So imagine my surprise when, Tuesday night, a couple of friends without kids were the ones to raise education over dinner.

The cause: the latest update to what鈥檚 known as the Nation鈥檚 Report Card that had been making headlines all afternoon. Fresh results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress had been released that morning, showing mostly flat reading and math scores across the country, and our newsroom had spent the rest of the day crunching surprising trends (see Kevin Mahnken鈥檚 breakdown of this year鈥檚 most notable bright spots for student gains聽and David Cantor鈥檚 survey of how the first-ever digital version of the test may have hurt low-income test-takers).

As I explained those flat trendlines over dinner, the conversation started to veer toward the issue of testing, and how assessments tie to standards and equity 鈥� and why some parents opt their children out of tests.

One of my friends said he understood tests within a specific class and subject area, to measure whether a student had fully mastered the material. But why the same tests across all students at a school? Across all schools in a district? Across all districts in the country?

It was those questions that led me to dig into the day鈥檚 other shocking discovery in the NAEP results. As Kevin Mahnken noted:

The National Center for Education Statistics noted a troubling trend in scores since two years ago: Even as the status quo held stable for most test takers, scores for the highest-performing eighth-graders (those scoring at the 75th and 90th percentiles) nosed higher, while those for the lowest-performing students (those at the 10th and 25th percentiles) declined in fourth-grade math, eighth-grade math, and fourth-grade reading. (Read More)
As I explained to my alarmed friends: The gap between the top and bottom is getting wider. Struggling students are falling even further behind. And the only way we can possibly know that is some form of standardized test, tracking where we are versus where we鈥檝e been.

I was suddenly reminded of Kevin Huffman鈥檚 provocative 74 column from a couple of years ago, which addressed testing, the opt-out movement, vaccines, and herd immunity. You can read it right here: 鈥�Why We Need to Start Ignoring Opt-Outers Like We Do Anti-Vaxxers.鈥�

You don鈥檛 go to get a vaccine because you鈥檙e sick, I said, but because you鈥檙e signing up to be part of a collective effort to build herd immunity. If we all join hands and do it together, we say, we鈥檒l have some baseline protection against any incoming flu epidemic.

We can draw some loose comparisons between that and how we approach standardized tests. It鈥檚 not just about measuring one specific child, but about knowing how the collective is doing.

鈥淟ook around us,鈥� I told my friends. 鈥淲e鈥檙e at dinner in a pretty affluent neighborhood in Manhattan. We know many of the schools in this ZIP code are among the best in the city and the country. And so you鈥檒l hear parents here say, 鈥楳y kid tested into this school, we know she鈥檚 doing well, why are you wasting their time with more tests?鈥�

鈥淏ut that鈥檚 not what standardized tests are about. It鈥檚 not about where your kid stands, but to see if any gap exists between these affluent students and children in other neighborhoods, or other boroughs, or other cities. Because we鈥檝e decided as a society that everyone is entitled to a meaningful education, and that schools should be lifting up every kid, not just those in the most expensive ZIP codes.鈥�

Tests aren鈥檛 about your kid; they鈥檙e about ensuring a baseline for all kids. About having the information to better understand which kids are not getting the help we have all promised to give them. (Maybe this is why New York City鈥檚 new school chancellor during his first week on the job.)

The more information we all have about the effectiveness of our public education system, the more proactive measures we can take to ensure it鈥檚 benefiting all families, equipping all students to reach higher than their parents, and succeeding in reaching the standards that will close the broader achievement gaps.

Tuesday provided yet another powerful example of how tests help us to understand where today鈥檚 kids are at. We now know our struggling students aren鈥檛 getting the support they need, and my friends now know that all those headlines about flat scores are lacking some important nuance.

Now the challenge is to convert knowledge into meaningful action.

A good first step, I told my friends, is to talk about it tonight around the dinner table. Then the next time you鈥檙e out with friends. Then with your elected leaders 鈥� and their challengers in the next election.

Raise awareness. Be the squeaky wheel. Make it an approachable subject 鈥� and then an urgent issue 鈥� for your neighbors, and then never stop reminding them to vote. Too many elected officials assume parents are confused and detached from this topic, and then decide to focus on other issues instead. If we all tied the ballot box to the test-score trends, America鈥檚 education crisis would make the front page of the newspaper a lot more often.

