I Do Get Scared About The Physical

East St. Louis-which The Local Press Refers To As "an Inner City Without An Outer City"-has Some Of The Sickest Children In America. Of 66 Cities In Illinois, East St. Louis Ranks First In Fetal Death, First In Premature Birth, And Third In Infant Health.

There Is Something Deeply Hypocritical In A Society That Holds An Inner-city Child Only Eight Years Old "accountable" For Her Performance On A High-stakes Standardized Exam But Does Not Hold The High Officials Of Our Government Accountable For Robbing Her Of What They Gave Their Own Kids Six Or Seven Years Before.

My Goal Is To Connect The Young Teachers To The Old, To Reignite Their Sense Of Struggle.

Like Grain In A Time Of Famine, The Immense Resources Which The Nation Does In Fact Possess Go Not To The Child In The Greatest Need But To The Children Of The Highest Bidder-the Child Of Parents Who, More Frequently Than Not, Have Also Enjoyed The Same Abundance When They Were Schoolchildren.

Instead Of Seeing These Children For The Blessings That They Are, We Are Measuring Them Only By The Standard Of Whether They Will Be Future Deficits Or Assets For Our Nation's Competitive Needs.