WHAT YA GONNA DO?

"What ya gonna do, what ya gonna do. Bad boys! Bad boys! What ya gonna do when they come for you?" These are the lyrics to the opening theme song of an old cop show on TV. For most of us they are just words, a jingle not unlike the thousands of jingles on TV trying to sell us what we don't need.

Yet, for all too many high school students, male and female, the "Bad boys" jingle is prophetic. It is prophetic because it is only a matter of time before they do come for them. In almost every big city school system 50% of the students who enter as freshman drop out before graduation. Fifty percent!

It is only a matter of time before these drop outs, and all too many of their underachieving functionally illiterate peers who stay in school and even graduate, have someone coming for them. Why? Because lack of achievement in school is a one-way ticket to America's underclass.

It is also a one-way ticket to a life of poverty, crime, prison, and failed family relationships. It is a one-way ticket to another generation on welfare, raising kids on welfare, and on pain of being politically incorrect setting those same kids up to become the next generation of drop outs and functional illiterates where the cycle will repeat itself.

Some American families are now in their fourth generation of being a welfare family. Dreams and hopes of a better life have long since died and given way to the self-fulfilling prophesy of failure. Dreams and hopes of a better life have long since been relegated to the trash heap of blaming others - society, the man, the government - for what is lacking within themselves.

Yes, some do get out. Some are able to escape. But they are the minority. More importantly, when they do get out they quickly learn that it is not possible to live in both worlds. It is not possible to look back, reach back, and extend a helping hand because all too often they are looked down on as traitors.

Why are they considered traitors within their own family and within the community in which they grew up? They are considered traitors because they understand that the failure of their parents, siblings, extended family, and neighborhood friends is not the fault of society, the man, or the government. They understand the fault is that their parents, siblings, extended family, and neighborhood friends have internalized a sub cultural value system that absolves themselves of responsibility for the decisions they made in life that have created the persons they are and lifestyle they live.

Those who were able to get out, to escape, did so because they internalized a different set of values often called "middle class values." Among these are the value that without a high school education, and many would now say a college education or advanced training, getting out and escaping the cycle of marginalization they were born into is impossible. They have also internalized the value that to achieve an education requires practicing delayed gratification. They understand it is not possible to hang out on the street corner to the wee hours of the morning; it is not possible to smoke weed, drink, and do other drugs; it is not possible to play basketball and video games every waking moment; it is not possible to ignore doing homework or be habitually tardy and truant and still be successful in school.

They also understand that education may be a right but is also a privilege. They understand that if they do not take advantage of the privilege it will slip through their fingers. Thus they keep their eyes on the prize, resist the temptation of the self-fulfilling prophesy, practice delayed gratification, and work to be successful in school.

The tragedy in America today is that the number of people who accept the self-fulfilling prophesy continues to escalate at an alarming rate. While some may become late bloomers and turn their lives around in their 20s and 30s the vast majority do not. The tragedy is that in each case this is a life lost, potential not fulfilled, and not only personal failure but failure on the part of our nation to take seriously the handwriting on the wall: there is something seriously wrong with the American educational system that cannot be fixed by knee jerk restoration programs that slap new slogans onto already failed interventions and ill conceived federal mandates such as "No Child Left Behind."

It is time, past time, America. Wake up! Wake up! The alarm has sounded and you are still asleep. You are not only tardy you are truant.

"What ya gonna do, what ya gonna do? Bad boys! Bad boys! What ya gonna do America when they come for your?"