I was born and raised in Atlanta, Marietta specifically. It is a wealthy area with some of the best public schools in Georgia. I went to Dickerson Middle School

I was born and raised in Atlanta, Marietta specifically. It is a wealthy area with some of the best public schools in Georgia. I went to Dickerson Middle School. The vast majority of my peers had 2 parent homes. Both parents worked and could afford a babysitter/nanny, or one parent's income was enough for the other to stay home. The area is incredibly safe. I rode my bike to school. At Parks, as this article says, the majority of students have a single parent household, with drug abuse problems, and extreme poverty. 2 of Parks middle school students were raped in a single school year. Comparing Dickerson's test scores to Parks's test scores is insane. Should Parks, and schools like it, be held to certain standards? Yes. Absolutely. But excellence in education is affected by far more factors than the quality of the school and its teachers. The article discusses how Lewis, a teacher, was operating almost as a social worker for many of these kids (doing laundry, driving them home at night, etc). The solution isn't "throw more money at the school" or "hold them to a standard test metric." Its more complicated than you think. Education, crime, employment, these things are linked. We can't address these in isolation.