I scanned my fourth grade students at the Bronx's P.S. 85, a monolithic elementary school of 1,200 black and Latino in the heart of New York's 16th congressional district, the poorest-ranking in all fifty states in median household income, and I considered three battles in my mind:

#1: Manolo lost his mother to AIDS two years earlier and his schoolwork has since gone down the drain. He never smiles. However, with my support, he...