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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

>"He didn't fail, the school failed him. The school failed at their job. They failed. They failed, that's the problem here. They failed. They failed. He didn't deserve that."

Real bitch move to snatch a clickbait quote like that out of a mom at her point of highest stress. I'm sure she would have a far more level-headed response if you asked her six months from now.

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Yeah but come on there is kind of a complete lack of personal responsibility here as well

Should we give up on kids whose parents fail to live up to our ideals?

Is that a choice 'we' have?

It is. We can decide that bad kids are bad and throw them in jail at exorbitant cost to the taxpayer, or we can invest more resources into the kids at most risk upfront, to improve their chance of becoming productive members of society.

We can certainly invest in kids, but there has to be an expectation that they put in the effort as well and the idea that just because they put in the effort does not mean they will be as successful as another doing something similar. We have to instill the idea that they have a general responsibility to themselves, their family, and their community. We used to have a semblance of this but over the last 80+ this really seems to have gone out the window.

What was happening 80 years ago? World War 2? Do you think PTSD might have played a role?

I don't know if we can nail it down to any one factor. I think that there were many small factors that have slowly torn away at the values of personal responsibility, accountability, and others.

The context of the 1940s that I see was a Great Depression following the first World War -- was this "personal responsibility" a result of extreme austerity? I think so. But then, for WWII, we saw men conscripted into the polar opposite of "personal responsibility" -- soldiers followed orders; their sole responsibility was up the chain of command. But when they got home, there were high-paying low-skill jobs available, and blue-collar families could afford to have 5 kids, and a house big enough to keep them, on a single worker's income. Today, it's hard to find that kind of income without extensive skill and experience -- especially when we're factoring in housing costs. Folks in the 1940s didn't need to be nearly so "responsible" as they do today, just to make it with a single kid.

This appears to be a false dichotomy. Why can't we have both the exorbitant criminal justice costs and also the "invest more resources" part?

It's not a false dichotomy; I didn't say that those are the only two options, and I did say "to improve their chance..." and not "to guarantee their success."

Who is “we” and what are you signing us up for?

I think I signed myself up for more conversation by posting that. Don't think I signed anybody else up for anything, though?

This was part of a fox Baltimore (S.B.C) investigation. That's why. The bigger question is, how didn't she know. How can your kid go through 4 years of school and you not once check his report card or ask him if he needs help with his homework. Or ask him how school is going?

>“I feel like they never gave my son an opportunity, like if there was an issue with him, not advancing or not progressing, that they should have contacted me first, three years ago,” said France.

The kid didn't show up to school 272 times in 3 years, like come on.

And it completely distorts the fact that this was failure on so many levels. This was the student's failure to not apply themselves, the parents failure to not be involved and monitoring the results of their child's education, and the school's failure for not applying and properly maintaining the standards they should be and advancing students improperly.

As millzlane said, how could she have not known? So it's not like the reporter asking her about her son is the first time she learned about his lack of attendance. Today, six months from now, six months ago, it wouldn't have made a difference.

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