Make the worst students in Youngstown a priority

First a question for the critics of the Youngstown Plan, designed by the state to prevent the disintegration of the troubled Youngstown City School District: What would you do to save the children other than embrace the failed policies of the past?

Though it’s encouraging that the school system now is the subject of an intense communitywide debate (the lack of parental involvement in the children’s education has been a long-standing problem), the failure of the critics to come up with a viable alternative to the Youngstown Plan is telling.

What it says is that the special interests that have been the downfall of the district won’t give up without a fight. Therein lies the problem. Enrollment continues to decrease, while per-student spending continues to increase.

That is a recipe for failure, which is why the state of Ohio has been forced to step in and prescribe some bitter medicine.

But though the Youngstown Plan will turn the district on its head – a chief executive officer will have total control of the system and supersede the elected school board – proponents must know that even objective observers have some concerns.

For one thing, the argument that this is nothing more than the Republican Party’s grand design to turn all the public schools into privately operated charter schools is gaining some traction.

That’s because Republican Gov. John R. Kasich and the Republican-controlled General Assembly continue to support charter schools in the state despite their overall underwhelming performance. The industry as a whole has failed to keep its promise to give students in troubled public schools a viable alternative.

Recent revelation

Another issue that is also triggering intense debate was revealed recently in a front page story in The Vindicator by education writer Denise Dick.

The gist of the story was this: All city school students will be eligible for education choice scholarships under the Youngstown Plan, which will take effect in October – barring judicial interference.

In other words, students attending poor-performing schools would be able to go to a participating private school.

If the plan remains intact, students would be able to begin applying this fall and winter for scholarships for the 2016-17 school year.

Given that the advisory committee appointed by the governor to make recommendations for the future of the Youngstown district was made up of such prominent community leaders as Bishop George Murry of the Youngstown Catholic Diocese, the suspicion grows that the plan was designed to benefit the private schools.

But the suspicion can be put to rest with a commitment from Bishop Murry, who ultimately is responsible for the Catholic schools in the diocese, and other private school operators to accept only the worst students from the Youngstown district.

Committee members should get a list of the at-risk students, both academically and personally – because of their dysfunctional home lives, in Youngstown and make them a priority for admission.

There is nothing challenging about taking successful students from the urban public school system and adding them to the group of potential graduates.

Bishop Murry and other members of the committee have a moral obligation to save the students who have little chance of making it academically in Youngstown.