The Underground Railroad is alive and well at Inman and Grady. And I think we should legalize it and reward the lawbreaking parents and law-breaking school administrators who built it.
Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that the existence of this massive underground railroad is a scathing indictment of APS's crappy southside schools.
To get your kid into Inman or Grady when you're out-of-zone takes a combination of paperwork fraud and (more likely) insider assistance that is only something a truly desperate, truly determined parent would try to pull off.
Then, once they're in, they have to always worry about being found out, even as they struggle to provide transportation to a school far from home.
That kind of initiative--that level of willingness to do what has to be done for your child because APS can't and won't--should be rewarded, not penalized.
So let's have amnesty for every single child and every single family now at Grady and Inman against the rules.
I like to believe that if I were alive in 1850s Iowa, I would want to work on the Underground Railroad.
If you helped slaves escape, you were considered an Abductor. What would you call someone who helped children escape a terrible future? Whatever the word is, you would have to be proud to be called that word, right?
POSTSCRIPT: After writing this post, I decided it was time to tell the story of how I set up my own, one-person underground railroad in San Jose when I was 16 years old. You'll find that true story just above.
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