TOUGH MESSAGE, TOUGH LOVE

Deveaux Junior High School Principal John Mann was wrongly singled out for
censure by colleagues who valued illusion over reality.

The principal's offense was speaking the truth. At an Oct. 11 assembly for
struggling junior high school students at DeVeaux, he asked the black males
to stand. Then he gave them some tough-love insights into their futures if
they continued on the track that made them part of this assembly.

Statistics indicated, he said, a strong correlation between young black
men's failures in school and the likelihood that they will wind up in jail
or dead at an early age.

Is there anyone out there who hasn't heard these statistics? Is there
anyone who thinks it's wrong to tell young black males who are
disproportionately represented in jails and morgues what the odds are?

Yet a Toledo Public School District hearing officer said Mr. Mann's words
of warning constituted "a serious misjudgment" on his part.

Worse yet, Mr. Mann apparently had to apologize for informing these young
men at great risk of what they were up against. There was no racism on his
part, nor do those who judge him suggest there was.

The principal's remarks were actually words of enlightenment, words of
tough love, an attempt to throw a lifeline to children whose parents,
school officials have said, often show little interest in their formal
educational achievement. They told children that the acts and inaction
vis-à-vis their studies could have significant consequences.

The fact that the school improvement leader for the Start area appears to
have sought condemnation for Mr. Mann, along with at least two weeks'
suspension because he spoke honestly and frankly, is out of line.

Young people at risk are entitled to frank assessments. School personnel
ought to be empowered and encouraged to give them.

There has been a lot of talk about making improvements in Toledo schools,
boosting students' performance test scores, developing teachers' skills,
and the like. There also has been a lot of complaining about the difficulty
of getting certain minority families involved and committed to seeing that
their children are educated to compete in the 21st century.

Our prisons are filled disproportionately with young black men, most of
whom share the common denominator of being ill-educated. And we daily read
of the same population dying of drug overdoses or in shootouts in alleys.

Mr. Mann's effort to bring the facts home to the teens in his care deserves
to be lauded, not condemned. It's a message they don't hear often enough.

<