Schools can’t be blamed for everything wrong that a child does! So believes Susan Neuman, George W. Bush’s former assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education. As per her editorial, schools do not have the exclusive rights to a child’s education. One cannot ignore the learning supports before and after school, during the summer, family’s initiative and other social encouragements.

Very interestingly, she says, “Shaming schools has become the cure to everything but the common cold, distracting attention from the devastating effects of poverty. We need to move beyond touting school reform as the magical elixir.

It is important, but we need to mobilize other institutions to help solve this problem.” To impress her point further, she explains that a child born is likely to stay poor and live in an unsafe neighbourhood, forever threatened by the anti-social elements lurking by. As a result, the child may fail to grow and leave the heap that he grew into behind.

A school cannot be expected to wave the magic wand and bring about fairy tale like happy endings. We have to get real. More institutions need to be created to share the responsibility that has been forcefully thrust upon schools.

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