East High

What’s that old saying: “You don’t miss your water till the well runs dry.” Now that East High is threatened with being closed hordes of people showed up to castigate Cleveland Schools CEO Eugene Sanders for putting the school on the list of schools to be shuttered. He’s in a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t position. If he acquiesces and shifts his sights to another high school he’ll face another group of angry residents. The simple fact is, no one wants “their” school closed.

However, faced with shrinking enrollments due to a drop in population (and students transferring to charter schools) it’s evident that some under-performing schools are going to face closure. It Sanders fails to institute a restructuring plan that meets with the Obama Administration’s approval, he runs the risk of losing some much-needed federal funding.

However, all need not be lost. Neighborhood residents could come together and turn East High into a charter high school — one the community could run. But, given the fact that most of the people who were raising hell at the meeting prefer to do just that — raise hell (rather than do the hard work of assuring their progeny are prepared for success in their academic careers) — it’s doubtful they will come together and make a charter school happen.

In too many cases these hell raisers will simply go back to watching TV in the evening rather than helping their kids with homework and doing all of the other nuts and bolts things responsible parents should be doing. If they want a quality charter school they have to get up off their asses and make it happen. It’s far too easy for parents to point an accusatory finger at the schools and teachers — and anyone else for that matter — for failing their offspring (which is certainly true in some cases … some schools are horribly run) while ignoring the fact that the prime responsibility for insuring their children get a proper education rests chiefly with them. These folks need to quit shifting the blame to someone else … they’re the one’s who brought the child into the world.