This is very true. My daughter's 9th/10th grade high school had a population of gang bangers...but they wanted nothing to do with the good kids. At the senior high level here, the schools are run like junior colleges, and there really aren't cliques. As long as someone has a group, they are fine.
Public education can be great. If the parents and the student care, and there are a couple of good teachers, it will work out. Parents that don’t care about education, doom it. My oldest went to a high school with a poor reputation, all the usual reasons. But the art department was top notch, as was the Latin teacher and most of the physics staff. She applied to five colleges, both public - private and in/out of state. Got in all, went where she wanted. Turned out well. I taught two years in coastal NC before joining the private sector, in Des Moines, IA. In NC we would NEVER have 20 parents on parents night. We had about 120 students. In Des Moines, I went for the first time as a parent. Every parking spot was full, as were both sides of the road. I’m sure we parked over a quarter mile away. The only difference was how much the parents cared.
Shit man, that’s everywhere. I was in Delaware last week (how many of you instantly thought of Wayne’s World when I mentioned Delaware) and I stopped at a Wawa, and the parking lot was littered with gram bags. This was in Wilmington which is a really bad city, but Delaware has a lot of farm land especially western Delaware on the Maryland border. It looks a lot like St Landry and I know they are cooking all in that area.
