New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | September 30, 2004

Lisa Snell gives a swift kick to a child's left behind.

Comments

Highway|9.30.04 @ 4:36PM|#

That article certainly shows a sad state of affairs. Everything I read now makes me more and more convinced that I would be an awful parent if I let any children I had go to a public school. Sadly, it seems that school districts don't agree, and make it as hard as possible to let you keep your kids out of their diploma mills.

The article also brings up a question: what if all the schools in the district are failing? Where's the accountability for that? Is there any provision in the NCLB or other law to bring action against the school board or whatever ruling body? Or are they allowed to just ignore the whole situation, since NCLB only works if there's some alternative, yet they have no incentive to provide such an alternative?

|9.30.04 @ 4:37PM|#

Is assault still a crime, or is it okay when it's just kids getting beat up? Don't they have sheriffs or cops in the schools there at all?

My inclination, were my kid ever abused in school, would be to call the cops, and get a lawyer. I don't think I would look to the U.S. Dept. of Education for an answer.

The real problem is the "consequence" of kids leaving the school is no consequence at all. Now, if the schools had some liability for performance and safety, that would change things real quick. But, as government agencies they are immune from liability unless it involves serious negligence. It's a nice legal exception the government has carved out for itself.

|9.30.04 @ 4:47PM|#

I'm always scandalized when I read about these absolutely atrocious schools with sky-high per-pupil expenditures. In my town, $15,000 educates 2 or 3 kids for a year. Where does all the money go? Apparently it's not being spent on security.

|9.30.04 @ 5:07PM|#

When I read this article in the print version, it broke my heart. I went to public school and I can't complain about the experience much, not more than any student would, but we need to give people a way out if their school is a hellhole like this.

|9.30.04 @ 5:20PM|#

Yeah, my schools never seemed that bad, other than their level of education really didn't prepare me for college (not even all the advanced placement classes).

But if you want to hear more war stories, where's Jennifer? She seems to have heard of this kind of stuff first hand. When I read my latest Reason mag, I thought of Jennifer while reading this article.

And the gaul of these folks to tell the parents they can't just yank their kids outta these shite schools is ridiculous.

|9.30.04 @ 5:38PM|#

Interestingly enough my mother's hometown is in Camden County and has one of the best school systems in NJ. My cousin's kids were the last generation to go there and they are apparently still quite good in spite of the "reforms" that the state has imposed (I understand that boroughs and cities no longer have anywhere near the autonomy they had in, say, the 1930's in education matters: I'm not sure, I don't really follow Jersey politics much). Also in spite of having one of the highest per capita incomes in the state I doubt that it spends $15K per student.

|9.30.04 @ 6:15PM|#

Okay - I think I understand. We allow choice and when the chosen schools fill up and start having all the same problems that Camden has and then we allow more choices until those chosen schools....

Wasn't there a PSA about this in the early 80s?

|9.30.04 @ 6:46PM|#

It is difficult to read this without feeling intense rage and nearly coming to tears with the realization that this could actually happen to kids in a public school.

|9.30.04 @ 7:03PM|#

I know of a 14 year old, 95 lb white girl who was nearly beaten to death by an 18 year old 250 lb black kid because she had marginal IQ and didn't understand (she was a new kid at the school) that she was sitting in the wrong seat on the bus.

The bus driver, the kids, and a few other assorted adults and teachers simply watched. Had it not been for the intervention of a UPS driver who happened to be coming out of the school office she would have been killed.

The kid had done it before and had his hand slapped and returned to school. This time he was arrested and will likely be tried as an adult. No hate crime though.

I believe that this happened in Beaufort (her dad is a Marine, so it could have been Cherry Point) and the laws are such that the maximum negligence award allowed by law is something like two grand.

Disclaimer: The girl's grandmother is a business associate. I haven't seen the mother or the girl since she was three or four. I don't know the father.

|9.30.04 @ 9:02PM|#

Isaac--
I have plenty of war stories of my own to explain why I currently oppose 90% of public education, but nothing compared to this. Students at my school were safe; they just didn't learn much and whenever I tried to change that I'd get in trouble for some asinine reason.

As I have posted here often enough before: school is now an end in itself, not a means to an end like preparation for life. the purpose of school nowadays is to get a diploma, and the way to get a diploma is to attend school, not to learn anything.

