I grew up going to bad schools, not as bad as the schools are now but nevertheless quite bad. I was assaulted numerous times and robbed (at knife point once, on

I grew up going to bad schools, not as bad as the schools are now but nevertheless quite bad. I was assaulted numerous times and robbed (at knife point once, once by a gang of seven) inside the school. My school work was often stolen or destroyed. I was a minority in the school, and me and my friends were often shaken down for protection money. My little brother had human shit smeared on his school locker right in the hallway of the school. The captain of my swim team was stabbed in the chest at a school basketball game and required open heart surgery to survive. There was the constant threat of violence and retaliation for any attempt to report problems to the school. I feel really bad for the kids going to schools like this. One-third of the kids ruin it for everyone else. They show up, don't do anything and make sure to pull everyone else down by being as disruptive as possible. They threaten the teachers and the other students. They destroy school property. They treat school as a place to hang out with others that simply prey on the physically weaker kids. This all happens right under the disinterested teachers noses. The most violent, the most criminal elements end up controlling the environment of the school. As a child, I didn't realize that this was unusual. I just believed that this Lord of the Flies style environment was what everyone was going through in school. My parents had grown up on farms and didn't understand what an urban school was like and so were of no help. I learned very little in these schools. What I did learn though was not to be on the streets after school let out. It was a rough neighborhood, and it was simply not safe walking home after school. Fortunately, there was a large, safe, well supplied public library very close to the school. I would hang out there reading after school until dinner time, and then when the gangs had thinned out I would make my way home. One thing saved me from this hell, books. At the library, seeking refuge from the thugs out on the street, I started reading and developed a love of learning on my own. I read every science and math book I could and decades of science periodicals, I asked my father to buy me paper so I could work on my diagrams and drawings of my ideas and "inventions" at home. Ultimately, I escaped Detroit, I went to MIT, and now I live a great life. For whatever reason, not everyone has an aptitude for learning math and science on their own, but these kids could be helped if the schools worked. I don't know the solution, but many of the schools in these urban school districts don't work, the schools should be torn down, and everyone that works at these schools should be fired. It is an American tragedy and something needs to be done.