The Future of our Cities

Wherever you stand on public education and the menu of schools one thing is a certainty. Unless and until money is put into business enterprises - which affords people jobs - little will change in areas of blight and neglect. I mention this because schools of all sorts in these areas will not be able to make the changes necessary to end of poverty and the dim prospects that so many face.

Look, the problem is complex and it ISN'T linear. Just because students or a school achieves a good of success doesn't mean that businesses and jobs will be created or that poverty suddenly ends. The fix for endemic problems doesn't lie in ONE solution or have but one cause.

The same can be said of violence and gangs. Having ONE solution, greater police patrols or more police in a neighborhood, won't end the problem of vacant buildings, unemployment and hopelessness. Again, the idea that there is some magic button that can be pushed which causes a long-term problem to disappear is simplistic and not reasonable. Again, this isn't linear and the concerns of certain areas of any city will have to be dealt with on many fronts.

I'm writing this, in part, because people need to stop accusing schools of not performing or not doing enough to put a halt to a litany of problems that have little to no control over.

Dick