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Letters: To save schools: A Mother Jones?

Signe Wilkinson's cartoon depicting the occupation of legislators' chambers by out-of-school schoolkids is not that far-fetched.

SIGNE Wilkinson's cartoon depicting the occupation of City Council and Harrisburg legislators' chambers by out-of-school school children is not that far-fetched.

In 1903, 65-year-old "Mother Jones" left Kensington with a contingent of poor children headed for President Theodore Roosevelt's summer home in Oyster Bay, N.Y. In often-sweltering, trying conditions, they were prepared to camp each night of their journey, while promoting the cause of ending child labor, and providing for proper schooling for the poor children of the time.

Jones gained publicity and sympathizers - many of whom harbored the children along the way - after they saw the condition of these children under Mother Jones' wing, and heard of their plight. Jones argued their case so cogently that town officials, who first refused their entrance, often backed down, allowing her to demonstrate for her cause.

In the end, Roosevelt would not meet with the group, but the march was successful in pushing the Pennsylvania Legislature to pass child-labor laws.

Is a crusade similar to Mother Jones' march necessary in 2013? Could a present-day spokesperson of Jones' abilities bring to our citizenry's attention the seriousness of not providing an adequate education for all the children of our nation?

After 12 years of state control of the Philadelphia schools, educational inequity within many of those schools remains. Pennsylvania's inability to rectify conditions in school systems like Philadelphia and Chester Upland clearly shows that the causes of poor achievement within inner-city schools are far more complex than the state had realized.

Adequate funding for a proper education will remain a necessary condition for our schools to work. Next, of course, we'll need the most competent of educators. And we'll have to pay for them!

If some public-school advocates were willing to help support a modern-day campaign highlighting the damage done within a society that fails to include all in the American Dream, perhaps the apparent callousness of some of our fellow citizens could be diminished. Perhaps publicity that would put human faces on the issue would bring us closer together, as it did in 1903.

Edwin H. Smith

Philadelphia