In the late 1960s and early '70s, Kennedy was one of Ohio's best high schools. Its graduation rates were in the upper 90th percentile; each year it counted among its ranks several National Merit Scholarship finalists; and it sent more than 51 percent of its graduates to four-year colleges, including Ivy League schools.

I spoke recently to several of my former teachers. They remembered a school community--administrators, teachers, and students--that strove to live up to the high bar set by Kennedy's first principal...