Posted on 01/09/2014 8:08:37 AM PST by shortstop
Now the federal government wants to run the classroom.
Not just what’s taught, who gets tested for what or what gets served for lunch, but who gets punished for what and how.
Now Washington dictates on discipline.
That was the clear word out of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore yesterday as the attorney general and secretary of education announced new federal guidelines and mandates on school discipline.
The goal?
To disrupt the “school-to-prison pipeline” which Eric Holder and Arne Duncan say plagues our nation. Specifically, to eliminate what they call racial disparities in discipline.
It turns out that black students are three times more likely to get suspended in American schools than white students.
That is clear racism, any number of activists will tell you, and something has to be done about it. Well, the Obama administration is going to do something about it. Essentially, Washington will dangle a great deal of money in front of schools and tell them they can have a piece of it, if their suspension and other discipline rates fall within accepted guidelines.
Also, teachers and principals inflicting too much or disproportionate discipline could find themselves in hot water.
That, the smart people say, will stop the unusually high percentage of black suspensions.
Of course, another approach would be to simply have the black students behave.
In this politically correct world of different outcomes, we ignore the reality of different conducts. Certainly, people are individuals and generalizations about groups are fraught with potential for misrepresentation. Behavior is an individual choice and not a group characteristic, except as shaped by culture.
But generally, the kids who get in trouble are the kids who do wrong. And if a disproportionately high number of black students are getting in trouble, is it not possible that that is because a disproportionately high number of black students are doing wrong?Is racism the only explanation for high black discipline rates that Washington will accept?
If black students tend to be suspended or otherwise disciplined at higher rates all across the country, does that mean that at thousands of schools across America hundreds of thousands of teachers and administrators all have a racist tendency to kick black students out? Is racism so completely pervasive in the education field?
Does that seem likely?
And given that many of the urban districts with the highest rates of suspension are led by black superintendents and administrators, and have the highest numbers of black teachers, does it really make sense that they are the most prejudiced against black students?
No, it doesn’t make sense at all.
This nonsense from Washington and the activists is more excuse making for bad behavior. It seeks to create an excuse and protection for unacceptable conduct.
The attorney general and education secretary said yesterday that high rates of suspension are linked to high rates of educational failure and contact with the criminal justice system, and they asserted that the suspensions were the cause.
Which is crap.
The suspensions and the failures and the arrests are all effects of the same cause – bad conduct and failed culture. They are all fruit of the same poison tree.
Discipline in school is an effort by society to teach consequence and encourage better behavior. Eliminating that discipline, or pulling any teeth it might have, will only assure that the effort to encourage better behavior fails even more miserably.
Also troubling in the new initiative of the Obama administration is the pressure to not involve police in school misconduct. That was specifically criticized by the attorney general and pegged for elimination.
When students do wrong in school, the police should not be called.
Which declares school a law-free zone.
The cops don’t get involved when Johnny doesn’t do his homework, or when he drops the occasional f-bomb, they get involved when Johnny breaks the law. They don’t do discipline, they do law enforcement.
When Johnny hurts or steals, destroys or damages, the cops get called.
But not anymore.
The Obama administration wants that handled internally now, by a school system it is pressuring to water down discipline.
It is another recipe for disaster.
In a society increasingly without consequence, where individual responsibility and good character are meaningless, the federal government wants to strip schools of the ability to discipline students as they see fit.
The experience and judgment of teachers and principals is displaced by the progressive priorities of Washington.
We are not stopping misbehavior, we are stopping punishment. All that will do is increase misbehavior.
Fewer black students will be disciplined, and ultimately it is those black students and their society which will suffer.
Far wiser than this foolish policy would be a simple and clear call to all students – including particularly black students – to improve their behavior, to see their acting out as juvenile and shameful, and to stop acting like trash. Do good, good things happen to you. Do bad, bad things happen to you.
High suspension rates are not a sign of racism, they are a sign of racial failure. Failure to raise children in an acceptable and productive fashion.
It took seven sentences for them to inject the word ‘race’.
Come on now, getting slack....
This just ensures that mass murderers that go into schools and shootem up will stick to predominately ‘white’ schools.
It’s too dangerous for them in predominately ‘black’ schools.
These students, even a few Oriental students, recognize that white teachers fear the repercussions that may come to the teacher if discipline is used and behave accordingly.
