Tattered Values and Broken Schools

Overshadowed by this week's huge national news stories were two local developments worth noting. First, there was the incident outside Coolidge Senior High School on Tuesday. Second is the information I received on the D.C. school maintenance problem.

Both are enough to make you sick.

Coolidge High School

While teachers were inside instructing students, a competing group of adults was outside delivering lessons of its own.

What sparked the competition for young minds?

It started with two feuding female Coolidge students who clashed Monday at the Petworth Metro station. One of the teenage combatants and her mother went to Coolidge on Tuesday to report the fracas. As the two left, they were confronted by a group of students and women. A brawl ensued.

D.C. police arrested and charged as many as 12 people with misdemeanor assault.

Cmdr. Hilton Burton of the 4th District told The Post that the two students were feuding over a boy and that parents got involved. The Post reported that Burton also said it's increasingly common for women and girls to get into physical scrapes.

Let's stop here.

Burton may be correct when he says that it's common for junior and senior high school girls to get involved in fights (as happened yesterday at Anacostia Senior High School). That wasn't the case in my day, but admittedly, my time has come and gone.

Even so, in the autumn of my life, I can't believe we have descended to the depth where it's common for parents to go to school to attack each other and other people's children.

That kind of behavior, I readily agree, might be commonplace in the state of nature. But it ought to be cause for shame and disgust in this day and age.

What happened outside of Coolidge on Tuesday is a reversion to the appetites of the uncouth. It flies in the face of all that is taught -- or should be taught -- in our schools.