School's Out

Violence isn't the sole reason my wife and I won't be sending our kids to public schools.

by Duane Swierczynski

Ireceived a lot of interesting reactions to my column last week where I pondered moving to the 'burbs. The bone of contention: my offhand comment that I didn't want my kids attending public school because they might "grow up to snap their algebra teacher's neck."

This was based, of course, on the news story about the Germantown High student who snapped his math teacher's neck.

Anyway, some reactions arrived by mail. One anonymous reader sent me two separate envelopes, each containing a newspaper clipping that suggested a school. ("Why not St. Peter's Episcopal?") I could tell both envelopes were from the same person, because the handwriting was identical. Maybe it was Milton Street.

Some reactions were delivered on the comments section of our Web site. There were some valid points — if I'm going to complain, why don't I do something about it, and advocate for reform?

And one reaction even appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News.

My friend Ronnie Polaneczky, a columnist at the Daily News, read my piece, and was upset about the neck-snapping line. She thought it was an insult to the families of public-school children, and she's sick of knee-jerk reactions like mine. "I'm weary of parents who've never set foot in the city's schools publicly reviling them as they drive the U-Haul across the county line," she wrote in her column two days ago.

And you know what — I can see her point. To a point.

My statement was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Of course I don't think the Philadelphia School District systematically turns its 174,370 students into neck-snapping killers. I was reacting as a horrified parent.

But a freak occurrence like the one at Germantown High doesn't bug me as much as the casual violence that Philadelphia public-school teachers suffer on a regular basis. The shoves. The slaps. The punches.

Just this past Sunday, the Inquirer reported that on an average school day, three or four teachers or administrators are assaulted.

Three or four. Per day.

Is it OK to say this is really, really effed up?

(And Ronnie, do you really want to stick by your claim that 99.9 percent of the kids who attend public schools "would no sooner break a teacher's neck" than my kids? Somebody's doing the hitting.)

I attended Catholic schools from first grade through senior year. If I would have raised a hand to a teacher — hell, even thought about raising a hand to a teacher — I would have been a grease spot on the floor. No questions asked.

But Ronnie is right: Violence isn't the sole reason my wife and I won't be sending our kids to public schools.

It's because ... and ooh, I can almost feel the hate mail being written right now ... I want something better for our kids.

Maybe that's elitist, but it's the truth.

And probably the truth for most of the families who lit out for the 'burbs.

Even Ronnie admits that the public-school system is underfunded and overcrowded. It's also a gamble what kind of school you end up with. "Their climates differ according to neighborhood, principal, teachers, student, demographics and parental involvement," Ronnie writes. Any reader of the news knows the school district is troubled without having to set foot in a school.

So why not get involved and change things, as one reader suggested?

This, above all other reactions, gave me the greatest pause.

The odds are daunting. It reminds me of the few Spartans squaring off against the hordes of skin-pierced Persians in 300. It's not that I'm worried so much about myself. But do I want to send my kids into a battlefield?

(Relax, Ronnie ... I mean that metaphorically.)

Is this even a battle I want to fight? I honestly don't know. I'm a journalist, not an activist. Some feel comfortable blending the roles; I'm not one of them.

Ronnie's point, in the end, is that parents have the right to make their own choices; she just wishes some parents didn't "denigrate" the choices of other parents on their way out.

I can understand that. But I also see the value in talking honestly about this stuff.

Maybe that's the way to do battle.

(duane@citypaper.net)