Golly, But This Is a Surprise

Now, I know you will hardly be able to believe this, but this happened at a Head Start program. A four-year-old boy produced a very interesting item for show and tell: a monster bag full of crack cocaine. Indy Star article.

Here's a great quote from a cop:

"It's rare for kids to go to school with crack cocaine . . . ," Tuchek said. "In my 18 years on the force, that is the second-most amount of drugs I've seen one person carry."

Rare? It should be more than rare. It should never happen. Funny enough, these stories pop up with relative frequency.

I know what you're thinking. "Mike, tell me this could not have possibly happened at a Head Start program center". I know that you want to consider very much that these things happen at private schools, at schools of religious instruction, or (especially?) where parents are homeschooling their children.

Alas. These things always happen at the public schools, or at a Head Start. They never happen anywhere else. The public schools and the Head Starts are warehouses for children. Parents who give a toss keep their children out of these places if they can at all help it. Parents with any decency feel shame at sending their children to such places, and work hard to rectify the situation. Observe this reaction from on parent and the mentality:

"This is a real good school, so something like this is very unusual," said David Lewis, 36. "I'm thinking the child just picked up the wrong backpack and the parents didn't notice."

Are you kidding me? Is this to say that the school-book backpack is kept next to the crack cocaine backpack, so it would have been okay if only the kid weren't such a fool and left the crack bag where it belonged and grabbed the correct bag?!? Wow. And it's only an unusual occurrence. Wow.

This is quite an endictment of the Head Start program and its' participants. Some heads should roll.