Educating a child
I apologize for the lack of new blog posts lately. A long-weekend away for a family wedding kept me away from the computer, so I’m just now trying to play catch up.
I usually try and blog about positive news about education reform from around the country- stories where school choice has been implemented and given families and students hope, but the news about the tragic and senseless beating of a Chicago student deeply saddened and angered me. Perhaps even more so, it frustrated me. No child should go to school in fear. No parent should worry about whether their child will survive the school day. As I read the reports and see the news- you can feel the fear of these students as they talk about tensions escalating and fights breaking out in the hallways. How can a child be expected to learn- to achieve- when they are fearful for their safety or their life?
As readers of this blog know, I have a 4 year old at home. It makes me sick with fear to think what I would do if it were my child who had to go back to this school- knowing what had happened- knowing what was happening. We have written before about the recent study by the Heritage Foundation and the Lexington Institute showing the lack of safety in the DC public schools. But it is not just limited to these urban school districts. Bullying has increased over the past decades- and plenty of students- even students in great schools- are fearful setting foot in school every day.
And that is one of the reasons we work so hard to ensure that every child- every family has a choice. We cannot expect a child to succeed- to excel- if they don’t even feel safe in the classroom. It may not always be something as extreme as what has just happened in Chicago- but that doesn’t make each individual situation any less tragic.