T74 Documentary: 35 years after 鈥楢 Nation at Risk,鈥� the inside story of the 36 pages that changed American education

Much of the press coverage on the strike has focused on West Virginia’s low ranking in average teacher salaries (see examples from , , , , , etc.).

Although it鈥檚 true that West Virginia has low average salaries, this statistic misses out on lots of other things. For example, I鈥檝e written before about how growing retirement costs , and it turns out West Virginia is a prime example of this.

In fact, while West Virginia ranks in the bottom five states in teacher salaries, it ranks in the top five in terms of retirement costs. (Most of that money is going toward paying down unfunded liabilities, but it鈥檚 a real expense incurred by the state and its school districts.)

Overall, West Virginia climbs to 32nd in terms of salary plus retirement costs. That鈥檚 a very different story than the one being told by the media.

Of course, this also doesn鈥檛 get into cost of living.

West Virginia lands on cost of living, and if we adjusted the raw salary figures based on how far $1 would go, West Virginia teacher salaries would rank even higher.

None of this is to make a judgment about how much West Virginia teachers should be paid, but that argument shouldn鈥檛 hinge on the 鈥渁verage teacher salary鈥� metric.

Without looking at all forms of compensation or adjusting for cost of living, average teacher salary rankings don鈥檛 tell us all that much.

鈥淵ou know what gets me about this place?鈥� he said, gesturing at the other convicts in the concrete block visiting room. 鈥淎ll these guys graduated from high school.鈥�

Covering courts, I didn鈥檛 get his point back then. But I thought about him the other day upon reading an analysis published by , a nonprofit Minnesota news site where I used to work, showing that graduation rates in the state are rising even though other measures of academic achievement are not. The problem is particularly acute in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

For young people from families that aren鈥檛 affluent, a high school diploma marks the end of the education we, as a society, have long agreed should prepare them for citizenship and a job, if not college. Diplomas notwithstanding, many of the inmates in the room couldn鈥檛 fill out an application for a job at McDonald鈥檚 or calculate the price of a dozen Happy Meals.

The MinnPost story sketched a laudable rise in recent years in graduation rates but sounded a cautionary note. 鈥淓stablishing high graduation expectations seems essential to ensuring the state has a more equitable public education system,鈥� . 鈥淗owever, gains on this front are often celebrated 鈥� in the media and by state education officials 鈥� out of context. While graduation rates are on the rise, proficiency rates in math and reading have remained relatively stagnant. And for some student groups, proficiency rates have actually decreased at the same time that their graduation rates have increased.鈥�

In short, the number of students who graduate without being able to read or do math at a high school level is going up. And although it鈥檚 hard to argue that life with a diploma isn鈥檛 preferable, I worry that celebrating huge gains in the graduation rate masks the fact that nationwide, millions of students of color and Native American students still are being left behind.

This isn鈥檛 a Minnesota problem per se; it happens to be the place where I, as an education reporter and parent of two, have watched a succession of strategic plans and accountability systems attempt to alternately illuminate and cloud how well schools are serving their neediest students.

Consider Minneapolis Public Schools鈥� Roosevelt High School, which sits solidly in the middle of its district in terms of socioeconomics. Between 2014 and 2016, its graduation rate rose from 58 percent to 75 percent. During the same time, reading proficiency 鈥� the number of 10th-graders who pass the 10th-grade reading exam 鈥� fell from 18 percent to 14 percent. Proficiency in math, assessed in 11th grade, fell from 18 percent to 12 percent.

Significantly, this chasm between literacy and numeracy and graduation rate opened wide after passage of a state law that put increased emphasis on high school graduation.

Between 2013 and 2016, the number of Latino students graduating from Roosevelt nearly doubled, from 43 percent to 80 percent. The percentage passing state tests, meanwhile, has been nearly flat at 8 percent. The percentage hitting targets for academic growth started at 41 percent, fell to 14 percent in 2016, and rebounded to 25 percent last year.

Critics of standardized tests rightly complain that they provide but one snapshot of students and schools, but given what I have just told you about three very different high schools, would we be able to pinpoint inequities based on graduation rates alone?

