This’ll be quick.

New Hampshire has a child poverty rate of 10 percent, a rate that is both appallingly high and, I’m sorry to report, the lowest in the United States. New Hampshire is also a low-tax state: according to the Tax Foundation, it has the 46th-lowest tax burden. Is child poverty in New Hampshire low because of its low taxes? Of course not. Or rather, the low tax burden contributes in a very small way: it attracts affluent families from neighboring states, which tend to be intact. The real driver of New Hampshire’s low child poverty rate is demographic. Rates of family disruption are very low by American standards.

Texas, in contrast, has one of the worst child poverty rates in the country: 24 percent. Texas has the 43rd lowest tax burden in the United States, slightly heavier than New Hampshire’s. So what’s the difference between these two states? Again, its all about family disruption. You might not be aware of this, particularly if you believe that “high-roads” and “low-roads” explain the universe, but America has a history of slavery and segregation and enduring racial discrimination. Unlike New Hampshire, a large number of Texan are just a few generations removed from extreme economic and more importantly social deprivation. This is far more true of Texas than of California, though its more true of both of these states than New Hampshire.

There are few ways we can approach this fact: we can blame Texas for its poverty, which … doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Or we can evaluate whether or not Texas is succeeding in advancing the cause of social inclusion. Residential segregation is one straightforward way of measuring social inclusion, and on that metric Texas does poorly. But inclusion in the formal economy is another way of measuring it — an arguably more important way. On that front, Texas does pretty well.

To really make a dent in child poverty, Texas needs to encourage family stability, which is hard for any state policymakers to do. Absent that, encouraging better educational outcomes and stable workforce attachment are the best we can do.

Much-maligned Alabama, by the way, has been an education innovator in recent years. The state’s ACCESS long-distance education program has greatly expanded course offerings to kids in rural and inner-city areas, and it is already bearing fruit. It turns out that policy innovation and a relaxed regulatory climate offer a way for poor (and browner) states to leapfrog over rich (and whiter) states. Surely it is wrongheaded for states like Alabama to copy states like California, that have allowed their advantages to wither over time as a punishing business climate has made it hard to sustain what had been a world-class educational system?

Or not. Repeating the high-road mantra that seeks to transform all of America into Walter Reuther’s Detroit through legislative fiat might be more effective than carefully tailoring educational programs to meet the needs of impoverished African Americans and Mexican Americans.

Now I’m being unfair. Sorry guys.