Chicago's 'gay friendly' high school idea

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Chicago's concern for its gay students is commendable, but far from solving the problem, the creation of a cloistered, segregated environment represents an easy escape -- not so much for the transferring students as for school leaders. Instead of asking whether gay teens need a respite from the meanness of high school, the school board should be asking why principals haven't been creating campuses with zero tolerance for ugly behavior.

Is that mere touchy-feely squishiness? If so, it works anyway. Principals and teaching staffs across the country have turned mean schools into places with a culture of tolerance, or at least decent behavior. These are schools in which kids speak up when they see someone being tormented; principals don't brush off cruelty with "Oh, well, kids will be kids." They set high standards for behavior, just as they do for academic achievement; they actively model good behavior and reward it; and they back up their standards with detention or suspension for violators.

Often this kind of transformation takes place after a crisis. In the saddest cases, it's a suicide -- or even a murder. This year, Lawrence King, an openly gay middle-schooler in Oxnard, was shot and killed, allegedly by a classmate.

If Chicago opens a special school for gay students, the message to teachers and administrators will be: Don't bother to demand decent behavior from students. Let them pick on whoever sticks out -- kids with learning or physical disabilities, kids from different ethnic or religious backgrounds, kids who look funny or act uncool. And the message to bullies will be: Behave badly toward people you don't like, and we'll conveniently sweep them out of your way.