But Bush says such calls for help often go unanswered by overwhelmed support staff, who are supposed to walk an out-of-control student out of the classroom and “intervene” to get a sense of the causes of the misbehavior. “We call and no one comes," she said. "Teachers have stopped calling.... We don’t feel any hope this system is going to change.”
The Behavior Education Plan, a rewrite of the school district’s previous discipline code, was designed to keep students in the classroom, reduce the number of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, and close a glaring disparity that sends far more African-American students from the classroom for disciplinary reasons than students of other races and ethnicities.... The new code has sharply reduced the number of out-of-school suspensions, although the racial disparity persists, school officials have reported....
“Just telling a teacher they need to figure out a plan for that student is not realistic because some of these kids have very big needs," Bush said.
May 21, 2015
Madison middle school teacher resigns because of the way the district's new discipline policy has worked.
"The behavior policy, implemented at the start of this school year, requires teachers to ask for outside help if they can’t control a misbehaving student."
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53 comments:
Maybe the teachers should use the Bear Attack confrontation scream method. It could not hurt.
Public school discipline plans are invariably a three shell Monte game with no pea. As an inner city public school teacher for 37 years the laughably ineffective public school discipline plan in the large urban city I taught in was a determining factor in sending my daughter to Catholic schools.
Addendum - public schools worked better when adults beat students with long pieces of holed wood wielded by grumpy WWII vets who had charged through German and Jap bullets - being scared of hurting the self esteem of 14 year olds wasn't part of the program. I loved the liturgy of "Two swats or two days son (suspension)". Invariably students proffered their asses instead of their time and parental knowledge of misdeeds.
We are being hit, we are being spat at. We have doors slammed on our fingers and toes, we’ve been pushed over, we’ve been kicked,” Margaret Stumpf, a fifth-grade special education teacher, told the board.
What would my Dad's reaction have been to a report that I spat on a teacher, or hit a teacher? Why aren't these kids' Dads doing the same?
Hmmmmm?
So the teacher says that staff are supposed to remove students from the classroom when they're disruptive, but that no one comes. The administration says the teachers need more "training" and "communication." Is the issue that there are insufficient support staff? That demands placed on the staff are too high? -- babysitting kids individually who would otherwise be sent home? -- so that they simply need way more individuals working as babysitters of misbehaving kids?
And what happens when they pull a kid out? It sound like, instead of getting a talking-to for their misbehavior, they're instead hearing, "we understand that you needed to hit your teacher because you have a difficult home life."
Black kids in public schools are disciplined at a disproportionately high rate compared to their overall percentage in schools because they commit a disproportionate number of disciplinary violations.
Black males are incarcerated at a disproportionately high rate compared to their overall percentage in society because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes.
When policy is that it's more important to keep disruptive students in the classroom than for other students to have an educational environment in which orderly behavior is expected, this result is not surprising.
They shouldn't be expelling fewer kids for behavior issues, they should be expelling more kids for behavior issues. If the kids don't want to be there and their parents can't (or won't) get them to behave in school, why are they there? It's supposed to be important for them to get an education, but why? They don't want it. Send 'em packing. Problem solved.
30 years ago, that's what schools did. I know - I was a pain in the ass high school student who was kicked out of three different schools. And I had it coming. Teachers and schools administrators would not allow me or anyone else to disrupt the classroom. If they had allowed it, I'd have made it my own personal circus. Just for the fun of it.
The school where Bush works, Jefferson Middle School, is just blocks away from where that still-unsolved neighborhood spray paint defacement occurred.
That's what they get fore blaming whites for the behavior problems of black kids.
*for
The same concern about disproportionate discipline by race exists in my locale. A teacher told me that the black students know that the teachers cannot discipline/report/suspend them for bad behavior for fear of the statistics, and the result is that their behavior is even worse, with no fear of consequence.
How's that working out? And why are the stats blamed (and attempted to be changed) rather that the reality behind the statistics?
Seems backwards to me.
Notice that the article doesn't once use the phrase "he". It's always "She" this, and "She" that.
Farmer,
I seem to recall that class size is a chronic complaint (and excuse) of teachers, or at least their unions. Perhaps you should have used the plural when saying "Problem solved."
And then we get this -
"But Bush says such calls for help often go unanswered by overwhelmed support staff,"
The call for even more hiring and blame the stingy, greedy taxpayer can't be far behind. Are they really "overwhelmed?" Or are they mostly inefficient and ineffective? I suspect the latter, and perhaps Bush was merely trying to be diplomatic in her choice of word.
Like Farmer,30 years ago I thought that stricter, not easier discipline was what was needed. Then I thought it would be condemning a half a generation of kids to failure as high school dropouts, so I changed my mind. Hindsight shows that it just lead to condemning an entire generation of kids to failure, because the disruptive kids learn nothing and prevent the others from learning as well.
From the article:
“We are being hit, we are being spat at. We have doors slammed on our fingers and toes, we’ve been pushed over, we’ve been kicked,” Margaret Stumpf, a fifth-grade special education teacher, told the board.