It鈥檚 not an issue particular to Roosevelt. Across the city, at the most impoverished high school, North Community, a rising graduation rate is being celebrated despite the fact that the number 鈥� not the rate, but the number 鈥� of students passing the exams has ranged from two to seven. The composite score of the 70 North students who took the 2016 ACT was 15.7; Minnesota鈥檚 lower-tier state colleges generally look for a 22 on admissions applications.

The graduation rate in the district鈥檚 wealthiest, majority-white school 鈥� Southwest High, which my older son graduated from 鈥� rose from 80 percent in 2012 to 90 percent in 2016. Alas, it鈥檚 impossible to say whether proficiency and growth among these high achievers fell like it did in other, poorer schools, because almost none of its students 鈥� egged on by many of their teachers 鈥� took the annual state assessment.

Which underscores a crucial point: Critics of standardized tests rightly complain that they provide but one snapshot of students and schools, but given what I have just told you about three very different high schools, would we be able to pinpoint inequities based on graduation rates alone?

One of the earliest lessons an education reporter learns is that graduation rates are notoriously fungible. Rarely does this data point reflect what it sounds like it should: the number of students who started in a high school in ninth grade and received a diploma by the end of 12th. Rates rise and fall according to a dizzying array of factors.

Are students who were expelled or pushed out counted? Those who were referred to an alternative learning center? What about students learning English or persisting with a disability, who in some places are given extra years of schooling? Or one I鈥檝e never gotten a graspable answer to: What鈥檚 the difference between a dropout and a student who is simply no longer attending any school?

It鈥檚 also a statistic that鈥檚 not hard to manipulate. Between 2011 and 2016, the Los Angeles Unified School District saw a phenomenal 20-point rise in its graduation rate. The Los Angeles Times attributed 13 percent of LAUSD鈥檚 graduation boom to online credit recovery classes whose integrity has been challenged.

鈥淎蝉听补 Times editorial revealed in 2016, the online courses, created by an outside vendor,聽are of dubious value,鈥� . 鈥淭hey聽have a well-designed curriculum, but they’re聽set up so that students can skip entire units by taking 10-question, multiple-choice quizzes beforehand.鈥�

At the same time, , the district鈥檚 passing grade was lowered to a D 鈥� never mind that a D in a core course would leave a graduate ineligible to enter any college in the University of California or California State systems. Minneapolis students, too, pass with a D.

Down the Pacific Coast, in San Diego, a months-long tussle over public records between the nonprofit news organization Voice of San Diego and San Diego Unified Schools led to the revelation that the district鈥檚 eye-popping 91 percent graduation rate was partly achieved with a D standard and online credit recovery.

Another factor revealed by the public-affairs news site: San Diego students who were not on track to graduate were often counseled out of district schools.

Students 鈥渟aid they were informally advised by staff members to transfer to charter schools due to low grades and problematic behavior,鈥� . 鈥淎t least 30 percent of the students from the class of 2016 left a San Diego Unified high school for a charter school after the start of their freshman year, according to numbers the district has provided.鈥�

I鈥檝e had a photo pinned up over my desk for years, sent to me by the inmate I was visiting 14-plus years ago. He sent it to me during an optimistic window when he thought he would be able to go to barber school or learn another trade and support the baby boy he鈥檚 pictured taking a nap with.

I checked in on him this morning. Public records reveal he鈥檚 been on probation for three years. He鈥檚 42. That baby boy is the age of one of my own, presumably college-bound, sons.

I know what the statistics predict, but I鈥檇 like to think that somehow he鈥檚 on track to graduate and that his diploma truly will equip him to interrupt the cycle he was born into. We all need that to become true.

The first athletes out of the tunnel to play on this year鈥檚 Super Bowl field won鈥檛 be the New England Patriots, nor the Philadelphia Eagles 鈥� but a high school football team hailing from Minneapolis, Minnesota. But shrouded amid the glory of this great honor, bestowed and sponsored by the NFL, is the abhorrent 鈥� and possibly worsening 鈥� academic performance among the school鈥檚 400 or so students.

On Friday afternoon, North Community High School鈥檚 storied football team will take to the field at U.S. Bank Stadium as part of a dress rehearsal for Super Bowl LII. Security will be too tight for outsiders to observe, but the uniformed Polars are slated to run a series of scripted plays so league camera operators 鈥� assisted by half a dozen North student journalists 鈥� can get a feel for the Minnesota Vikings鈥� home field.

