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If you want to get a firsthand observation of the inequality in America's system of public education, just talk to my friend Bill.
In a conversation over wine earlier this week, Bill told me about his recent trip back to Detroit, his home town. One afternoon, he decided to take a side-trip outside the suburbs where his relatives now live, back to the 'hood of his youth in the inner city. You know, check out the old grammar school. See what's happened to the old home.
What greeted him, however, were blocks and blocks of dilapidated, boarded-up homes, abandoned storefronts, and trash-strewn streets. Feeling decidedly out of place in his gleaming white, rented SUV, Bill was too nervous to drive down the streets of his youth, much less get out of the vehicle and snap a few pics.
Detroit's catastrophic economic and cultural collapse has had a horrendous impact on its public schools. Next month, a quarter of the public schools in Detroit will be closed and the kids they served dealt out to schools that aren't necessarily any better than the ones they left.
My friend Bill was fortunate enough to leave Detroit after his teen years, to end up in an affluent university town where he could send his kid to a great public school with caring teachers and supportive parents.
What happened to the public school of his boyhood, and others in Detroit, would be unthinkable in the community where he now lives. But it's a mistake to assume that what is happening to schools in Detroit is confined only to Detroit.
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