Writes David Blaska, with a "barebones" report from the police chief, a note to the parents from the West High School principal, and a letter from an unnamed parent. Excerpt from the parent's letter:
My son said this was a very loud and aggressive happening involving a subset of the student population that he cannot help but notice and comment has also coincidentally been involved in all other altercations (including not just “verbal altercations” but also actual physical assaults and various melees including ones with torn-off hair strewn on the floor and a vast crowd of students teeming at the edges, filled with adrenaline, watching and getting thrills from the witnessing thereof).Read the whole thing.
… These altercations are seen as the NORM because students engaging in them are coddled and the peaceful majority of students are the real victims— living in constant awareness that for reasons unknown to them and that can and will never make sense to them — West High and the District are engaging in experimental, ill-advised, and dangerous tactics to essentially bend over backwards to not “offend” the OFFENDERS.
My son is also aware of and afraid, as are most students, that at any given moment, the PARENTS of the violent pupils can and HAVE enjoined the fray themselves, coming upon school grounds....
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The same thing is happening in Minneapolis.
The result of another Obama Dept of Education policy to ensure that certain minority are not disciplined at a higher rate than other groups.
It does sound like everyone is dancing around the issue of race and potentially, as pointed out by MK, race-based policies.
The leftwing bureaucracy caves to the bullies and the bully parents of bullies.
This is no different than the out of control students when integration was enacted. It stopped when it became too likely to be injured, those that caused the problems were arrested, and the rest of the students eventually went back to class. It took a heavy handed effort by the schools and police, but it worked.
It is happening everywhere, even in elementary schools. They go to great lengths to hide misbehavior and intimidate teachers from telling the truth about what is happening and which students are causing the disruptions.
Without reading yet -- is this "subset" by any chance ethnically identifiable and no one wants to mention that detail?
Well, open it up or shut it down, right? The parents of Madison have gotten what they voted for.
Wait....Black folks? Not hatin’, just sayin’
Even Orwell couldn’t have imagined where we are now. It’s just too weird.
Keep whistling past the graveyard Madison, but be sure to embrace the suck that you created.
We don't allow discipline in public schools.
The bully whines to his/her bully parents because "teacher tried to discipline me over nothing", a lawsuit is filed, and the courts side with the bully and the bully parents. Result: Public schools cannot do a dang thing to stop bad behavior.
I've heard that "torn-off hair" is a signature characteristic of the alt-right.
Having read -- No mentions other than the police report mentioning three of three specific individuals as "AAF"... hmmm.
Parents don't parent and expect the schools to provide the parenting. The bureaucracy makes a bad parent.
PERHAPS the policy is an attempt (albeit severely and horribly misguided) to not make things even worse and to just accept that certain subsets of pupils have within them an innate lack of self-discipline that just has to be accepted as a fact of life — an attitude which in and of itself is terrible and which does NOT seek to expect the best and bring out the best in all students.
The terrifying slow erosion of rationality giving way to barbarism, order giving way to chaos, hierarchy giving way to ochlocracy has been repeated throughout history.
Interesting how Identity politics necessarily creates other, opposing Identities. Who would have guessed?
...and dangerous tactics to essentially bend over backwards to not “offend” the OFFENDERS.
Worth a bold
U.S. Department of Education
Office for Civil Rights
January 8, 2014
Dear Colleague:
The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice (Departments) are issuing this guidance to assist public elementary and secondary schools in meeting their obligations under Federal law to administer student discipline without discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin.
+
That was Deep State talk for" "Discriminate on the basis of race when administering student discipline."
Presidents' Day? Why not a holiday?
Don't put CNN in charge of our public schools. It will only encourage more bullying.
Hunter said...
three specific individuals as "AAF"... hmmm.
American Advertising Federation? Amateur Athletic Foundation? Alien Ant Farm?
Madison caved to the Young Black and Gifted (two out of three ain't bad) crowd. Nothing they can do now. Someday in the not too distant future they will wonder what the fuck happened.
I am more amazed every day by how prescient we were when we decided not to enroll our children in the American public indoctrination system. They haven't been shot, they haven't been beaten, they are happy and healthy and have good sense. I thank God we didn't hand them over to the filthy lying scum running the public schools. And I'm an atheist!
