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Expectations matter.

If you tread kids like criminals, they're more likely to act like criminals, unless you come down on them so hard it breaks their natural rebeliousness. The problem is when you try this, you inevitably run into a few real hard cases who only get worse when you impose rules. I was kind of like that back in my day; luckily I avoided serious trouble long enough to make it to more stable ground.

It's good to have zero tolerance plus alternative schools. Here if a kid brings a gun to school, drugs to deal, gets in a gang fight they're kicked out. They can still go to an alternative school --- but then there are some heavy rules --- parents must bring them and pick them up, parents must meet with the teachers any time the teacher requests, the kids must wear uniforms. If the parent doesn't wish to do any of this --- then the kid is out of school.

"Expectations matter."

This is true.

It's why the end of corporal punishment has inevitably led to this. If you expect kids to be disciplined and behave and insist on it in ways that lead to certain punishment for unruly behavior, you dont get unruly behavior. I speak as a father of 3 who has kids others marvel at. I am told they behave extremely well. Indeed. I marvel at how parents decide to let kids run wild and ruin their own lives, rather than take a small effort and insist kids live up to certain standards. It is in the end healthiest for the kids, parents, and others. But we dont do it out of a misbegotten 'concern' that discipline will somehow kill the 'spirit' (to do evil, mischief, and nonsense).

If you miseducate kids with Disney movies and other pap that tells them "just do it" is okay and kids are smarter than adults, and that misbehavior is okay and 'expected' ... well, you get what you expect: Kids who think they can talk back to any and all authority figures without consequence.

We've raised millions of kids that way in the past 2 decades , with parents willing accomplices of this mis-education, and the article above is a natural consequence.

"unless you come down on them so hard it breaks their natural rebeliousness." Uh, there is nothing natural about rebeliousness, that's another liberal myth. All behaviors that are not based on self-interest and our innate conscience are learned. When rebelliousness is made harmful to the kid, they tend not to rebel. If you doubt this, just visit other cultures (eg Japan) where expectations are vastly different wrt conformity.