In recent years, the number of North students passing state reading and math tests has mostly been in the single digits. In 2016, just four of 54 11th-graders tested in math passed the exam, and only two of 42 10th-graders passed reading. Last year, eight sophomores out of 69 tested read at grade level, but not one junior passed the math exam.

School leaders have dismissed the data, saying the number of students opting out of standardized tests has mushroomed to the point where they are unreliable. In 2017, 36 of 105 10th-graders and 55 of 96 11th-graders did not take the state tests. Even if every single student who opted out passed the exams 鈥� supremely unlikely 鈥� that would put the school鈥檚 passage rate 18 points below the state average in reading and 11 points below in math.

Equally worrisome, statistics published by Minneapolis Public Schools showing how close students are to passing grade-level tests or how far ahead they are suggest academic growth is slipping quickly. The number of students in the lowest category, 鈥渇alling behind,鈥� rose from 51 percent in 2015 to 90 percent in 2017.

Friday won鈥檛 be the first time the decorated team has played in the soaring glass-and-steel facility. The Polars in the stadium, a feat they came close to repeating last year before a loss in the quarterfinals closed out their season with a 10鈥�1 record. They鈥檝e gone to the tournament in each of the past four years. And two North seniors played one last game there as a part of the state high school all-star showcase in December.

Sports is thoroughly baked into the school鈥檚 DNA. The gymnasium鈥檚 rafters are dripping with banners and pennants, and the 1970s brick box of a foyer is lined with cases of trophies. It鈥檚 been a while since a Polar has gone on to professional athletic fame, but alumni of decades past include Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, football players Bob Bjorklund and Wayne Robinson, and NBA star Khalid El-Amin.

Late last year, NFL reps with a stack of Vikings jerseys, a $5,000 check from the league鈥檚 foundation for the football team and the surprise news that the students would get an insiders鈥� view of the Super Bowl. Their coach, a popular Minneapolis police officer and North alum, got two tickets to the big game.

League leaders might have seen . The students are among the city鈥檚 most challenged. Some 85 percent of North students live in poverty, and 90 percent are black. Nearly 1 in 3 qualifies for special education services. Nearly 1 in 10 is homeless. The tough-luck narrative 鈥� teen athletes get a front-row seat to the biggest party their city has ever thrown 鈥� must have been nigh irresistible.

In 2010, Minneapolis鈥檚 then-superintendent Bernadeia Johnson proposed closing the 129-year-old North, which was rebuilt in 1973 to accommodate 2,800 students. Enrollment had fallen to a paltry 265 students, which meant the district was spending $4,000 extra per pupil just to keep the building open while providing a bare-bones academic program.

Community reaction 鈥� much of it from people who wouldn鈥檛 send their own children to the school 鈥� was swift. Johnson told the community she would bring in a consulting firm to reboot the school if an enrollment target was met. In the fall of 2012, , and enrollment has rebounded steadily, thanks in part to the lure of athletics.

A little more than 80 percent of the students who enrolled that year graduated in 2016, which the district celebrated as a milestone 鈥� the aforementioned comeback. It was an admirable 39-percentage-point increase over 2014, but it鈥檚 also likely students were awarded diplomas despite performing below grade level. All but three of the 65 members of the class of 2016 took state math assessments in 2015, and only 10 passed. In 2014, 15 of the class鈥檚 68 students passed state reading exams.

Comeback notwithstanding, it will take a Hail Mary if those demographics are not to continue dictating destiny.

Other measures used to assess whether a high school graduate is ready for college or a career are also dismal. The composite score of the 70 North students who took the 2016 ACT was 15.7 out of a possible 36; Minnesota鈥檚 lower-tier state colleges generally look for a 22 on admissions applications.

According to Minnesota state data, of the 53 North students who graduated in 2016, 22 enrolled in some form of postsecondary education. None attended private colleges, nor the flagship University of Minnesota. Of those students who continued their education beyond high school, 13 signed up for public two-year colleges and the rest for four-year state institutions. More than half 鈥� 55 percent 鈥� had to take high school鈥搇evel remedial courses in college.

Stories like North鈥檚 are playing out in cities all over the country, as communities wrestle with how to respond to a dismaying cycle. As families move away in search of better, or enroll their children elsewhere, a once-proud school struggles all the more. Once a neighborhood鈥檚 population of families with school-age children drops, the problem compounds.

