"I
have girlfriends who have a lot of children who have been killed, and I look at
their pain and hurt on their faces, and I don't want that," says Shantella
Davis, who's an unemployed recovering drug addict and the single mother of a
six-year-old named As-Sidq. "When I leave this earth I want him to be
established...I want him to be able to go to college."
They live in the
impoverished city of Camden, New Jersey, which is home to some of the nation’s
lowest performing public schools. "A lot of kids came out of Camden High not
knowing how to read and write," says Davis. "How did the kid get through the
school not knowing how to read and write?"
But for her part, Shantella
Davis hasn’t shown herself to be the most proactive parent. Last year, As-Sidq
was enrolled in public pre-K, but she says she wasn’t feeling well enough to
take him to school most days. So As-Sidq ended up staying home and missing most
of the year.
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