So a few weeks ago I was watching the news, Channel 6 to be exact and the reporter Derick Thomas (WTHR) was reporting a feel good story about how this young man Brandon Gentry of Richmond, had perfect attendance. Mr.Thomas stated that the idea of rewarding an incentive for perfect attendance and excellent grades was the brainchild of a few local businesses, and the Richmond school corporation to reward the students by giving them prizes that range from Kings Island tickets to a choice of four 2016 cars for one lucky student who just so happened to be Brandon.
Richmond Schools wanted to do this to increase graduation rates and produce productive members of our society. I was amazed by this story because for one most media outlets will not report on such a great feel-good story only if it gets the "millennials" to stay in school.
We need to have more programs like this is more communities so we can celebrate more graduations instead of putting our youth in jail or caskets while singing this song is dedicated to my homies in that gangsta lean (circa 1990). It seems like now more than ever we need to go to college just to be considered for that job at McDonald's�.
People need to realize that we're not competing with the person down the street to be a server at Steak-N-Shake, we are competing with those nations across the globe. You know high school is like elementary now, and college is like high school now you need a degree to get a decent enough career to pay all those darn bills and student loans you get when you become a grown-up.
My specific community really doesn't have any good programs to help keep youth out of trouble, maybe if we had something like these incentives to help students see their potential they would not be so willing to commit crimes that might land them in jail or a casket and their family memorializing them in the past tense. I feel like if we had leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Mother Teresa in our lives we might see that mountain top that Martin was speaking of. In the '60s we had a plethora of leaders to rely on, but now we have people such as Trump, Kaitlyn, Kardashians, Kanye and Obama. All we need now is for Slim Shady to please stand up.
My question is would it work to ensure that we have the next upcoming leaders to lead a revolution in policy that will benefit all of us?
