Milwaukee's murders, a personal note

A few posts down, I talked about how kids only spend so much of their time in school--18%, though in retrospect, I think even that's high--and how what happens to and around them in the other 82% makes a big difference.

There's a story in yesterday's paper that includes this line: There have been 64 homicides in Milwaukee this year compared with 45 at this time last year.

That's a startling jump. What's more startling is that the article is about a former student of mine, a nice kid who, while not a good student in the traditional sense, nevertheless had promise.

I've also discovered that a second former student of mine, whom I taught this past year, was killed a couple of weeks ago (one of the bullet points further down).

What do you want me to do about test scores again?