Editorial for March 8, 2007 edition:


No rotten apples

Accounts of recent student assaults on teachers at Germantown and West Philadelphia high schools and other schools are positively sickening.
Here you have teachers nobly doing their jobs — trying to prepare kids for their futures, often under atrociously adverse conditions — in inner-city public schools, and they are rewarded by getting brutally beaten, kicked and choked by human filth. A group of attackers reportedly called one of the victims a "cracker." It’s enough to turn the stomachs of people in every neighborhood in what is supposed to be the City of Brotherly Love.
Ladies and gentlemen, if the School District of Philadelphia refuses to put a lid on this student-on-teacher violence in the bad neighborhoods, the mayhem surely will spread to schools in the good neighborhoods. Count on it.
On Monday, the city inducted 125 parent truant officers in its ongoing campaign to reduce student absenteeism.
"Together we can make sure that every child is in school, every day," Mayor John Street said.
Hold on a minute there, Mr. Mayor. Certain students — those who are so filled with rage and hate that they try to murder their teachers — have no business being in school. You should team up with Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, school district CEO Paul Vallas and the state legislature, if necessary, to not only remove the garbage from public schools, including disciplinary facilities, but also prosecute them for hate crimes, and then put them in prison for mandatory 25-year minimum sentences.
It’s time to enact a zero-tolerance policy on school violence that means zero tolerance, not 1 percent tolerance, no ifs, ands or buts, no loopholes. Assault a teacher, any teacher? You’re expelled from the school district for life and you’ll learn new lessons in prison. Your life as you know it is over. Now that’s a policy that deserves an A+. ••

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