- Washington and Riley were given lucrative grants to help with mandatory after-school study tables. Administrators have had to piece together enough money at Clay and Adams to get any sort of a program going.
- While athletics has been targeted, no one seems to know if students from any other extracurricular -- for example, band, drama, quiz bowl, etc. -- have been ruled ineligible because of the 2.0.
Every coach and every athletic director has a story about how competition in a sport was the carrot dangled in front of a student that kept school as a priority. Snatch away the carrot and there could be one less reason to attend.
"How many is too many (to lose)?" said Whitacre. "If a policy affects one group over another, how fair is that?"
The basic premise of the policy is admirable. Kids have a habit of rising to a challenge when expectations are raised. But for those who simply can't, they shouldn't be pushed aside and forgotten.
Gangs won't forget them.