The coddling that the parent mentions is part of "restorative justice." Unfortunately, it seems to be replacing rather than enhancing actual justice.
The winner takes over the women.
From the link:
My son is also aware of and afraid, as are most students, that at any given moment, the
PARENTS of the violent pupils can and HAVE enjoined the fray themselves, coming upon school grounds or adjacent — to add their fists to the fury, to add their own poor choices to the equation — to add their own adult level danger which can potentially include being armed.
That's an additional level of disturbing.
"My son and most of his peers have come to feel there is no safe space from this subset of pupils — and that it is just a fact of life — almost as if living in a war zone —that it is only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose again, They are shell shocked, living with PTSD, and living in constant fear because they KNOW that nothing will come of it when these things happen – and they KNOW that is exactly why they KEEP happening."
I think her son can expect his life to become a living Hell now that his mother sent that letter to that Democratic Party functionary.
involving a subset of the student population
Let me guess.............
It's all part of The Plan;
"The vicious MS-13 gang, stifled under former President George W. Bush, exploded during the Obama era fueled by 300,000 illegals, including those given amnesty under the DACA program, and has now been linked to crimes in 22 states, according to a new report."
Enjoy it while you can, Whitey.
How much of this is race, and how much of it is class tracking closely with race?
I would bet that the Madison white student population comes mostly from college-educated families associated in some way with the University. Even the naughtiest among them hew pretty closely to middle-class norms and can get thru a college prep curriculum just by speaking the standard English they hear at home, parroting phrases and concepts they get from PBS at the dinner table and NPR in the car, etc.
The black student population comes mostly from working or non-working families who fled Milwaukee for a place with a better school system, but who don’t get middle class values or folkways modelled for them at home. The college prep curriculum (which is probably the only curriculum available) remains a mystery. The school discipline processes, meant for slightly wayward middle class kids, don’t work on kids who have learned very different methods of conflict resolution. They certainly don’t work when they are overloaded with such a large proportion of malefactors.
Back in the day, regardless of the color of the students in olved, the working-class students went thru an academic track designed for them. Classes teaching useful skills; alpha male teachers; teacing styles with more regimentation, sacrificing the development of critical thinking for the keeping of the peace.
But now, kids with no aptitude or interest in a college prep curriculum are forced to compete in it, fall farther and farther behind, and take advantage of the looser discipline of a critical-thinking factory to lash out in the way they’ve learned at home. Plus, race becomes a reliable shorthand for class, aggravating the whole mess.
Why is anyone surprised?
JSM
The BATF and FBI should do to public schools what they did to the Branch Davidian compound.
Any pattern to who the offenders are? Just curious.
Wild melees and brawls were a daily occurrence at the inner city school where I taught. Fave wild girl gang hallway brawl quote: "Yo! Bitch I got yo' weave!" I promptly hauled ass back to my classroom and hid. I was paid to teach social studies - not to break up fight between rival ethnic gangs of grown girls.
This is why school choice is so popular.
Don't you dare notice!
Probably another dose or two of "restorative justice" will cure what ails these schools.
Nice people don't notice, Professor.
Noticing--or anyway letting on that you've noticed--is ugly.
Don't be ugly, Professor, and please don't help spread ugliness.
It was happening in the Washington area suburbs 15 - 20 years ago. I don’t know how “educators” can educate when they seem so incapable of learning.
@ John Mosby: The black student population comes mostly from working or non-working families who fled Milwaukee for a place with a better school system
Close, but the Dane County/Madison Housing Authority Section 8 programs were a conduit for people leaving Chicago for "better schools" in Madison.
Low-Income Housing in Madison
“I moved out of Chicago to come here to have a better life,” Nikki Johnson said as she watched her daughter color her favorite cartoon character.
Samuel Roberts also left Chicago and has been in Madison since 1996.
“I quit a 17-year job to help my mom because I don’t want to see her go into a nursing home,” Roberts said.
Response to Dane County opening Section 8 waiting list 'overwhelming'
Dicke said another stereotype is that people are coming from Chicago to “take advantage of our very liberal assistance policies.” According to the data, 7.3 percent of applicants were from Chicago, while 87.5 percent were from Wisconsin, most of those from Madison.