The memory of having been part of the run-up to the Super Bowl is no small thing. And there is, of course, a chance one of the current Polars will be back on the turf at the Vikings stadium in the future. But it鈥檚 a slender reed on which to stake a young person鈥檚 future.

When the NFL visited North in December, league brass to football-related job opportunities off the field. Isn鈥檛 it time to make sure the school鈥檚 graduates have the basic skills any of those jobs 鈥� or any career that comes with a living wage 鈥� would require?

Deadly violence at a school used to stop this country in its tracks.聽The horrific notion of a teenager arming himself, striking down defenseless classmates, terrorizing the safest of our communal safe spaces, was once enough to upend news cycles and drive elected leaders to tears.

Now, , we can chart three school shootings over the past 25 hours.

As reported by the Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News, in a packed Texas cafeteria early Monday, injuring one. A couple hours later, a 14-year-old was wounded outside a New Orleans charter school .

And then Tuesday morning in Kentucky: As detailed by police, a 15-year-old used a handgun to attack dozens of unarmed classmates at his high school. At least two of them are now dead; 17 more were injured by the barrage. The gunman was quickly apprehended in a 鈥渘on-violent arrest,鈥� and will now be charged with murder and attempted murder.

Three schools, two days, 19 casualties, two dead. And yet cable news doesn鈥檛 even break into its regularly scheduled beltway blather. We鈥檙e barely moved to tweet.

How desensitized have we now become? How much terror are we now willing to accept in our school zones?

In 2018, we see a headline that says two are dead 鈥� and are momentarily thankful that the body count falls short of horrors like Newtown.

But the specifics of today鈥檚 slaughter are still so tragic. And terrible. And terrifying. And bewildering.

Almost as disorienting: the police press conference that followed. 鈥淭he Kentucky state police have been in this area recently teaching students and faculty how to respond to an active shooter situation,鈥� said Kentucky State Police Commissioner Richard Sanders.

鈥淓verybody in that high school acted appropriately.鈥�

Thank goodness they did. Thank God they were prepared. And yet still: How is this the new reality of public education in America? Where active shooter training is built into the standing curriculum? Where students and instructors of any age are regularly trained how to toggle into survival mode? Where聽classroom shooter drills聽are built into the police department鈥檚 calendar?

Where a single-digit body count is now considered a below-the-fold event.

I鈥檓 ashamed that I did the same mental calculus, and I regret that I didn鈥檛 think of sprinting into coverage here at 蜜桃影视. I鈥檓 so thankful that Editorial Director James Burnett and the writers at The Trace gave today鈥檚 tragedy the context it demands.

As I write this Tuesday night, sitting on the couch with my 4-year-old daughter, I鈥檓 terrified about what she鈥檒l聽have to learn about active shooters 鈥� and survival tactics 鈥� when she starts grade school.

… And how many more school shootings I鈥檒l read about this week.

(h/t )

In this case, in a country that is deeply segregated, and whose public schools are deeply segregated both because of changing demographics and the precondition of residential assignment that pervades the public system, charter schools are being scapegoated for creating the racially divided and isolated world that the public schools themselves have given us. It鈥檚 the sort of pablum only a politico could offer.

The arguments many have made to counter this are spot-on, in particular about the difference between being assigned to racial isolation versus minorities making affirmative choices to be with people who share their skin color and, perhaps, their values. But there鈥檚 a piece that鈥檚 missing, and so much turns on understanding it that we gloss over it at our own peril.

The truth is, the attack on charters and their perceived role in segregation reveals a deep and troubling double standard. It鈥檚 powered by a desire to destroy black academic excellence 鈥� along with those who seek it out and those who seek to provide it 鈥� in the name of some other set of democratic fundamentals that, at this point, don鈥檛 exist even on paper, let alone in reality. This line of attack illuminates the preferential treatment non-black minorities and, of course, white Americans receive in the realm of public education as a framework for schooling. A framework that doesn鈥檛 work for millions of black and brown children but is valorized over those we see having life-changing effects, particularly in our large urban centers.

You can see this bias clearly when you examine how traditional district loyalists and anti-charter activists defend underperforming and overwhelmingly black neighborhood schools. These folks have held these schools blameless during their destructive reign even as black futures have been squandered within them.

