The quality education part would help put a stop to economic injustice. I wish that would be the primary focus, moving forward. It solves a lot of problems.
A human problem rears its head when we say "better schools" is the solution.
The better schools
need to be in the most violent part of the city.
Teachers are humans, and most teachers would rather teach in a safer school to students whose parents support the idea of their children getting a good education. So, to the extent that teachers can vote with their feet, they find jobs in in schools that are not in the middle of combat zones.
Better schools are certainly part of the solution. But getting better schools in a poor, dangerous neighborhood is easier said than done, despite all good intentions of state legislators, school boards, superintendents, et. al.
Of course, some teachers like the challenge of teaching in dangerous schools in distressed areas. Maybe OAM is one of those, as I believe he has said he teaches on an Indian reservation.
I'm not one of those. I did that thing for 8 years, and every Sunday evening during the school year I got physically ill thinking of the week to come. It was worse than anything I did in 20 years in the Army. Boot camp, Jump School, Ranger School, Flight School. All far more pleasant and rewarding than teaching in an inner-city middle school where the punishment for telling a teacher that you're going to get your dad to punch his lights out is that you get to skip that teacher's class for the rest of the week. Worse if the kid in question is a good football or basketball player.
It took 8 years for me to realize that it wasn't going to get better, then I voted with my feet.
