Media Recap

A Washington Post investigation published this week uncovered a disturbing pattern in Washington, D.C.: chronic absenteeism has exploded across the city’s middle schools, and with it, a surge in youth crime. In 2015, just 10% of middle-schoolers were chronically absent. Now, that number is over 30%. In the city’s poorest neighborhoods, that figure climbs even higher.

The consequences? Staggering. Teen carjackings. Robberies. Gun violence. And in one heartbreaking case, the death of 14-year-old Irving LaBoard, an 8th-grader who had missed nearly half the school year and was found shot and killed in Fort Dupont Park.

The report places blame squarely on the breakdown of early truancy interventions, a shortage of mental health staff, and a lack of meaningful community engagement. Bureaucracy is drowning the system while children fall through the cracks.

“We lost him to the streets,” said Irving’s aunt. “But we lost him at school first.”

Our Take

Let’s stop pretending public school is the safe, responsible choice. It’s not. It’s a government-run social experiment—and the data shows it’s not just failing to educate kids, it’s failing to protect them.

Thirty percent of D.C. middle-schoolers aren’t even showing up. Schools know it. City officials know it. But the system is too bloated, too broken, and too godless to do anything meaningful about it. And while they shuffle paper and hold task force meetings, kids are getting shot.

This isn’t just about “truancy.” It’s about a spiritually bankrupt system that treats children as numbers in a spreadsheet instead of souls made in God’s image.

Parents, you were never supposed to outsource the discipleship of your children to the state. The fruit is rotten—violent crime, despair, and death—and it’s time to stop pretending the tree is fine.

You want to keep your children safe? Educate them at home. Teach them to read with the Proverbs, not Pride Week. Raise them in the fear of the Lord, not the fear of a lockdown drill.

Because while D.C. fiddles, the streets burn—and the schoolhouse is collapsing. Homeschool.