front page - editorial archives  - search - community

Sending the wrong message
(Published September 8, 2003)

A lot of government officials in this town either have forgotten what it was like to be a kid or else they had unhappy childhoods that they are duplicating for the District’s young people. Or maybe they’re just way out of touch.

That’s about the only conclusion that can be drawn from the continued failure of public officials to recognize that most of the cheap political rhetoric they throw around about "helping the children" doesn’t match reality.

It’s important for responsible adults to send a message to young people. Unfortunately, too many adults in positions of authority in the D.C. government don’t understand the message that their actions have been sending.

The District’s young people have been getting the message. The problem is that it’s the wrong message. That’s why too many D.C. children spend too much of their time getting into trouble on the streets.

The official reaction to this summer’s spate of auto thefts by juveniles in Northeast Washington is a case in point. The mayor and city recreation officials reacted quickly, assuring the public that numerous publicly funded recreation facilities were available nearby to keep children productively engaged and off the streets. But days later, the publisher of this newspaper attempted to visit one of those nearby recreation centers, the huge Benning Stoddert complex on East Capitol Street, and found it locked up tight and unstaffed – at noon on a Wednesday in mid-August. Some parents familiar with the neighborhood say their children have given up trying to use the facility.

Consider, also, the sorry state of after-school extracurricular programs in the District’s public schools. Interscholastic sports programs just took another $1.8 million budget cut after years of being under-funded, prompting loud protests from those responsible for ensuring student athletes’ safety. The once-proud marching bands at D.C. high schools are struggling to survive, with public funding for music education dwindling over the years at the same time instruments became too expensive for many students’ families to afford.

So what’s the message for young people? Adults are telling them that these programs, which supply incentive for attending school and excelling academically and encouraging healthful habits, aren’t important. They’re not valuable enough to merit major funding. They’re not "cool," so why knock yourself out to participate in an activity that influential adults in the community denigrate?

Meanwhile, government officials seem to have millions of tax dollars available to invest in things like building a new baseball stadium and trying to bring the Olympic Games to the District. What’s the message for young people? Watching the action is more important than participating.

D.C. government officials say they are trying to combat child obesity, teenage pregnancy, school truancy, street gangs, low test scores and numerous other youth problems that later spawn adult problems. What they don’t seem to understand is that their continued failure to invest in the proper staffing and equipment for public education and public recreation is exacerbating these problems.

Copyright 2003, The Common Denominator