Another Horror Story

What goes on in many of our public schools, especially those "serving" mostly low-income, minority children is a crime of the highest order.  I saw the latest evidence of this during a visit a short while ago to one of the finest public schools in the country, which happens to be a charter school, that, like most in NYC, shares space with a dismal, chronically failing district school.  How do I know?  When the principal and I walked through the district school to get to the charter school's space in the building, there was the usual chaos, so I whispered to the principal, "Seeing this must make your skin crawl."

 

The principal replied (as we were walking through the auditorium), "You know what really gets me?  I come through here regularly, and they're showing movies."

 

To which I naively replied, "The History Channel?  Documentaries?"

 

"No.  Movies like The Karate Kid."

 

I've heard plenty of stories of individual teachers who have given up on their students and don't even TRY to educate them, so they just show movies in their classroom, but for this to be going on in the main auditorium with hundreds of students means THE ENTIRE SCHOOL HAS GIVEN UP – and these are LITTLE kids! 

 

When educational malpractice is going on, obviously most of the kids will be barely able to read by, say, 4^th grade and, statistically speaking, are very likely to lead broken, ruined lives.

 

Seriously, if I were czar, I'd throw the principal and the teachers responsible for this in jail for a week or two.  The crime they are committing against these children is FAR worse than many other crimes for which they really would go to jail.