What’s more, a small group of disruptive students is exacerbating the misbehavior of others, Stumpf said. Still other students are frightened, she said, recounting the daily plea of “Miss Stumpf, I’m scared,” from one boy. Other students try to flee the classroom with bathroom excuses or visits to the nurse, she said.
Bad scene, and ultimately a dangerous one for some of the students if not the teachers.
"...close a glaring disparity that sends far more African-American students from the classroom for disciplinary reasons than students of other races and ethnicities"
The job of school administrators is to create policies that sound good, don't offend anyone, and can't be proven wrong until the next set of stats come out in a year or more.
Don't forget to close a glaring disparity that sends far fewer Asian students from the classroom for disciplinary reasons than students of other races and ethnicities.
See also: "Oakland to halt school suspensions for willful defiance":
“This is about reintegrating students into the classroom rather than excluding them from learning,” Wilson said in a letter to the community earlier Wednesday, which included his funding promise. “The work is worth it. Removing willful defiance and scaling up more restorative practices at schools throughout the district is incredibly important.” [my bold]
"Restorative practice" (who but a clueless educrat would come up with a phrase like this?) "requires victims and offenders to talk about the behavior and ways to address it." Grimly comic predictions for what these "talks" will consist of immediately spring to mind.
Deliberately creating conditions that result in the removal from these zoos of all children whose parents can find an alternative - I can't think of a better way raise support for public education, can you?
It doesn't work because it's not intended to be a solution. It's just a standard for manipulating the school's disciplinary statistics to conceal the problem.
Their actual job is providing acceptable cover stories that don't piss of the wrong activists. Fail to do that and you get crucified. Nobody gets fired for kids that aren't educated.
White kids are suspended three times as often as Asian kids by the racist anti-white teachers* in Madison.
*Obviously there can be no other cause or reason.
surfed said...
I loved the liturgy of "Two swats or two days son (suspension)".
In my high-school is wasn't rare for all the boys in a class to get swats if the average grade on some test sucked. Girls never got swats for anything.
In my high-school is wasn't rare for all the boys in a class to get swats if the average grade on some test sucked. Girls never got swats for anything.
Lazlo bait.
I think the "problem" kids in my all-white (3 blacks out of 500+!) high school were in Vo-Tech.
Clarification: The "problem" kids at my school were not black.
I remember the most terrifying moment of my public school education, in Grade 6. Where the teacher had clearly lost control of the class (he did not return next year). It was like a (mild) scene from "Lord of the Flies." And even as I enjoyed the crazy, I wondered, "where are the grown-ups? Where are the limits now?"
Not a good feeling. And we were all reasonably well-behaved kids. Our idea of crazy was fleets of foolscap airplanes and armpit flatulence. Today?
The formal content of educating the next generation is only a (small) part of the overall project. A decent respect for the opinion of mankind, and a moral centering linked somehow to civil deportment, are also key.
These kids do not appear to be getting even a ghost of a shadow of a simulacrum of that.
You know, eliminating men from teaching might have been a bad idea.
Having more men teaching these shitty little miscreants might make a difference.
30 years ago, that's what schools did. I know - I was a pain in the ass high school student who was kicked out of three different schools. And I had it coming. Teachers and schools administrators would not allow me or anyone else to disrupt the classroom. If they had allowed it, I'd have made it my own personal circus. Just for the fun of it.
And if they REALLY want to force them to behave, have "special" schools designed to handle disruptive kids. Schools were shit is not taken.
And if a student hits a teacher, I have no qualms with the teacher punching the kid back hard.
Barry Sanders20 said: Black kids in public schools are disciplined at a disproportionately high rate compared to their overall percentage in schools because they commit a disproportionate number of disciplinary violations.
Black males are incarcerated at a disproportionately high rate compared to their overall percentage in society because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes.
The school rules and laws need to be re-written to achieve the desired outcomes.
Book l'arnin' aint fer evrybody. If a kid isn't a scholar by middle school, he probably never will be. They need to be tracked to the appropriate vo-tech, manual arts training, or they need to get jobs.
When I was growing up, if you were too much of a problem at school, they sent you to alternative school. The rules at alternative school were different, and there was a lot more hands on work to keep students out of their seats and engaged while learning useful skills. So, problem or not, you got an education, and you didn't disrupt anybody.
(If you were a particularly hard case, you temporarily went to a special classroom with a teacher who was something like a drill sergeant. That classroom sometimes had no desks because they were taken away if students turned them over.)
Students at alternative school were allowed to smoke and curse. Upon hearing this, those of us in the seventh grade at regular school were both scandalized and filled with wonder.
surfed said...
Addendum - public schools worked better when adults beat students with long pieces of holed wood wielded by grumpy WWII vets who had charged through German and Jap bullets - being scared of hurting the self esteem of 14 year olds wasn't part of the program.
This was sometimes known as "applying the board of education to the seat of learning." It was quite effective. Many principals left their office door open so the sound of a paddling carried down the halls. Everyone heard it and knew what was happening.
Tank said...
What would my Dad's reaction have been to a report that I spat on a teacher, or hit a teacher? Why aren't these kids' Dads doing the same?
