More Stories

[richard duncan]

I was just reading a couple of stories by John Kass in the Chicago
Trib about a violent eighth grader who used a steel hammer to
shatter the face of his teacher. Her plastic surgeon described her
broken face as a "jigsaw puzzle." Apparently he had bragged to the
class of his plans to assault the teacher, and no one warned her. It
was kind of a class project, I guess. Not exactly a Jeffersonian
bulwark against tyranny!

Is this story "typical?" The same story reported that so far this year
"there have been 1,198 reported physical assaults against Chicago
public school teachers by their students." See John Kass, Kids, System
Beat Teacher Long Before the Work was Done,Chicago Tribune, July 24,
1997; John Kass, Violent Kid Ends Teacher's Dream, Chicago Tribune,
July 22, 1997.

This is why some of the strongest supporters of educational choice are
inner city minorities who realize their children have nothing to lose
and perhaps a great deal to gain from choice. The battle for choice
will be won in the inner cities, and will spread outward.
--
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             Rick Duncan (rduncan at unlinfo.unl.edu)

"There's no pleasure on earth that's worth sacrificing for the sake of
an extra five years in the geriatric ward of the Sunset Old People's
Home, Weston-Super-Mare." Horace Rumpole