We needed to fix this yesterday. 600 students enroll, 200 graduate. Where are these kids?

When I attended Maury High School several decades ago, the “White-flight academies” had already begun to siphon-off many of the top academic performing students, and several of our better athletes. Still, the class that I graduated with had a good percentage of students from Norfolk’s most successful and prominent families. I know that I learned a great deal from being in class with students from upwardly mobile families, and I think of how miserable it must be for today’s students not to have that positive influence in their classes.

No amount of grand-standing before TV cameras is going to improve the Norfolk schools. Electing a Board will merely attract more megalomaniacs who will turn every issue into a political football.

Norfolk and similar cities must come to grips with the fact that their schools are no longer places where broad cross-sections of society join in the pursuit of an education. The inner-city schools are stuck with those who either could not get away, or did not care to, or afford to go to better schools.

Clearly, there is no packaged solution available, however some success has been gained by schools that culled out the punks and sent these junior criminals to disciplined, structured programs, so that the remainder of the students would be safe to learn.

My observation of elected boards has shown that the elected boards are far less likely to make the tough choices needed to deal with problems, especially with burgeoning thug-wannabe elements in their schools.