The Ugly Lie About Vouchers

His name was Michael. He had round cheeks, large brown eyes and dimples that, to strangers, concealed his chronic unhappiness. He was 9 in 1999 when I taught him in fourth grade.

Michael came to me in October, after his mother had been expelled from the homeless shelter where they were living and an aunt had agreed to take him in temporarily. Unable to write even his name, Michael had academic difficulties and a suspicion of anyone who tried to work with him that spoke of a history of shuttling between schools and shelters and short-term living arrangements.

I worked all fall to be someone Michael trusted, but it was slow going. Then in January Michael's aunt made the agonizing decision to send him back to his mother, who was living in a hotel room in a nearby town and who had told Michael repeatedly that she didn't want him.

I was sad to see him go and feared what this change would do to a boy already unable to trust or love adults for fear of losing them. But eventually my memory of him faded amid the noise and bustle of my classroom.

Faded, that is, until April, when Michael's new school called to tell us that Michael had just registered there, and that they would need his records. What this meant was that between January and April, Michael had been missing, perhaps sitting in his mother's freezing hotel room, where he often would be left for hours, or perhaps wandering through the city by himself.

Now Michael would start at a new school, stay for two short months and then disappear into the streets of summer. Nobody knew where he would resurface in September, if he resurfaced at all.