An interesting perspective on rogue police vs. ineffective teachers

My friend Jeffrey Klaus with an interesting perspective on the damage done to low-income minority communities by rogue police vs. ineffective teachers:

Whitney, one reason why you might be more inclined to think that poor policing practices are more of an aberration than poor teaching, is because of the historic relationship that police have had with minorities in our country.

There is lingering and well-founded distrust within the minority community of police officers and policing practices. You don't have to go back in history very far at all to see that our society has used police and policing as a weapon of choice to discriminate and intimidate Africa-Americans. The history is long, widespread and well-documented. Thankfully now, while police persecution of minorities still exists to some extent, it is almost universally unacceptable. This may be why your instinct was to chalk up the actions to a rogue cop.

On the contrary, the minority community does not possess the same level of simmering distrust of the teaching profession. If more skepticism did exist in our society about teachers and their unions, then you might argue that a rogue teacher was just that. Instead, we find that in our cities, ineffective teachers are the norm.

Sadly, low income minority parents and civil rights leaders don't seem to recognize the continuing disenfranchisement that underperforming schools continue to create in their communities. I have no statistics to rely on, but I believe that the damage to young black citizens as a result of poor teaching today in urban classrooms is far more detrimental than are rogue police.

So I think that your instinct to trust police, and to be skeptical of urban teachers is well-placed.