To me, 7.3% coming from Chicago is a significant number.
What an alarming thing to read. Then I feel gratitude that my kids have graduated already. I'd like first-hand knowledge of what's going on, so maybe I'll ask some neighbor kids.
The news media thinks the public's perception of "fake news" started with Trump. But anyone who reads news stories knows that for years certain details have been conspicuously absent or certain actions attributed to "teens". Every such story puts another nail in the coffin.
And how can we fix problems we can't even talk about?
When lawlessness is being enforced by the authority you will need your own AR-15. Wisconsin has a big league problem.
But have hope. As soon as Soros's $$$ runs out, all will return to a level of sanity.
john mosby said...
"How much of this is race, and how much of it is class tracking closely with race?"
Let's see, Detroit, South Chicago, Gary, Philadelphia, Baltimore, ....
Looks like 100% race, john. And BTW, you're the one who brought up race. I don't believe anyone identified the race involved. No need. By now, we all know the race involved as soon as we read the headline.
Almost all cities in the U.S., particularly in blue states with cushy welfare benefits, have this problem. These cities are doomed.
This is why school choice is so popular.
And home schooling.
The Obama administration put a heabvy thumb on the scale with vouchers.
Now, after a six-year bureaucratic and legal tangle in which school voucher advocates said they were stonewalled by Washington, the mystery has been solved. And the answer, they say, is alarming: The federal operation was sparked and practically run behind the scenes by liberal opponents of the program.
Documents released in December through litigation by school-choice advocates showed that lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union and Disability Rights Wisconsin had prodded federal prosecutors to go after the program, which enables low- and moderate-income Milwaukee parents to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to send their children to private schools. Nearly 30,000 students participate in the program.
The feds fought the Milwaukee voucher program,
Does anyone know when, and what precipitated, the black culture turning from the american dream to the thug culture we see today? Coming out of the fifties and sixties, we seemed to be coming together. Even the war protests were multicultural. How did it come about that blacks put each other down for acting white.
How did it get to the point that wearing your waistband below your butt like prisoners became something to aspire to? Even in the white population thugs are admired. It spawned the rap culture and became indelible.
I wish there was something we could point to and fix. Saying, "this is what happened, this is why, this is how we fix it."
"for reasons unknown to them and that can and will never make sense to them" Hmm, so "unknown" reasons "will never make sense"?
Methinks (sorry) that the reasons are known, and people know why they "make sense," even though they also know they are senseless.
John Mosby said. . . How much of this is race, and how much of it is class tracking closely with race?
Although we are seeing the same thing in other places (MN, Broward County), don't forget that both Wisconsin and Madison are outliers when it comes to African American outcomes. Blacks do worse relative to whites (income, unemployment, incarceration, etc.) in WI and Madison than almost anywhere else in the entire USA. In many statistical studies, WI finishes in 50th place. By dropping discipline in schools progressives are simply trying to make sure that Wisconsin maintains its exalted 50th place position. Progressives - continuing the work that the KKK can no longer do.
https://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-considered-one-worst-states-racial-disparities
"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
Political correctness will ensure that no honest discussion of school discipline occurs in Madison.
The school board and the city council will authorize consultants to study the issues. Vague and highly progressive recommendations will be made. Expensive new programs will be commissioned. Ann's $17,000 property taxes will be raised.
Rinse and repeat.
I really can't add anything to the discussion of the destruction of the Public school system.
I'm surprised nobody has yet remarked on this:
Irony of ironies, barely a week after a similar disturbance at La Follette High School and the school shootings at Parkland, Florida, the Madison School board is considering doing away with cops in schools
"Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result."
You civilians are what? Surprised? Go substitute in inner city schools for a few weeks. This wild overt school violence has been going on for almost three decades now. If I listed the acts of violence I've personally witnessed as a public school teacher you'd be readi g all week.
Blogger Annie C said...
"Does anyone know when, and what precipitated, the black culture turning from the american dream to the thug culture we see today?"
Yes, we know. And talking about it will get you labeled as a "racist".
"Does anyone know when, and what precipitated, the black culture turning from the american dream to the thug culture we see today?"