One does not give children a license to steal unless they plan to allow theft.
I am just thankful I grew up in a genereation where, if you messed up at school, you got your tail tore up. Then when you got home you got it tore up again. Then you went back to school and all was forgotten.
“One does not give children a license to steal unless they plan to allow theft.”
If bad behavior is tolerated you will get more of it. Its just common sense. It seems that every rule put in place is purposely designed to make schools fail.
Schools are unduly harsh on blacks!?!?! That is news to me.
I taught at the university level where I had a black student turning in work at the last minute. The work was substandard, largely because no effort had been made. I stopped the student as he was leaving class I told him I would not read his paper, that he needed to put the time into it and do his best and turn in a rewrite.
I explained that the process he was going through was not a four year process, but a life long process; you get out of your endeavors what you put in. In other words, this is your education, it is life long, go about it with that goal, do not go through it as though you are merely hoop jumping to get the sheepskin.
His performance improved dramatically. He was one of the best students, a joy to have in class, and a genuinely good guy. He called me three years later to tell me he had gotten a good job, a low level management position and was in a program to educate him for advancement.
He thanked me, but I pointed out it was his own doing, his own effort and attitude that propelled him. He told me he always got good grades, whether he did the work or not, that I was the only teacher in ALL of his education, grade school H.S., college, who ever pulled him aside and said knock off the B.S. He said he knew everyone was essentially giving him a pass because he was black.
He was a good person who saw that he had a choioce; ride the gravy train or actually improve himself.
As educators, it is not uncommon to be told to make allowances for certain students. My students believe they should be graded on effort. I point out that a student with dislexia or a exchange student with a new knowledge of English works harder than my native born students. With that in mind, my dislexic, Greek immigrant gets the “A” and I grade down from there. They didn’t care for that idea.
I pointed out that when they go to a doctor they prefer to go to the best, not the hardest working. You buy the best car for the dollar, not the one where they worked hardest in the factory. You buy music from the best musicians (theorhetically) that my effort to sing the Ring would be considerably greater than Pavoratti’s, or my effort to play “Voodoo Child” on the guitar similarly more difficult than Hendrix’s, so I should be rewarded accordingly?
No, you are graded and awarded on ability. THis egalitarianism is crap, and in a world where everyone is considered to be a Mozart, no one is a Mozart.
We get a lot of the same stuff from serial killers who say they were abused as children. My guess is that they were physically disciplined for really ghoulish stuff, and they considered that abuse.
This filthy Marxist punk failure Obama just won’t go away, like some creep breathing heavily into my phone every time I answer.
Lonsberry makes sense. I’m glad to see his columns pop up on FR from time to time. Lonsberry lost his WHAM show some years back over a comment perceived by some to be politically correct. Then he lost his Utah show for backing the conservative in a GOP primary. Rochester listeners and sponsors got his WHAM show restored, but a reorganization cut his hours. He now also has a Syracuse show.
I’m glad to see Lonsberry still has courage of his convictions, no matter the topic.
Where objectivity and informed policy is concerned... “O” is the perennial debutante.
He NEVER learns but he KEEPS ON shooting off his mouth.
One lesson most intelligent people learn at a young age, if you don’t know what you are talking about ...STFU...and NO ONE will find out how stupid you really are.
It’s practically the main hurdle in the maturity process. What adult do you know and RESPECT who has NOT learned this?
I’ve noticed that when there is a report of a Zero-tolerance policy, the student is usually described as never having been in trouble before. We are moving to a situation where the good kids are afraid to blink at the wrong time for fear of punishment, while the not so good kids are free to do as they please.
Isn’t this the same type program that Travon was participating in, creating the illusion of angel to MSM and his community?
That, IMO, was the whole purpose of zero tolerance policies.
Because it “wasn’t fair” that everyone didn’t get into trouble, just the “at risk” kids.
That, and taking all responsibility away from administrators for making disciplinary decisions which could get them sued.
Yes it is —
Worked so well there /sarc. Setting up the scenerio for more dead yutes.
Actually their argument is otherwise —
If he had not been suspended from school then he would not have been in Sanford smokin dope and hittin crackas.
Instead he would have been down in Miami doing his homework, laying out his clothes for school the next day, and packing his lunch.
Liberals are the biggest haters and dividers out there. White liberals hate that they are white and feel so guilty about it they must force this kind of crap down our throats.
Ugh.
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