I'm in favor of this one - the excess is ridiculous, and it's nice to see a man of the cloth point out that a Catholic school should have higher standards. A caveat here - I went to a private all-boys yeshiva, and the concept of a prom never would have entered the administration's mind even if there were girls there. Which there weren't.
A couple of points, both about the last paragraph:
1) Most importantly, I'm not quite sure the kid quoted at the end gets it. "We're not losing everything" is not what I think the principal was after.
2) More insidiously, I object to the description put on the kid by the reporter.
"We go to all the parks with our friends," Laine said just before hopping into his jet-black Infiniti and driving off to meet friends for an after-school snack.
What would be wrong with simply quoting the kid without mentioning his car? My interpretation of this is either A) the reporter is a car buff, or B) more likely, he wants to show off the rich 17-year-old and his expensive toys. I assume he meant to undercut the kid and his comments somehow, and I think his snacktime and how he gets there is completely irrelevant to the story.
Look, this is an interesting question - what responsibilities do parents and schools have? What experiences should a child have? How much spending is too much? But if the kid's parents can afford the car, and they want to give it to him, what does it have to do with the story? There are rich people in the world, and people who buy their kids expensive things. I just don't think this kid's situation has anything to do with his quote, nor with the rest of the story.
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