City's worries start and end with its schools

Whenever D.C. lawmakers talk of instituting this or that program to help the have-nots, it is essentially an admission that they have failed to meet one of their principal responsibilities, which is to have a well-functioning public-school system.

The social pathologies that haunt the city all start with a school system that is found to be derelict in its duties year after year. Oh, there is always plenty of get-tough talk. There is always another vow to reform what is broken. And there is always another new face promising to lead the system out of its eternal dysfunction. But in the end, incompetence trumps good ideas