Rising to the Challenge: Reducing Childhood Poverty and Improving Childhood Outcomes in Kansas town hall meetings, sponsored by Governor Brownback, will be held Monday, Nov. 14 in Kansas City; Wednesday, Nov. 16 in Wichita; and Thursday Nov. 17 in Garden City. 

Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America's central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.

Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It's an expansion of early childhood education.