To get back to The Newt’s idea one would agree that a work ethic is precious. Whose job is that to teach? Absent parents, it falls to the school in his scenario, who are already presently teaching *character building*, manners and other social skills, [that should rightfully be taught at home, in an ideal world].
As a practical matter, a school of 550 students has one custodian [days 6AM-3PM]; b/c of shortage of funds, there are only 2 night custodians. With the enormous amount of work to be done in the night time frame, for a fairly large 2-story building, a custodian would have to monitor the child. During the summer, kids do get summer jobs, helping with custodial work. They are paid a fair wage through some federally funded inner city jobs program. The custodians complain, they can’t trust the kids, or let them out of their sight [b/c of rampant stealing, or they just *dog* it]. Last summer, the summer job-core kids stole 24 new computers from the computer lab. Before it was noticed, it was too late.
While noble, in practicality, I wonder aloud how this type of program would work. It would be great if it did, but this becomes just another instance where the school takes over for what the family should be doing [teaching a work ethic]. I can see the need for *supervisors* of these kids, yet another expense, school systems can ill afford.