Shortly after the Beeeee reported Sacramento Unified would hire a new superintendent, Mayor K to the J announced he will be hosting another education summit. The good mayor proclaimed he’s committed to getting kids “back to school,” and that he intends to “work jointly” with officials in the district as a means to that end.

On the surface these “summits” seem like tools of the diplomacy trade to induce dialogue and promote collaboration with the express intent to improve the quality of education and presumably decrease the number of dropouts district wide, but just how effective are these intellectual orgies?

Personally I think Johnson’s time would be much better spent promoting responsible parenthood at home. After all, home is–ideally–the true greenhouse where the adolescent plant should be watered, nurtured, and grown into a robust tree capable of  thriving in the jungle of life–and weathering the many storms that will invariably pass through it.

Sure, educators play a substantive role in childhood development, and by no means am I discounting the importance of that role; but at the end of the day, kids need rules, encouragement, direction, responsibilities, firm love, and accountability at home, and we all know millions of them are not getting those things.

This once again brings me to the perennial topic of cause versus effect. Many people in our country, most notably our politicians and lawmakers (Mayor #7 included), do not understand the importance of identifying root causes in the quest to eradicate the many problems in the areas of education and crime prevention. They instead spend all our time and money fruitlessly fighting effects. We all know the result: the problems never seem to go away; in fact they only seem to multiply.

Here’s an analogy to express the problem–as I see it at least: Suppose a brush fire kept breaking out on the end of your street every week. Week after week the fire department had to come roaring to the scene to put it out. Investigators blame it on a careless cigarette smoker. In response the city holds a summit, and the principals agree a “fire wall” should be erected at the trouble spot to prevent any further fires. The wall goes up and the fires finally stop. Everyone is jubilant… until the fires begin again on the next street over.

The aforementioned analogy underscores the inherent danger in fighting effects over causes. In the analogy the city put a band aid on the problem by protecting the area where the fires were, instead of getting to the ROOT of the problem and finding out WHO was starting them to begin with.Had they identified the culprit, they would never have had to erect the wall in the first place.

In my mind summits such as those KJ promotes are of the same ilk. In GENERAL–at least historically–these summits typically identify band-aid solutions to problems, implement solutions to temporarily abate them, only to find they never really go away; they just grow back in different forms.

In my totally unscientific–albeit learned–opinion, the reason kids are dropping out of school in record numbers, shooting at people in my neighborhood, snatching purses in my grocery store, and ending up in prison or dead has very little to do with the education system, and everything to do with the deterioration of solid parenting skills.

Furthermore, I believe the absence of consistent parental guidance at home has led to a society where youth are increasingly unaware of the consequences of their actions, and all too often harbor frightening apathy towards other’s life, liberty, happiness and property.

I don’t blame these conditions on youth, nor do I blame them on educators, nor do I blame them on the behavior of the law enforcement community. Personally, I blame them on the parents. This is why I tend to scoff at the idea of summits and meetings to talk and talk about the problems until one is blue in the face and sore in the butt.  We done talked our butts off already for the past two decades. Enough talk. It’s time to try something new.

I continue to be ASTOUNDED by the lack of respect some kids show towards adults. As the lady says on an old Ice Cube song, “That kid needs nothing but a good ol ass whoopin’.” Funny, but true. That’s what kids need. “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” God told us what would happen if kids didn’t get discipline. He wasn’t joking.

I feel sorry for the single moms. It’s HARD for women to raise boys by themselves. So hard. I have personally seen them toil. It’s the devil’s work. Every time I see another story of some kid who screwed off his life–or someone else’s–I have to ask, “Where is his father??”

The answer is all too common; his father is absent, and chances are his father didn’t have a father either. It’s a vicious cycle.  I can’t judge the reasons, I just know the outcome.  Our machismo pop culture doesn’t help the situation either. The culture WE promote helps to turn would-be good men into jerks who treat their women like $#@% and their children like yesterday’s trash.

It’s truly a tragedy–albeit a readily apparent one whose solution is not a great mystery. Though its euphoric to think the problem of irresponsible men could ever be eradicated, I believe it could at least be addressed.. by some responsible men.

I confess I THOUGHT Mayor Johnson was going to bring a fresh set of groundbreaking ideas to city hall to address root causes. Unfortunately, while he is proving to be far more engaged and visible than his predecessor was, he is also proving to be another politician who wants to talk, talk, talk about effects and not causes. :\

When is a LEADER going to emerge and ask these wayward brothers of our to start being accountable and stop being selfish? When is a true ROLE MODEL going to present the idea to our brothers that love = commitment, not lustful pursuit and selfish demand? And when will we have before us someone who understands the only way to even begin to confront a problem is to attack it by the roots?

Perhaps never. Perhaps not. I hold out HOPE such a leader will one day emerge.