Victims

After last week's heat wave, which caused temperature records to fall like dominoes across the nation, it's a bummer to realize that we're just started summer's hottest period.

Although most people do heed the health warnings and slow down their activities during steamy temperatures, the street crime and gang violence in larger cities take no summer recess. With more frequency, we're seeing children becoming innocent victims of this violence.

Two examples of youngsters caught in the crossfire occurred in Chicago during the recent heat wave. In one case, a 7-year old girl was shot outside her home while selling candy and in another, a 10-year-old girl was struck by a stray bullet while playing in the spray of a fire hydrant.

Inner city children seem to be continuously at risk these days, whether it's being outside in their gang-infested neighborhoods or inside the walls of their schools. School violence not only endangers children from a physical standpoint but, according to a recent study on Pennsylvania schools, it impairs their academic performance.

According to the study released by the Commonwealth Foundation, analysts found that children attending our state's worst academically- performing public schools were more than five times as likely to become victims to acts of violent crime.

During the 2010-2011 school year, more than 3,800 incidents (21 percent of the 18,300 total crimes) occurred at the 140-some public schools scoring in the bottom five percent of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, including six rapes, 86 indecent assaults, 34 sexual assaults and more than 2,200 assaults on students and staff.

Schools in Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Reading and York had the highest rates of violence with the lowest rates of academic performance. Wilkinsburg High School, in the Pittsburgh area, provides a glaring example. Only 16 percent of its students performed at grade level in math, but the school ranked among the highest in violence with 80 incidents of crime for every 100 students.

"When children are deprived of a decent education and consistently subjected to horrific acts of violence, it is a legislative and moral imperative to provide parents and educators a way out," said Matthew J. Brouillette, president and CEO of Commonwealth Foundation and a former teacher and school board member.

He said that Pennsylvania's Educational Improvement Tax Credit has provided thousands of students with opportunity scholarships that saved lives and taxpayer money but unfortunately, the supply of those scholarships has far outpaced the demand over the last decade. He hopes legislators can correct the inequity.

"Pennsylvania children might be on summer break now, but they need adults to give them a break for life by expanding a program that has a proven track record of success," said Brouillette. "The program was born through bipartisan support and there is no reason it shouldn't expand through the same cooperation that aims to rescue children from violent and failing schools."

A bill (2468) currently under consideration in the state House would dramatically increase the number of scholarships available to children trapped in violent, failing schools. Children who are the products of their environments desperately need a break and this bill could supply at least a ray of hope to brighten their future.

By Jim Zbick

jzbick@tnonline.com