Prayer Vigil for 16 year old

Today we had a vigil for a homicide victim, a teen, 16 years old, the second student from a local technical high school to be killed this month. There was a large group of family and friends at the morning vigil and there was a tangible sense of lost of this young man. The police said tonight there was a drug robbery involved.

Today and yesterday there were major fights at two public high schools in Milwaukee. The Mayor was on TV blaming students and their parents for this growing problem of disruptions of high schools.

Yes, drugs are involved in some homicides and students and parents bear responsibility for disruptive behavior. But as with other problems are we getting at the root cause of this violence with teens in our high schools.

As poverty increases in our city and less and less money is spent on public school education it should be of no surprise that we are suffering more violence with teens in and out of school. Everyone says how important education is in our society but government officials keep cutting funds for public schools and shifting quality education toward those who can pay. The private high schools that I attended many years ago now has a tuition of $10, 000 and our local large private university just announced a tuition rise to about $35, 000. Private schools say they have scholarships for students but that is only a way of selecting who they want in their schools.

The military has understood this lack of available education for so many youth and has stepped in with lucrative offers of money for education after you serve in the military (and if you survive whole in mind, body and spirit.)

Looking around the world at education system our problem is obvious. Of developed countries in the world we are about the only one that restricts education opportunity based on money. Most countries, like Holland where my friend has young adult children, education is free or at low cost. Opportunity and availability of education is not based on money.

At the homicide vigil for the young man this morning family and friends kept saying how after dropping out of school the young man had returned to school with a new attitude and was earning good grades. Now he does not have the opportunity to excel in school. However, had he lived would he have had the chance to have the opportunity and availability of a good education? Sadly, I believe no. Education, like so much else in our society, is based on money.

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