Mayor Newsom learns that there's more to truancy than bad schools; and a farewell

Mayor Newsom learns that there's more to truancy than bad schools; and a farewell

I started a new job this week, and the downside (at least from my point of view) is that I have to retire from examiner.com. It’s been rewarding, and I’ll keep following local and national education issues avidly. I plan to post sometimes on the Perimeter Primate blog, which I highly recommend.

I want to sign out by calling attention to a news item in yesterday’s Chronicle. The Matier and Ross column (not available online under the Chronicle’s too-little-too-late policy) tells us that Mayor Newsom has been calling chronic truants at home for the past couple of months, and has gotten a dose of reality. 

“It has been a real eye-opener,” Newsom told the Chronicle. “In just about every case,” Matier and Ross wrote, “the family is in crisis.”  In other words, truancy isn’t all the fault of inept teachers and uncaring schools after all, Newsom learned.