Motivated to move into politics after a local teenager died of a gunshot wound in his arms, Newark Mayor Cory Booker has faced numerous challenges leading one of our nation's poorest and most violent cities. The state recently took over the Newark schools after years of mismanagement and corruption and now dumps billions into the failing system, averaging $17,000 per student.
Where is the church? Neither homeschooling nor leaving children in this system will fix its problems. Why do we have no answer? Nor even a working proposition?
Hat Tip: Rethink, a new favorite blog of mine (How many favorites can I have?)
Yet the money has done little good, since the state has pursued few educational innovations and hasn’t taken on entrenched educational interests (above all, the teachers’ union), which still control much of the system. Student performance has continued to plummet. “High school achievement rates have virtually flipped, from almost 70 percent of graduating Newark kids passing the state’s high school proficiency exam when the state took over, to only about 30 percent passing it now,” says Richard Cammarieri, a member of the Newark schools advisory board. E3 executive director Dan Gaby bluntly describes the system as “in crisis,” estimating that it spends an astonishing $1.3 million for every qualified student it manages to graduate from high school. City Journal, (emphasis mine)Wow. That's government efficiency for you. Spend billions of dollars without making a single, structural change which might hope to effect the system. The problems in these communities run so much deeper than what is going on in the classroom, and yet we do nothing but treat the symptoms.
Where is the church? Neither homeschooling nor leaving children in this system will fix its problems. Why do we have no answer? Nor even a working proposition?
Hat Tip: Rethink, a new favorite blog of mine (How many favorites can I have?)
