Editorial - 18 Apr 2010
The Role of Liberals in the Decline of the Inner City
T
he Baltimore Sun claims that society at large may be one of the perps responsible for the abnormal
behavior of inner city youth. How right you are. What the Sun probably doesn't want to hear is
that the solution to the problem has nothing to do with money - and everything to do with the failed
social policies of the past 50 years.
A study conduced by the U.S. Office of Education concluded that private schools enjoyed one
great advantage over public schools - namely a lack of funding. The lack of funding forces
private schools to refrain from engaging in the latest teaching fads and "soft" subjects,
and to focus on the fundamentals of learning. Hence, even students with comparable family
and socioeconomic backgrounds come out ahead in the private system.
Most Americans know that the United States spends far more money on public school education
than other nations. And the amount of money is staggering. According to the Maryland Department
of Legislative Services report "Overview of Maryland Local Governments", total per-pupil revenues for Baltimore City public schools in fiscal year 2010 was $16,619, the highest spending in the state (even higher than Montgomery County). 70% of city funding was paid for by Maryland state residents. That's an unconscionable amount of money, which should easily put to rest the theory that society at large is unwilling to spend money on the poor. Unfortunately the answer to the education problem is policy and administration, not money, so the children continue to falter.
Besides education, the other obvious social failure is the welfare system. Teen mother's like
Dynashaya Hall are victims of a system that, among other flaws, pays teenagers to have babies. Our
policies entice poor, bored, uneducated teens with no self esteem to take the one step in life they
can take that will virtually guarantee they will remain in poverty forever: having a child. The child's parents (in the rare case the father is identified) will of course be unable to emotionally or financially take care of the baby, the government will step into the father role, and the politicians will have another loyal voter dependent on the welfare system. The system is designed to promote poverty and dependency, and for some unfathomable reason the politicians who continue to prosper from the corruption are routinely voted into office by the residents of inner-city communities in Baltimore and around the country. A system that was designed to provide temporary housing and financial relief to individuals experiencing tough times has morphed into a system that's providing housing, food and medical care for forth generation welfare families with no acknowledged stake in society. It has been an utter failure.
Lastly, the criminal justice system continues to victimize poor, uneducated inner-city families
due to their ignorance of the political and social aspects of the system. City juries are perplexedly more
likely to not convict criminals, city witnesses are less likely to assist in prosecutions, and city residents are far more likely to physically cede their neighborhoods to thugs and gangsters, usually out of fear. For whatever reason, the residents of these communities have failed to see the connection between locking up thugs and having safer streets. Is promotion of that understanding the responsibility of society at large, or just the fallout of a dysfunctional education and social welfare system? I suspect the latter.
Until it is acknowledged that money has little to do with the problems facing inner-city youth,
our society will not take the necessary steps to right the ship. Until it's acknowledged that the liberal social policies of the last fifty years have decimated generations of inner-city youth, the policies won't improve and the children will suffer.
It's fair for the Sunpaper to say that the evil we see has been "long tolerated through willful
blindness and practiced neglect". We would point out, however, that many people have seen the flaws and have
been trying to change the corrupt education and social welfare systems for years. Unfortunately,
those folks working to improve things in places like Baltimore's inner-city neighborhoods have just
been, and continue to be, outnumbered by media outlets, corrupt politicians and a welfare bureaucracy
that favors the status quo.
Editor - bethesite.com