Annie C at 10:40, To point at something you wouldn't go far afield to look at LBJ's Great Society programs in stabbing mortally the concept of personal responsibility, and in its train the black family structure. Yep, white culture has been adversely affected but not to the same proportions as black culture. To look at LBJ is of course to look at the Democrat Party and of course FDR. While Wilson can be seen as the one to begin the real disparagement of the Constitution and its overarching theme of limiting, not the people, but the created government, it was FDR (and the Congresses of the 1930s) who really unhitched the limits on government, and in this he was hugely helped by a Supreme Court, in the case of West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), which greatly expanded federal overreach. It's been off to the races since.
To sum up. Too much government. Not enough personal responsibility.
Some children arrive at school unwilling to participate in the prevailing culture that says you have to behave yourself because if you don't, your parents are going to make sure you change your mind.
If those "some children" make up 50 percent of a school's enrollment, it's a lost cause. If they make up 20 percent of enrollment, it's very, very dicey. Ten percent, maybe it will work. Five percent, things should be fine.
It varies by race but is not necessarily a function of race. Family matters. Catholics have kept open inner-city schools in locations where there are virtually no Catholics and no white people left. Parents -- and increasingly, grandparents -- pony up for relatively affordable tuitions and make use of scholarships raised by donations in other parts of the diocese. The schools are orderly and fine. I know this because I have visited some of them.
It's a "root causes" thing, and the root cause is incompetent parents. In a poor white neighborhood, you will find five to 25 percent of children being raised by incompetent parents. In poor communities where 70 percent or more of children are born to and raised by uneducated single mothers, the first job is to educate the parents because without them, traditional schooling will not work.
You'd think after several generations of this we'd learn something.
Addendum: And a lot of the violence is covered up in the school so it that it isn't reported as assaults or assaults and batteries, etc. This way racial and gender priorities are kept in line with the "narrative" the district wants.
Drill SGT "Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result." Similarly, Satayana's definition of a fanatic as someone who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his aim.
But I'm sick of thinking that progressives are just insane, fanatical or stupid.
Here's a better metaphor: The relation of the American progressive movement to blacks is Munchausen syndrome by proxy; the so called caring people cause the illness or injury in a vulnerable people so that they can increase their sense of superiority and importance for being the people who profess to care the most about their plight.
Crazy Jane said...
"It's a "root causes" thing, and the root cause is incompetent parents. In a poor white neighborhood, you will find five to 25 percent of children being raised by incompetent parents. In poor communities where 70 percent or more of children are born to and raised by uneducated single mothers, the first job is to educate the parents because without them, traditional schooling will not work.
You'd think after several generations of this we'd learn something."
Yeah. I would, in fact, think that after several generations of this, you would learn something. But apparently not.
A significant fraction of the students in the MBA program that I taught in for eight years was comprised of teachers who were trying to get out of urban schools.
I remember on older black man who was a high school teacher in the Trenton school system who told me he was regularly threatened physically by students and their parents. He said that the school system did nothing to protect him, or even maintain discipline in any meaningful way. The school was run by the thugs and their thug parents. He couldn't wait to get out.
Something that struck me was the difference between my 1st generation African students and my African American ones. My African students almost without exception were serious about their studies and did very good work. I also had many good African American students. But I also had many who showed up for class late or not at all, did not complete assignments, left class early, and basically expected to do as little possible and get a good grade. Keep in mind that what I am speaking about here are undergraduate students from the Philadelphia public school system.
The problem here is not race, but culture. There is something very destructive going on that I can't put my figure on in the urban black culture. Is it a culture of despair or of entitlement?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Addendum: And a lot of the violence is covered up in the school so it that it isn't reported as assaults or assaults and batteries, etc. This way racial and gender priorities are kept in line with the "narrative" the district wants.
Which explains Nicholas Cruz's being able to go to a school and kill 17 people, even though he'd been in trouble for a long time.
There’s another issue and that money.
Some states, I’m not talking about Wisconsin afaik have stupid rules where it pays to keep your kids dumb because your bennies get upped. I think it was Kentucky.
This is why contrary to the perceived wisdom of the media, academia and polite cuck opinion "white supremcy" is the only possible path for a reasonable society.