For many kids, there is no Dad in their lives. Even if there is a Dad, he knows that if he punishes the kid, he'll likely be getting a visit from Child Protective Services. The old time discipline of our childhoods (in school or at home) is now illegal, no matter how effective it was. Kids know it, and havoc is the result.
"some of these kids have very big needs"
Any organization that caters to the "very big needs" of very few individuals will ignore the smaller needs of the group as a whole - which is why it will fail.
"some of these kids have very big needs"
Any organization that caters to the "very big needs" of very few individuals will ignore the smaller needs of the group as a whole - which is why it will fail.
"some of these kids have very big needs"
Any organization that caters to the "very big needs" of very few individuals will ignore the smaller needs of the group as a whole - which is why it will fail.
I hate identification/proving I'm not a robot.
When I taught middle school, I supported this recommendation, at the end of the 8th grade, give the students a voucher good for 4 years of secondary education. If they came back next year, fine . If not, that's fine too. They'll come back when they find out that they need it. The added benefit is that they won't be there distracting other students and harassing teachers while they are busy growing up on the streets. They also won't have to take remedial classes in technical school to get a job.
I think school discipline is ripe for an undercover investigation.
This article is LOL funny. When Cheatham was named superintendent, the school board president, James Howard, said that she was visionary, passionate, collaborative and inclusive, and would narrow the achievement gap. So she has done all that. Whats the problem.
Also, this article is sexist because the superintendent is a woman. The teachers quoted are tea baggers who will benefit from Cheathams's plan to beef up communication and training.
Assuming that racial disparity results from unfair discipline by racist white teachers is a leap into Fantasyland by illiterate progressives who control our schools.
They can paint over the uninvolved parent(s) representing broken, often fatherless, black families and put the blame on us - such a simple effortless solution for yet another sticky societal problem.
There are a few cognisant teachers such Stephanie Bush and she hit the nail on the head naming the problem "Bad Parenting 101." Sadly, even she will not go so far as to criticize the faulty reasoning that begets yet another roomful of harassed and ineffective bureaucrats assembled to talk more nonsense to troubled kids. I am unsure why this group is better qualified than classroom teachers - but what I do know is that more administrative overhead is packed onto school system budgets.
Tank: "What would my Dad's reaction have been to a report that I spat on a teacher, or hit a teacher? Why aren't these kids' Dads doing the same?"
I suspect for most of them there is no dad in the home.
I was educated by the Christian Brothers. They inflicted pain. They dared parents to complain. And if there was a complaint the kid was asked to leave. Problem solved.
We were made to write an essay every single day of high school including the day before we graduated. There was never a day off. It was a gift for which I remain grateful.
Ken in SC
I like your suggestion. Mine was to issue every child a degree from an Ivy League college at birth and then let them go to school if they wanted.
As an inner city middle school teacher I've been shot at, assaulted, battered, spat at, spat on, cursed, called a racist and lied about. Civilians have no idea what truly goes on. But no one cares. If they did it wouldn't happen.
Gee, why have schools fallen apart so badly over the last 50 years? Can any social policies explain the utter breakdown of education, families, etc?
What would you expect to occur when you put half-savage feral tribesmen in classrooms with civilized kids?
Battery to technical college district or school district officers and employees
Whoever intentionally causes bodily harm to a technical college district or school district officer or employee acting in that capacity, and the person knows or has reason to know that the victim is a technical college district or school district officer or employee, without the consent of the person so injured, is guilty of a Class I felony.
Class I felony: A fine not to exceed $10,000 or imprisonment not to exceed 3 years and 6 months, or both.
Tank said...
"What would my Dad's reaction have been to a report that I spat on a teacher, or hit a teacher? Why aren't these kids' Dads doing the same?
Hmmmmm?"
No dad, as Paul said, but also, if you were to snatch the kid up bald-headed, as we like to say down south, the same teacher would likely report you to CPS. Catch 22.
Fernandinande said...
"In my high-school is wasn't rare for all the boys in a class to get swats if the average grade on some test sucked. Girls never got swats for anything."
Hey, I once got swats for talking in the lunch line - in the 3rd grade. No foolin'. ALso, once for chewing gum in athletics class in junior high. Ah, Texas schools in the 70s.
"The Behavior Education Plan, a rewrite of the school district’s previous discipline code, was designed to keep students in the classroom, reduce the number of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions, and close a glaring disparity that sends far more African-American students from the classroom for disciplinary reasons than students of other races and ethnicities"
Ah, in other words the point is to enable the school administration to avoid having unpleasant truths publicized, NOT to actually make things better.
Good to know.
I remember Mr. Bohn in jr. year history class. There was a quizz every week. God help you if your eyes strayed from your desk, because Mr.Bohn had a nasty habbit of picking up an object closest at hand and winging it at your head. If you were lucky it was an eraser. The one thing you didn't want to get hit with was his coffee cup.
He usually threw his coffee cup. He was not a particularly good shot, but somebody always got hit.
Easy fix: tally the ratio of black and non-black students, e.g. 5:1.
For every 5 black students suspended for bad behavior, suspend a non-black student for no reasons, call it unscheduled day off.
Problem solved.
These racist liberals don't care about right and wrong. Everything is about race.
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