Mr. Williams hits it on the nose. Unfortunately, no one will listen. Does it begin in the school? No. Unless we as a society begin to value education more and our young people see the value in what we call "lifelong learning" schools such as Douglass will continue to languish. Young people in the inner city will continue to fall behind. Crime and drug use will continue to thrive and children will pass down to their children what was passed down to them over the previous 40 years. A life of despair and poverty. A different choice CAN be made but all too often that different choice is the path less traveled and one that if a student did take it he/she would be ridiculed and ostracized. Thank you for calling it like it is Mr. Williams.

Sounds like they could save some money and time by just shutting down the school and mail out the diplomas when the kids get to be 16 or so.

Somebody, somehow must get through to the kids the relationship between education and jobs. Jobs equal income and a future. School and business partnerships change lives.

Where there is no vision the people perish. Give the very best teachers and administrators a much higher salary to work there, and then kick the bums out that keep others from learning. The perception that those that don't care about learning have a right to drag down everyone else is based on the egalitarian socialistic philosophies rooted in the 60s and 70s. It is time to move on.

The kids don't care because the parents don't care.
Neither care because "the guvm'nt" will take care of them.

Adjust the attitude of the leaders of the black community first. Then the parents, then the kids.

IF you want to improvet their living standards, which in turn would improve their educational standards, all you have to do is get rid of welfare, affirmative action, and anything else that gives anybody a way out. With affirmative action, a minority can get into a college because of their race, even if they had bad grades, which makes a lot of them think they don't have to work hard, because everthing is handed to them. On top of that, a lot of the people on welfare, regardless of race, don't ever get off of it, why? Because they don't have to, they don't have a problem taking the governments money. If you want to get people out of their current situation, make it so they don't have another choice, because if theyd don't, they will just become homeless and starve to death. It really does solve the problem.

12 years after "the end of welfare as we know it" and the poor continue to struggle hopelessly just as they always have.

My friend, Welfare still exists and people still take advanatage of it. For the record, nothing has changed with affirmative action!

I teach in a similar kind of school. There is no challenge. No matter what misbehavior a child partakes in, they are welcomed back to school. No matter how little work they do, they will go to the next grade. Try to do otherwise, and most parents and academia will fight you. Most kids naturally go to the path of least resistance and we have paved that road with irresponsibility and apathy and painted it gold.

No kid should be forced to attend such a school, and all students should be warned when a school has such low credentials.

If 90% of students refuse to try, that indeed is unfortunate, but the other 10% should, by law have an out.

The same goes for Utah Schools where math education is substandard. Unfortunately math education has fallen quite a bit since I went to school and unfortunately it is a little like pulling teeth to try to get any positive change.