Some wise thoughts from a friend:

Some wise thoughts from a friend:

 

Your stuff on poverty was right on the money!  The message really needn't be that hard to comprehend: First, schools serving poor kids can get so much better, they can even be stellar (some already are), and those of us who believe in justice, equality and human dignity for poor kids have an obligation to bust our asses to make schools great.  Full stop, no excuses, let's get moving.  

 

Second, where you find broken schools you are also likely to find a whole bunch of other broken stuff that is deeply connected to poverty (broken social service systems, housing, medical care, criminal process, and more).  The same poor kids who are screwed by the broken schools are screwed by the broken everything else.  Those of us who believe in justice, equality and human dignity have an obligation to fix that too.  Of course, nobody can work on everything at once, so we pick our battles.  But as we slog away in our corner of the world we should never lose sight of the larger justice struggle either.