I agree with the basic premise of Eugene Kane's column about violence in the Milwaukee Public Schools.
Bad parents raise bad kids.
I don't agree with this:
There is a Pandora's box of social issues that contributes to the dysfunction in which some MPS students are being raised, including a lack of jobs in the central city, the crack cocaine explosion of the 1990s and even the school choice voucher program.
(Voucher schools won't accept kids with the kind of disciplinary problems that are ruining public schools, making MPS the last resort for many students.)
It's illogical to say that kids in the school choice program are responsible for other kids acting out at public schools.
The program doesn't create any dysfunction. To the contrary, it provides an opportunity for kids to escape the dysfunction of MPS.
Ending the school choice program wouldn't end the violence.
Kane can't lump school choice in with poverty and drug abuse as a contributing factor in creating problem kids.
It's a shame that he threw such a ridiculous comment in his otherwise reasonable column.
2 comments:
I've got to agree with you; saying that school choice is the cause of school violence is akin to saying a child is complicit in a murder his friend committed simply because he stopped hanging out with that friend who was turning to violence, and therefore wasn't there to be a good influence. Rather, school choice is the reason a lot of students AREN'T drawn into violent situations, and have a better environment in which to learn. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc attitudes are extremely short-sighted, and in this case it seems that school choice was the catalyst for Milwuakee recognizing the growing problem of school violence.
Exactly.
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