Briefly Noted: A Glimpse Of The Dem Future

During the final year of Trump's presidency the American political establishment essentially turned much of public social policy over to the Left. The policies that were adopted were forged in the crucible of the Covid Panic and the year of Leftist rioting. The Covid Panic was used as an excuse to shut down the nation's government schools and the Leftist rioting put racist instruction on steroids. The rioting--egged on by the Dems, with Bluto Barr and Chris Wray stepping down--was used to place police in racist straitjackets.  Two stories today illustrate the results, as the nation continues to drift toward Election 2022.

While parents in upper scale school districts are beginning to fight back against their woke school boards, that is not at all the case in big Blue cities. In those cities, as exemplified by Chicago, the inmates are running the asylum virtually unchallenged. What this portends for coming generations and for the cities themselves is shudder worthy. 

‘The single most important task we have’: Chicago previews plan to reconnect with missing students

Missing students--that means, students who simply didn't bother when the teachers forced the schools to close and stay closed, during the Panic. How many students went missing? About a third of all students. Let that sink in--a third of all students simply stopped being students for all practical purposes:

Chicago will step up home visits, cultivate an in-house tutoring corps, and grow summer job opportunities to try to reconnect with tens of thousands of students who largely tuned out school during the pandemic.

That's one way to put it. Another and more traditional way to put it would be to say that a third of the student body "dropped out." The big question is, after a year of roaming the streets engaging in random violence, being groomed for gang membership, how many will ever come back?

 

Chicago officials, including its interim CEO José Torres, have said tracking down and reengaging students who went missing during the pandemic or only took part in learning intermittently is a top priority — an essential part of any pandemic recovery effort.

The district has not offered an estimate for how many students have completely or partially disengaged from learning. But at a Wednesday board meeting, officials said about 84,500 students have been flagged for targeted support, including stepped-up efforts to reach their families over the phone this summer. Another 18,130 students will qualify for the most intensive outreach and what officials described as “relentless reengagement interventions.” Chicago enrolled about 341,000 students at the start of the school year.

The district said it is zeroing in on parts of the city hardest hit by the coronavirus disruption, based on a new Student Prioritization Index, a tool to steer more support to students whose attendance, grades, and mental health have suffered the greatest toll.

But Catholic schools in the city reopened on schedule and stayed open.  No, it wasn't "coronavirus disruption," it was Leftist teachers union disruption.

 

“We’ll be focusing our greatest efforts on the South Side and the West Side while continuing to ensure students in every neighborhood get the support they need,” Michael Deuser, the district’s chief of college and career success, told the school board Wednesday.

Anyone familiar with Chicago knows that's coded language. It means that the overwhelming majority of those missing students are Black and Hispanic--but probably predominantly Black.

Place this in the context of the real pandemic in Chicago--rampant violence. The problem of "missing students" feeds into that pandemic, and neither problem will be going away soon, if ever--the synergy of gangs and school lockouts for this length of time is unprecedented. Certainly only a fool would expect a change for the better before Election 2022.

The second item is humorous in a dark sort of way. Ueber-liberal Evanston, home to Northwestern University, made news not long ago as the first city to offer "reparations"--albeit with strings attached:

In March 2021, Evanston became the first city in the United States to pay reparations to African American residents (or their descendants) who were victims of unfair housing practices. ...

...

The 2010 census showed that Evanston is ethnically mixed with the following breakdown in population: 65.6% White, 18.1% Black or African American, ...

Another bright idea that Evanston's government--always alert to clamber aboard the latest liberal bandwagon--had was to talk the talk about defunding their police. Walking that walk, on the other hand, turned out not to be so popular. However, to maintain a proper virtue signaling stance and to maintain Evanston's prog leadership position among Chicago area suburbs, a scheme was advanced to have social workers respond to "mental health emergencies" rather than the police. But that idea has run into a very fundamental problem, too:

Evanston idea to swap social workers for cops hits snag

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A plan by the city of Evanston to change the emergency response in mental health emergencies has hit a snag.

The city has explored the idea of having social workers respond, rather than police officers, when someone is having a mental-health crisis.

But nobody reportedly has expressed an interest in doing the job.

So social workers aren't so stupid. They know that mental health crises and extreme violence are often linked--imagine that! And they don't get paid to deal with that or take those risks. Let's see, who does get paid to do that job?

Meanwhile, while the city dithers over ways to punish the people who get paid to control crime ...

Violent crime up, property crime down in 2020

Lifestyle changes brought about by the pandemic may have affected the crime rate.

Right. Blame it on Covid. People were cooped up in their homes and so that led them to go out and commit "murder, criminal sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery/assault."

The latest figures available, with data through October, show violent crimes — murder, criminal sexual assault, robbery and aggravated battery/assault — increased 38.4%, ...

Property crimes — burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson — declined 19.8%,  ...

...

... people spending more time cooped up at home may have been a major factor in the 62.5% increase in aggravated battery/assault.

This is playing out all across the nation. People are noticing. It may be a bit humorous in Evanston, but it's not in the least funny in most localities affected by the crime wave. Fortunately, people get to vote on that soon. We'll see what they have to say about the Dem's dystopian vision for America's future.