Anyone who knows anything about New York City schools usually gives me a look of amazement and utters a little "oh..." when I tell them the name of the high school from which I graduated.
I attribute this reaction to the fact that I don't seem like the kind of person who could have survived four years in South Shore High School.
The NYC Department of Education's Web site published a press release earlier this year that offers some insight into why most people think of my alma mater as a war zone.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and Police Commissioner Raymond E. Kelly made known their plans to "crack down on the schools with the worst safety record." Twelve public schools, 10 high schools and two middle schools, were named as the "Impact" schools for which the mayor, chancellor and police commissioner are gunning.
To no surprise of mine, South Shore High School stands at the top of the list of the five most violent high schools in Brooklyn.
"Through Nov. 30 this year, these Impact schools - which comprise less than one percent of the entire school system - accounted for 13 percent of all serious crimes and 11 percent of the total incidents of New York City schools - roughly 12 times their share," the press release states. "As a group, Impact high schools have above average suspension rates (81.8) per thousand, compared to a high school average of 55.5 per thousand) and below average attendance rates (74 percent, compared to a high school average of 82.8 percent).
These abysmal statistics are not unique to New York City schools and the city of Buffalo certainly has its share of public high schools that would fit into what NYC officials consider "Impact" schools.
Officials promise swift crackdowns and severe punishment for the offenders, and in many cases, punishment includes removal from school. While no one can disagree that these troubled youths should be separated from their peers, important considerations should be about what will become of these black sheep of the public school system, and even more importantly, what made them this way.
Many of these troubled schools are in less-than-affluent, crime-ridden neighborhoods. A large percentage of these students make their way from unstable households to overcapacity elementary and middle school classrooms where overworked, underpaid teachers are unable to provide the attention that young minds require - much less the fragile minds of troubled children.
Some of these students are barely literate by the time they get to high school. One can understand their lack of inclination to catch up to classmates when they are years behind, and this lack of inclination leads to frustration of which violence is often the result.
These youth are ignored for most of their lives, their education limited by budget cuts and under-funded programs. It is only when they get to the age where they have a hardened disregard for the society that has disregarded them for so long that they make a blip on the radar.
They make a big, dangerous blip that has education and law enforcement officials creating task forces and marching into schools preparing to cast out what they perceive as our nation's next batch of criminals.
"We simply won't allow a few people to destroy the educational opportunities of others," stated Bloomberg in the press release.
Unfortunately statistics show that there are more than a mere "few" troubled students in the nation's public school system and their numbers are growing.
While it might seem like a good idea to devote money and manpower to curing the nation's public school ailments at the high school level - and for some schools this might presently be the most necessary action - more emphasis should be placed on preventing the crisis in the first place.
Or we can just keep under-funding education programs, ignoring the effects of poverty and a lack of elementary education and then simply escort the growing number of bad apples out of their schools and into more violent frustration.
