Ask not what your school district can do for you ...

WCLT's report on the considerations for switching Newark students from one school to the other demonstrates to my satisfaction one of the problems with community support and harmony between students, parents, and schools.

In the words of Superintendent Keith Richards, from a WCLT report: "We had all of Ben Franklin going to Wilson next year. We need a substantial portion of Ben Franklin to go to Heritage School next year and not to Wilson. That almost by itself balances out the middle schools. The elementary, we had too few a students planning to go to Cherry Valley, too many going to the new Legend school and about the ‘right number going to Miller, but if you take some away from Miller and put them at Cherry Valley, you have to make some adjustments. There is a change between Cherry Valley, Miller and Legend Elementary."

I grew up in an old-time small school district. The kids I entered first grade with were pretty much the same students I graduated with 12 years later. Parents almost universally supported the schools because teachers were close to families and the school system was the center of community affairs.

Modern methods of operating schools have changed all that. It's an impersonal matter now, machine-like and bureaucratic to the core. That is precisely why the community at large no longer feels responsible for them.