Editorial: Detention education offers teens a lifeline

Parents aren’t always the best judges of what’s good for their children. Some dysfunctional parents not only fail to guide their children toward appropriate goals, they lead them down the path of self-destruction.

At the same time, some kids find that path on their own, despite the conscientious efforts of devoted parents.

But deciding who’s to blame for wasting young lives is far less important than figuring out ways to reclaim them.

Fortunately, responsible officials in Spokane County are working on it, delivering an education program to an elusive target: troubled kids who are either locked up or under home-monitoring restrictions. In the 2009-’10 school year, some 2,400 kids obtained schooling, at least briefly, at either the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center or Martin Hall in Medical Lake, where they had been sentenced, or through the Structured Alternative Confinement School for kids on electronic home monitoring or under court order to attend school.

It wasn’t always so. It took a lawsuit 35 years ago to establish that a youngster retained the right to an education, even behind bars. Since it was a Spokane County suit, this community got a head start on the rest of the state in establishing the proper programs.

Some law-abiding citizens probably resent their tax dollars being used to protect unanchored youngsters from the consequences of their own bad decisions.

That’s a little harsh, but even if compassion and rehabilitation have no place in the discussion, there is broader social fallout to consider. Someone has to clean up the messes made by young people trying to survive on street skills rather than the educational foundation that prepares others to become functioning, contributing adults. Those messes tend to splatter on the rest of us in the form of crime, public assistance expenses and lost productivity. They come with price tags.

But take note, cynics: In staff writer Jody Lawrence-Turner’s report on the programs in Monday’s Spokesman-Review, she quoted appreciative adolescents who seemed to recognize and value the opportunity they were being given.

“This made me realize I don’t have to live like that,” said one teen whose parents are both in prison.

That’s a reassuring insight from a youngster who’s already strayed from society’s expectations severely enough to be incarcerated. An educational program that can harness that moment of positive inspiration is a sound investment.