Michael Atherton said:
"A number of people have argued that academic failure and the dropout rate are intrinsically linked to poverty and attempts to impact it are doomed to fail."
But...
It is true that a number of people have argued that "academic failure and the dropout rate are intrinsically lined to poverty."
However, the added clause "and attempts to impact it are doomed to fail" is purely an imposition by the author of that quote. That's
just as it was earlier when the author imposed on people who opposed his position that they wanted to, "throw up their hands and say
that there's nothing they can do."
To the contrary, I think that EVERY ONE said that there was something to be done but it was just that some realism needed to be
interlaced with proposals on what the schools could do by themselves. We can and should do something in the schools as part of an overall program. But that overall program MUST include a substantial amount of economic justice in our society so that those
now dropping out of the school system don't do so because each one feels that there's no point in continuing his or her education.
And perhaps the author's proposals would get more attention if they included some proposals on how to augment a generalized feeling in our society that personal economic justice was not going to be frustrated by the inherent ways that our society works.
Steve Cross Prospect Park
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