Anyone who lives in a city of any size knows that truancy has become a major problem in our society. In many cities, as much as 10% of high school and middle school students are serial truants. They are blowing their opportunity for a free education and a passport to a decent life, and many of them will wind up a drain on society -- as criminal inmates, welfare recepients, or spend their lives bouncing between minimum wage jobs and unemployment.
Many cities, including the one I live in, are trying to solve this problem by putting pressure on the parents. The parents of serial truants are fined, sent to parenting classes and even jailed. This may have been a good idea, but it is simply not having the desired result. If a parent doesn't have control of their child by the time they are in middle school, then they probably never will.
But a judge in Midland (Texas) has shifted the focus of the attack on truancy in his city and seems to be having some success. Judge David Cobos (pictured above) is holding the truants responsible for their own actions -- not the parents.
He is fining the serial truants, and making them pay their own fines instead of their parents. If that doesn't work, the next step is an ankle monitor. Those fitted with a monitor are allowed to go only to school and back home, and they are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Jail is in store for those who ignore the ankle monitor. The best part is that by making these students responsible for their own actions, he is having an 80% success rate. That's remarkable!
The judge has also raised private funds to help rectify issues raised by poverty. For instance, one male student was skipping school because he had to wear his older sister's hand-me-down shoes (pink tennis shoes) and the other students were making fun of him. The judge tapped the fund to buy the student his own shoes and the problem was solved.
Not everyone likes the judge's approach. The ACLU believes it is a violation of the students privacy. I like the ACLU and usually agree with them, but not on this issue. The students have a right to a free education in this country, but they don't have the right to not go to school. In fact, the law states they MUST go to school.
All of the community's citizens pay taxes to support the right to a free education (even renters). It is not too much to expect the students to obey the law and take advantage of the opportunity they have been given. Judge Cobos is not trying to be mean to these students. He is trying to help them, and he's succeeding with a much larger percentage than most other cities.
I applaud Judge Cobos -- both his methods and his dedication to the welfare of Midland's students.
