What happened to the Knapp children's father? After mentioning his line of work at the beginning, the authors don't mention him again.
The article begins with a false narrative (happy children representing a happy family) and their downfall came because "society" (the American way of life) failed them.
The original NYT article is an agenda hit piece meant to blame American society for their downfall.
These kids made bad choices because of their home-life. The kids are described by others as 'feral' meaning they had little guidance from high-functioning parents.
The authors of this article quickly dismissed and glossed over the dysfunctional family structure to point the finger at the alleged destructiveness of the American society and a heartless capitalist economy that chews families alive.
The NYT article is pure agenda 'journalism'.
I agree that the NYT article ranges from tendentious to irrational. However, the underlying issues of poor education, drug abuse, and multi-generational dysfunction are very significant. The examples of lives (potentially ...) reclaimed through drug rehabilitation programs are individually inspirational, but they are a drop in the bucket of the greater societal breakdown.
Cross the above article with this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3807547/posts
and you’d think, “Well, we’re toast.”