There has never been a nation control controlled by blacks that did not devolve into a shithole. See Zimbabwe, Hati or Baltimore.
The Asian model also works but only in a very segregated and homogenous way. See Japan or China.
Whites and others who "act white" are the only way to have a country worth living in for the normals.
A perfect control group for this hypotheses is Sweden where a white country is being overrun by a non white culture. Shithole status is right around the corner.
To save the virtue signalers some time.....this is racist. Realistic and true but you would deem it racist and not fit for discussion.
Do t you just love “progressive” Madison?
And the parents who agree and vote for these policies will not connect the dots. It’ll be more like how did that happen? Throw more money!
Beginning in, say, the 1970s, millions of students across several generations have experienced violence and threats in school of which they cannot not speak.
I know I have my war stories. But, officially, they never happened.
None of the kids had a phone?
Where's the video?
It's the Amish, right?
If I was in charge, I would get rid of 9th through 12th grades. Four options: College preparatory, Peace Corps, Colonial Army, or Apprenticeship. Each two years in length minimum.
This baby shit, Football stadium jocks with miniskirt girls shaking their ass bullshit ain't working. It causes too many slackers to go insane.
LOL
Etienne for President!
Surfed is 100% correct.
My wife is a high school teacher. When she was still a student in the teaching track, she worked with a mentor who had been part of a program called "Teach for America", where aspiring teachers get credits for interning at urban school districts. This particular fellow had been posted at a high school on the South Side of Chicago.
According to my wife, this fellow told her that he'd rather sweep floors for a living than ever teach in an urban district again. It was the worst 9 months of his life, and almost made him abandon his goal of being a teacher and turn to a different career entirely.
My wife is very vocal about what parts of the country she is willing to move to when we eventually tire of Illinois. Currently we are in a 98% white town south of Chicago, semi-rural, but the black population is growing and so are the discipline problems (and the prevalence of police sirens on weekends). I wish I could say that these things aren't related, but I fear they are. Anyway, each location we look at, the first thing she looks for is the racial demographics. She wishes to continue teaching, but she wants to be a teacher - not a warden.
It is the top concern for her, and myself.
Kids from Watts were bused to my "Valley" Jr. Hi and Hi schools in the mid to late '70's. Fights were common, including a couple wild melee's in the lunch tables. Back in those days, the white kids gave as good as we got. Also, many of these grudges were settled on the football practice field. Also, the fights were broken up, no harm, no foul. The kids will sort it out, the problem are the silly adults on all sides.
Any pattern to who the offenders are? Just curious
Mental health problems. Haven't you been paying attention?
In our school district, the discipline problems are among poorer kids with behavior problems. Rich kids who have behavior problems get sent to private schools.
This sounds exactly like the inner city schools I went to in the mid-80s. If there was one fight during lunch there would be three. As the letter from the parent mentions, adrenaline would go through the roof as the mob watched the first fight and the heightened adrenaline led to the subsequent fights. People who haven't witnessed this have no idea what it is like. Most of you adults would feel very unsafe in this type of situation. These are not the playground scuffles many of you remember from your childhood. These are full out fights among "children" who are at or near adult level of strength. Now imagine being a child in this situation. It is truly amazing how children are able to adapt to such situations and get through them, but the effects can be lasting. Going to a Catholic high school changed my life (yes, everything I described was in middle school), but I wonder what might have been if I my parents had put me into a better environment earlier. I was an outgoing, "leader" type of kid in elementary school. That inner city middle school taught me to keep my head down and be quiet lest I draw unwelcome attention. Forget about being involved in anything at school - you got out and home to safety asap.
Some of you may think I exaggerate about the fights in middle school. When I went, the school district still held kids back, so we had some kids who were 16 years old in middle school. These were the kids most likely to be involved in the brawls.
