Our leaders are buying deniability, in other words. Somebody is still looking out for the children. A lobbyist on children's issues says his group hopes to have the law require that a state ombudsman supervise any private juvenile contractors. The sad truth is that many people aren't particularly concerned with the care and feeding of these sometimes murderous kids. They want them locked up and thrashed periodically.
Reason has little do with it, as evidenced by pending legislation to stiffen juvenile sentences.
I happen to be a parent who, through the experience of two children, already felt reasonably good about discipline and safety in the Little Rock public schools. It's a fallacy to believe you can always measure discipline by suspensions and expulsions. The school district was forced into this public relations effort by newspapers that use suspension rates in school comparison projects. Legislators, too, have been clamoring to see suspension and expulsion rates in individual school report cards. Ask any school teacher what can happen when a school superintendent says expulsion and suspensions rates are too high.