holder needs to test drive old sparky.
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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.
All hail our new communists empire. /s/
Exactly what happened with Trayvon Martin. Criminals need a helping hand now?? But only black criminals?? Insane!!
as if whether your kid gets suspended is any of Obama’s business!?
we truly now live in a dictatorship
and it is not a particularly benevolent one, either....
It’s now hunting season for the school thugs against innocent little sheep kids. Thanks to the Rats.
Nope. Holder and Obastard would be the first of many to tell you that would be "acting white." You can't put one over on "the man" if you're acting white. Fo shizzle.
King Obama says we must have race-based “Social Justice” which translates into equality of outcome.
Schools will soon have to punish at least one innocent non-black student for every black student punished for unruly behavior or a criminal act.
Let the feral yoots run the asylum. That should bring upset scores.
I taught in a school district for 35 years and can verify that the district had a 12% (Amish) population and they were 95% of the discipline problem.The administrators were afraid to discipline these offenders because of the fear of being classified as racist.The only staff members who had success TEACHING were the ones with the “don’t fk with me” attitude. Holder is talking out of his arse in relation to his recommendations for discipline in schools.
I doubt there is any real causative effect between being suspended from school and ending up in prison.
They correlate, because the same conditions, attitudes, home situation, etc,
that result in suspensions for behavior
will result in imprisonment.
How about lowering the legal working age, and promoting apprenticeships? Nah, that might cost them some dependent voters.
To hell with the poor, right? A life-long Democrap vote is more important.
Quite right. If the special Police at the Miami high school where St. Skittles matriculated had treated him like a white kid, and arrested him for burglary when they had the goods on him, he would be alive today. Instead he got the kid glove treatment, and the rest is history.
Another whitewash. In the days before affirmative action you knew that a minority physician had to be very well qualified to graduate. AA changed that and it became virtually impossible for certain groups to flunk out of med school. The qualifications of minority doctors became highly suspect. They are now trying tho do the same with behavior. Before this policy if a kid hadnt been suspended or expelled he was certainly not a big trouble maker. With the new policy he could raise hell every day and it not be reflected in his school record. Behavioral records are now meaningless.
What will be Bastiat’s unseen consequences of this policy?
The Republican Leadership want no part of this!! ...so-infuriating
Seven congressman have signed onto the resolution thus far in addition to Olson. They are Reps. Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Phil Roe (R-TN), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Roger Williams (R-TX), Ted Yoho (R-FL), and Randy Weber (R-TX).
Anyone wanting on or off this ping list, please advise. Thanks.
You're welcome. I do continue to read about Rochester in Lonsberry's column because I enjoy the constant reminder of why I left.
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