Last year my daughter was assaulted in a public high school classroom by a (white) young man with special needs who was being mainstreamed for some of his classes. He was accompanied by an aide (the wrestling coach). She would come home every now and then talking about things he would say--crazy things--not in touch with reality at all. He often would have to leave the class because of the disruptions. One morning he just went off the deep end yelling that he had a gun in his backpack and was going to kill them all. He hit and kicked 9 students before the aide could restrain him. In the process he slammed both fists on my very slight daughter's back, tearing some ligaments in her neck. We got a call from an assistant principal later in the day saying there had been an incident in her class but not going into detail(she had already texted us about it) The students in the class were admonished by the special needs teacher who came in to gather the boy's things right after the incident for telling her he said he had a gun in his backpack. Then they were instructed by the principal to not say anything or post anything on social media about the incident under threat of punishment. I was very angry--not at the young man--i believe he was schizophrenic-- but at the school for putting my daughter in danger. I talked to a teacher about the incident and she said none of them had wanted him in their classroom before the incident because of his violent tendencies--they knew, but they mainstreamed him anyway. Why? I couldn't then and still don't understand why they would choose to endanger many students to accommodate one.
The problem is that you have people in school who should be in juvie.
But disparate impact and affirmative action policing has led to the unfortunate situation where schools have turned into shotholes.
I wonder why?
Nah. I know why.
Blogger langford peel said...
"This is why contrary to the perceived wisdom of the media, academia and polite cuck opinion "white supremcy" is the only possible path for a reasonable society."
Well, I fear you are right, but I hope you're wrong, because that train has left the station. It does seem that more and more white people are coming to realize that individual blacks can be great people, but the "black community" is a festering hole of criminal dysfunction, that destroys whatever it engulfs. Here they come, and there we go, for three generations now. I don't see that changing, but maybe we can at least stop feeling guilty about it, and stop letting public policy be set by reckless "elites" who very carefully arrange to avoid the havoc their "enlightened" policies wreak on the rest of us.
Why? I couldn't then and still don't understand why they would choose to endanger many students to accommodate one.
The law says they have to.
I am technology support at a very small rural school district. We have very few minority students but we are starting to see the same sorts of behavior here. We have 65% of our students on free or Reduced lunches and the problem kids seem to be from that demographic. I graduated from this district as have my kids who are gone and moved away. It is Much Worse than it was a decade ago. I spent 5 years running the district in school suspension room and most kids were there for swearing or other non dangerous behavior. Now it's drugs and violence that get them suspended. Things that used to get them tossed out altogether. But the law has changed so that kids have to stay in until they are 18 so they can't drop out and can't be tossed. As bad as they seem to be here, it's nothing like what my nephew experiences in LA. He teaches AP math and has the "good kids" and still can't wait until his Teach for America contract is up so he can leave.
Is it those vegetarian Jews acting up again?
Langford Peel, the problem with juvie is that most often the only thing the kids there learn are new ways to commit crimes, new illegal hustles, and tricks to avoid getting caught. Now, yeah, everyone in juvie is there because they got caught somehow or other, but everyone probably has helpful suggestions about times they should've been caught but weren't.
Children who chronically misbehave, regardless of race, and who seem to be aiming right for the so-called "school to prison" pipeline, ought to be sent to a military-type school, where rigid discipline is enforced by tough men who are allowed to use some measure of corporal punishment. Discipline and learning basic life skills are all that should be taught until a given student breaks and becomes cooperative, at which point they would enter a basic academic curriculum. If they slip up, it's back to the "boot". If they complete that curriculum with ZERO issues, it's on to a more rigorous curriculum of their choice - something to prepare them for a possible entry into the workforce, or to prepare them for enrollment at a junior college (where, if they do well on their own, would be an easy stepping stone to a genuine 4-year college to finish their degree). But thru the whole process until graduation into either the workforce or a jr college, any slips result in a period of time spent just being drilled in discipline.
BTW, there should be no physical attributes to this discipline. If they want to run laps or do pushups, they can do that on their own. Last thing we need is a school full of toughened up thugs and punks. I'm talking things like "sweep the whole hall, and then redo it, until I say stop" or "hey, it's raining out - go mop up the tennis courts". No video games, no cellphone, and biweekly contact with parents (for those who seem to be behaving).
Harsh, yup. Needed - I dunno, but what we've got now ain't working.
Melissa said...
"I talked to a teacher about the incident and she said none of them had wanted him in their classroom before the incident because of his violent tendencies--they knew, but they mainstreamed him anyway. Why? I couldn't then and still don't understand why they would choose to endanger many students to accommodate one."
