Letter: Article ignored real problem at Burke

To the editor:

The article on Burke High School should have pointed clearly to the real problem. It did not. Buildings do not educate children. Money does not educate children.

The dominating factor in children’s educations resides with the parents. Stable two-parent families that bring up their children to know that it is the children’s job to get an education will result in higher achievement. The parents must instill in their children [the need] to behave, be attentive and do the work necessary to achieve an education. Without that all other efforts, even getting better teachers, will fail. Burke proves that.

So why do we not put the responsibility where it belongs, with the parents, with single-family parents and parents who do not lead their children to succeed in their education? Perhaps focusing on the parents does not fit the narrative or perhaps the foundation for building good parents would induce a return to reducing unmarried births, better men so the women would get married and having society that motivates this by eliminating excuses for the opposite.

We need better parents and we need society to stop apologizing and blaming someone else for the conditions that defeat better parents.

— Frank Leister, Charleston, S.C.