Data on truancy offer no context

May 15, 2008

The statistics on school absences, suspensions and expulsions and city homicides and shooting victims in The Sun's article "Out of school, risking violence" (May 9) were interesting - for a minute.

However, the article failed to inform us about rates of absence and other problems for other students. Without such a baseline for comparison, the article seems meaningless.

Before we criminalize truancy or overreact in some other way, can we at least get the facts?

Louis Brendan Curran

Baltimore

The writer is an assistant public defender in Baltimore.

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