If you check the requirements to graduate from hellholes like that Camden place (and I mean the REAL requirements, not the official ones the school board has in writing), you'll see that a kid who wants to graduate doesn't really have to learn anything much, especially in regards to reading and critical thinking, but he DOES have to be in school a minimum number of days each year. Because sitting in a room surrounded by a couple dozen people within six months of your own age is far more important than knowing how to read or write or add or do a single damn thing for yourself, I guess is the rationale behind that.

Here is something all of you parents might want to know: my school was considered one of the better ones in this region, and most of the teachers at the school sent their kids to private schools.

|9.30.04 @ 9:38PM|#

My bad, Jennifer.

I have to say though, that although beatings, shootings, etc are worse, not being educated is pretty bad in and of itself. I'm appalled at both aspects of modern public schools here in America.

Thank god I don't have any kids yet. And if I do, I plan on getting enough money together to either get tutors for homeschooling that I can't provide, or send them to a private school.

|9.30.04 @ 10:35PM|#

This story makes me sad. I went to a wonderful public high school in the "inner city" of Rochester, NY during the 1980's, and I got a fantastic education. It was a "magnet" school, and my mom made the absolute right decision to send me there. I would not have traded it for any of the private schools in the area, because of the variety of friends I had from all walks of life simply could not be found at the private schools, where all the kids were alike. There was almost no violence, hardly any problems at all. Now... I live in NYC and see the kids that come out of the system here and I can't imagine putting my kids (if I had any) through that. Maybe I'm getting older, but all the students here seem like thugs to me. All of them. It makes me sad because I always LIKED the idea of public school. I've observed the public school systems in other countries where they just don't have the problems that we do (Germany, Canada, China). Why can't we do it here??

|10.1.04 @ 10:12AM|#

Iguana wrote: "I know of a 14 year old, 95 lb white girl who was nearly beaten to death by an 18 year old 250 lb black kid because she had marginal IQ and didn't understand (she was a new kid at the school) that she was sitting in the wrong seat on the bus."

How is the race of the individuals involved relevant to the story?

|10.1.04 @ 11:52AM|#

"How is the race of the individuals involved relevant to the story?"

Get your panties out of that bunch, you whiny little PC pinko.

|10.1.04 @ 11:57AM|#

BTW, that story was awful. The bus-driver (and all the other kids on that bus) should be beaten within an inch of their lives, then doused in gasoline and set on fire, and that big n***** who beat up the girl should be taken apart with nail-clippers... very slowly.

|10.1.04 @ 2:03PM|#

Parse,

If race isn't relevant neither is gender but you didn't ask me how the gender of the individuals is relevant to the story. I would assume that's because race IS relevant to you but gender isn't. For that matter age wasn't relevant either. That didn't bother you either.

The race is relevant as it relates to the fact that the DA refused to prosecute this as a hate crime. My comment to that effect in the orginal wouldn't have been as clear without noting the races of the victim and the attacker.

|10.1.04 @ 2:33PM|#

Andy, you are so right. How could anybody watch something like that happen and not intervene? I can't imagine......

|10.1.04 @ 2:39PM|#

I figure if I don't say this someone will jump on my back about it.

I am not advocating using racial slurs or cutting people up with fingernail clippers (tempting as the nail clipper torture might be), just agreeing that it is horrifying that any human being with an ounce of character could not intervene in this kind of situation.

|10.1.04 @ 7:57PM|#

We allow choice and when the chosen schools fill up and start having all the same problems that Camden has and then we allow more choices until those chosen schools....

And why, exactly, would the chosen schools start "having all the same problems"?

|10.1.04 @ 11:29PM|#

Iguana:

I did see some relevance to gender and age: males and generally stronger than females and 18 year olds are generally stronger than 14 year olds. I thought they were relevant in the same way that the 95 lbs vs. 250 lbs were relevant.

Race didn't seem particularly relevant at all--and maybe that's why the DA didn't qualify it as a hate crime. Your story implies the motive for the beating was the girl's sitting in the assailant's chosen seat. Where's the racial animus?

Also, it's comic that I get portrayed as the whiny PC pinko when I oppose the notion of "hate crimes."(What crimes do people commit because they love you?)I hope most of the libertarians and fellow travelers who populate hit and run will be as suspicious of such feeble excuses for increased police and prosecutorial powers as I am.

Iguana|10.2.04 @ 12:13AM|#

Parse,

Not positive, but I think the whiny pinko comment may have been tongue and cheek.