They鈥檝e been messaging test cases for the limits of what schools can do (overcome poverty and now segregation) even while they鈥檝e remained central to arguments for more dollars and more people in the system. While in the 鈥檅urbs, testing is an evil visited upon stressed-out swizzle-stick-loving toddlers, in the 鈥檋ood 鈥� where learning is incidental 鈥� they鈥檝e been used as a crucible no teacher should have to bear. These schools are the Jeanne d鈥橝rc of 鈥渃ommunity鈥� even as they rip communities apart, their existence crucial to the overall notion of democratic rule even when that rule is ruinous.

A shining and ironic example of this can perhaps be seen in New York, where the Bloomberg-era school closure and restart strategy 鈥� which has ultimately been proven beneficial 鈥� was attacked by the United Federation of Teachers and its then-handmaiden the NAACP (a relationship that has only metastasized). Consider . The school, named for the civil rights activist who was ultimately blacklisted for his advocacy, undermined the very promise of his life of service even as it failed to pass on his brilliance to its students. On his opposition to closing the school, UFT President Michael Mulgrew offered, 鈥淲e cannot continue with policies that allow inequality not only to exist, but to flourish.鈥�

One must wonder to which policies he referred. The residential assignment policies that ensure schools like Robeson are racially isolated? The adult deployment policies that result in the students within them getting the least-experienced teachers who also have the least support (an inequity now fully present as those in New York City鈥檚 Absent Teacher Reserve pool are reassigned to low-income, high-minority schools)? These are the sorts of policies we expect black families to support in the name of democracy and community?

The policy menu of black academic oppression is too long to list. But its record of ravaging the black community is one that must not be lengthened in the name of an oppressive view that holds student achievement among its lowest priorities.

Conversely (and courtesy of the charter segregation lobby) we also see what these folks would have us attack: schools working for black families that exist because those same families have made the affirmative decision to attend them.

Depending on what cocktail parties you attended this holiday season, you likely heard any number of derisive characterizations of today鈥檚 modern-day Freedom Schools. Some outright condescending (those families don鈥檛 know how to choose a school) to counterintuitive (those schools cream the best families). The latter is particularly destructive because it penalizes black families 鈥� some foreign-born, some the home-grown descendants of slaves, but all of whom want a better future for their children 鈥� for that quality we value most in every other race and creed in the American patchwork: ambition.

Consider how this same ambition is handled in some of America鈥檚 other numerous racial tranches. White urbane families who like cities but still want accelerated education have an entire network of segregated academies within the public schools, most commonly known as gifted and talented, fostered for them. It鈥檚 widely known that these programs pass over black kids, but no one seems to care, even as cries for the expansion of these programs continue to grow.

Or look at the selective high school admissions process in New York, where Stuyvesant High School 鈥� arguably the crown jewel of the network 鈥� is overwhelmingly Asian (annually, the combined black and Hispanic student cohort numbers in the single digits). Conservatives defend the hard-work ethic of Asian families. Liberals cite Stuyvesant as a bastion of excellence to which many other races should have access, even if it means lowering the bar for entry.

This excellence is prized and sought after even as Success Academy Charter Schools 鈥� among the state鈥檚 best schools of any type 鈥� which brim over with black and brown kids, battles building by building to get necessary space for its families. It is indeed easier for a store that caters to 鈥溾�� interests to open in New York than it is to expand opportunity for minority kids in charter schools. What鈥檚 the message being sent here?

Black folks are unique in America because we are often asked to sacrifice some notion of personal agency or sovereignty 鈥渇or the greater good鈥� in manners that other groups are not asked to and would never be expected to. Don鈥檛 protest police shootings because law and order matter more than living and breathing. Give up school choice because democratic school boards are more fundamental than if your kid is educated. Don鈥檛 seek a school that may mirror your values and affirm your racial and ethnic identity because integration and assimilation are more important, even if the former is a problem of white preference and the latter potentially undermines your child鈥檚 sense of self.

In this round of 鈥渟egregationist鈥� attacks on charters (a line of reasoning now also core to union opposition against charters as well), we see the latest in a long line of American school policies that all amount to the same thing: a raucous and callous shout of 鈥済et to the back of the line鈥� to the country鈥檚 black families.

It鈥檚 a command to which no family, charter or otherwise, should assent. Now or ever.