"We tried to save the patient, but too much damage has been done for too many years..."
This morning, I heard that Morning Joe will be broadcasting from Detroit next week. It will be a show of "hope" on how the city got to be in this fix and highlighting people who are working to remedy it. I almost fell out of my chair. Now I am a big believer in hope - however, I also know when the cause it lost. Detroit is indeed one of our lost cities.
It took us a long time to get into this mess. Many years - really decades - of neglect and mismanagement has reduced this once great city from prosperity to blight. There is no quick "fix". It will not matter which companies are lured to the inner city to set up shop. There simply is no qualified workforce anymore. The people who remain in Detroit are victims of not only their own life choices, they are also victims of an entitlement government which promises too much and delivers too little. In short, they are not up to the task of working at any job other than the most menial.
How did we get here? It all started in the 1960's under the Great Society. Some things in the Great Society were value added to the country, many were not. Bottom line is this - the Great Society destroyed many families, especially in the black community. Since the 1960's, the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers has gone up like a roman candle. Once rare, now common. In certain areas of the black community, the rate is over 70%. Statistic after statistic has shown that single parenthood and poverty walk hand in hand. This is an immutable fact - not opinion, just fact.
Lets look at our nation's capital. It has for some time had the highest per capita spending for education. How high? For the 2009-2010 school year, the Census Bureau has determined the spending per student in Washington was $29,409!
Given that amount of spending, the results must be extraordinary. Not really. In April 2012, the Washington Post released this information:
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) show that 58.6 percent of the 5,058 students in the class of 2011 obtained high school diplomas within four years. That’s a nearly 20 percent decline over the 73 percent rate reported for 2010. The national rate is about 75 percent.
The irony of this statistic is the 60% who did graduate were very poorly educated due to inadequate curriculum and social promotions. By graduating poorly prepared kids does not serve them well. The thin veneer of an improperly awarded diploma soon becomes transparent in a competitive workplace.
One of the very few truth tellers on this issue is Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. O'Reilly's prognosis on the plight of our cities is simple - fix the family. Fix the damage caused by unintended consequences of the Great Society. Fixing the family will help stem black on black violence, reduce the number of unplanned teenage pregnancies and engage parents in the education process. O'Reilly contends that until the family is fixed, it will not matter how much money is spent and how many government programs are created.
Chicago, Detroit, Los Angels and even Minneapolis all have the same disease. And yet some know the cure. So long as we refuse to take the medicine which will cure the problem, more and more of our young people will be condemned to lives of poverty and despair. This is not fair to them, it is not fair to our country. We all deserve better.
Lets look at our nation's capital. It has for some time had the highest per capita spending for education. How high? For the 2009-2010 school year, the Census Bureau has determined the spending per student in Washington was $29,409!
Given that amount of spending, the results must be extraordinary. Not really. In April 2012, the Washington Post released this information:
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) show that 58.6 percent of the 5,058 students in the class of 2011 obtained high school diplomas within four years. That’s a nearly 20 percent decline over the 73 percent rate reported for 2010. The national rate is about 75 percent.
The irony of this statistic is the 60% who did graduate were very poorly educated due to inadequate curriculum and social promotions. By graduating poorly prepared kids does not serve them well. The thin veneer of an improperly awarded diploma soon becomes transparent in a competitive workplace.
One of the very few truth tellers on this issue is Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. O'Reilly's prognosis on the plight of our cities is simple - fix the family. Fix the damage caused by unintended consequences of the Great Society. Fixing the family will help stem black on black violence, reduce the number of unplanned teenage pregnancies and engage parents in the education process. O'Reilly contends that until the family is fixed, it will not matter how much money is spent and how many government programs are created.
Chicago, Detroit, Los Angels and even Minneapolis all have the same disease. And yet some know the cure. So long as we refuse to take the medicine which will cure the problem, more and more of our young people will be condemned to lives of poverty and despair. This is not fair to them, it is not fair to our country. We all deserve better.
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