BALTIMORE, Md. – Dave Miceli gave readers a healthy dose of honesty regarding the behavior of many children in his school district.

The longtime Baltimore public school teacher was responding to a recent editorial in the Baltimore Sun suggesting that poor schools contribute to the high rate of homicide in inner city areas.

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“How dare you accuse, through implication or otherwise, that the need for ‘better schools’ is a reason there’s so much killing,” Miceli wrote in an editorial of his own.

“I have taught in the Baltimore public school system for the past two decades. What we need is better students. We have many excellent teachers. I cannot count the number of students who have physically destroyed property in the schools.

“They have trashed brand new computers, destroyed exit signs, set multiple fires, destroyed many, many lockers, stolen teachers’ school supplies, written their filth on the top of classroom desks, defecated in the bathrooms and stairwells, assaulted teachers and refused to do any homework or class work.

“In summary, the problem seems to be a total disregard for life that exists not only in our crime-ridden city, but also in all of the major cities throughout the United States.”

Miceli has a very good point. A lot of students in big city schools are out of control. That’s usually because they come from dysfunctional homes with awful parents – or more likely just one parent – and therefore fall victim to the lawlessness of the streets.

We have to applaud Miceli for being so honest while working in a city and state where political correctness is demanded and enforced.

As the journalist Gregory Kane wrote in the Washington Examiner in response to Miceli’s editorial, “Miceli didn’t bring up the issue of race in his letter, but you can bet that, somewhere in Baltimore, someone or a bunch of someones are chomping at the bit to call him a racist for his observations. That’s because, among liberals and Democrats, there is this notion that the poor – especially the black poor – can do no wrong.

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“If you criticize any poor or black person who displays inappropriate, boorish or egregiously bad conduct, you’ll be dismissed as a racist if you’re not black … and as an Uncle Tom or sellout if you are.”

You reap what you sow

What Miceli left out is that breakdown of the traditional family – which has led to the current state of student conduct – is the result of insane social policies that have been promoted for years by “progressive” special interests like his very own teachers union.

They believe poor people should be exempted from the principle of personal responsibility. They have fanned the flames of anger among minorities by promoting the idea that they are hopelessly oppressed and powerless in America. They defend filthy rap artists who sell anti-social and violent concepts to our nation’s children, claiming they’re “artists” speaking from an “urban perspective.”

They support welfare policies that reward single mothers for having children out of wedlock. They encourage kids like Trayvon Martin to dress like criminals yet expect to be treated with trust and dignity. And worst of all, they have supported efforts over the years to do away with strict discipline in public schools.

You reap what you sow, Mr. Miceli.

We also hesitate to leave schools blameless for the current state of affairs. Given the societal breakdown in inner cities, schools face more challenges than ever before. That means they need to get rid of silly union rules that protect teachers with limited skills or an unwillingness to dedicate themselves to an increasingly difficult profession.

But overall, Miceli is right. We will never regain control over our inner-city schools until we re-introduce strict discipline, and that should include appropriate forms of corporal punishment, particularly in the earlier grades. Florida’s Marion County School Board recently threw up its hands over unruly children and brought back the paddle.

It certainly couldn’t hurt anything.

But what do you do about kids who can’t be controlled, even through the use of physical punishment? A few years back former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested an idea that drew widespread scorn from the left, but perhaps deserves to be revisited.

He called for problem kids from miserable homes to be removed by the state in very large numbers and placed in residential facilities. Gingrich did himself no favors by using the unseemly word “orphanages,” but his concept was sound and deserving of more consideration.

Someone has to raise these kids

Such a program would serve two problems at once. It would increase the odds of having quiet, peaceful school campuses for children who want to learn, and would create special facilities where children with severe problems can get the professional attention they need.

Perhaps we should start constructing these facilities now and make sure we build plenty of them.

We’re not talking about the type of filthy old structures used in the 1800s and early 1900s, where homeless kids were stockpiled and essentially left to rot. We’re talking about modern, clean facilities staffed around the clock by teachers, social workers and psychological professionals who are trained to care for and work with troubled kids until they reach adulthood.

Love and strict discipline would be the guiding principles of these facilities.

Such facilities would specialize in helping kids deal with their emotional problems, learn respect for themselves and others, learn how to behave appropriately in all situations, and experience the pride that derives from hard work.

Parents and other family members should be allowed – even encouraged – to remain part of their children’s lives, if they agree to buy into the program and support its goals.

Perhaps much of the money currently being wasted on failing city schools should be diverted to these types of facilities, which would be operated in conjunction with juvenile courts.

We would bet many taxpayers would approve of their dollars being redirected in such a positive manner.

Ideally such facilities would be operated by private interests with government oversight. The private sector does just about everything better than government. But government funding would be necessary to make such a system work.

That’s nothing new. Government is already supporting a high percentage of these kids. But simply putting food in their mouths and paying for their shelter will not get the job done.

The current state of inner city children will not improve without some serious effort and investment. Our society must put its foot down, regain control of the schools and demand that all children behave in acceptable ways.

When parents don’t respond to those demands, they should be pushed to the side. If a partnership of government and private interests is forced to do the dirty work of raising their children in a decent manner, so be it.

When are we going to get started with this painful but very necessary effort?