Because it isn't about educating anyone, it's about getting paid to educate everyone. The more animals in the zoo, the more money for the zoo-keepers.
Here we can talk. But in the larger world where differences can be made, no one will talk. They dance around truths afraid to offend.
I am so sorry for our country. If we can't name a problem because someone might take offense it is no different than a woman putting up with a handsy boss because she needs the job, or a child unable to say anything about his uncle because Mommy will get mad.
We are lost if we can't speak with honesty.
It's sad.
JSM: How much of this is race, and how much of it is class tracking closely with race?
I bet the answer to that question is out there in available stats, and has been for some time. As with race vs. class re test scores, though, it's not a question most people want answered. So "everybody knows" it's a really a class thing.
Now, if it is a race thing, it would probably be possible, under certain conditions, to deal successfully with the problem while maintaining the social fiction that it's entirely a class thing. (It's always possible to come up with proxy variables for X, and and not be too curious about disentangling cause and effect.)
Unfortunately, we don't live under such conditions, since our legal system now assumes, disastrously, that "disparate impact" is *always* caused by racism.
There is no solution under the current dispensation. The only thing decent parents (of any race) can do is find some way to get their kids out of these schools. And whether they are able to do that *is* a class thing.
@Kyzernick: One Teach for America bemedalled Aghan Army vet quit on DAY ONE before lunch. Said he take terrorists anyday. At least in Afghanistan he could fight back.
A week of serious chaos in Madison is 1/10 of everyday in many urban schools. Those schools would love to have Madison style chaos.
@Gahrie The school has a program for special needs students on school grounds, but most of the students aren't in class with the mainstream kids--they attend their own classes. I don't know why this particular kid was in classes with the mainstream given his violent behavior.
No discipline at home. Now no discipline at the schools
What could possibly go wrong?
"There is no solution under the current dispensation. The only thing decent parents (of any race) can do is find some way to get their kids out of these schools. And whether they are able to do that *is* a class thing."
There is an answer.
Sub rosa segregation.
I would tell everyone here about me dodging large caliber (.357 Dirty Harry Special) gunfire in a school classroom in 1990 but my PTSD would come back. I will say this: Dancing to bullets as the patter a classroom is no fun.
Annie C said...
"We are lost if we can't speak with honesty."
And that is exactly why any attempt to speak the truth is shouted down with cries of "Racism! Racism! White supremacy!". Because they know that as long as they can keep us from identifying the problem and discussing it honestly, we are indeed lost. And that is what they fervently desire.
Then they were instructed by the principal to not say anything or post anything on social media about the incident under threat of punishment. I was very angry--not at the young man--i believe he was schizophrenic-- but at the school for putting my daughter in danger.
Laughner, the schizophrenic teenager who shot Gabby Gifford about a 1/2 mile from our house. was disruptive in school and there were many complaints about him but his mother worked for the Pima County sheriff and concealed all the complaints.
Of course, Gifford and her obnoxious husband have made a second career out of gun ban lobbying.
The school has a program for special needs students on school grounds, but most of the students aren't in class with the mainstream kids--they attend their own classes. I don't know why this particular kid was in classes with the mainstream given his violent behavior
Special ed law requires the "least restrictive environment" and "mainstreaming" as much as possible. I bet the special ed student's parents requested a change in assignment, and there is a good chance that had an advocate to encourage them.
I'd bet my bottom dollar that Cruz was identified as special ed/Severely emotionally disturbed and was mainstreamed. He couldn't handle it, was expelled and then left to drift until he acted out.
I don't know why this particular kid was in classes with the mainstream given his violent behavior.
The Laguna Niguel school district in Orange County CA is mainstreaming kids at parental demand.
One teacher was having to irrigate a kid's feeding tube.
langford peel said...
"There is an answer. Sub rosa segregation."
Yes, and that is the "answer" we have been pursuing for three generations. We rely on housing prices and tacit understandings to keep "them" at bay, and when that fails, we flee. Of course, the people it mostly fails for are the poor. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi don't have to worry about the "black community" moving into their neighborhoods. No one breaks into their cars at night, or punches them in the face for their smartphone. They don't send their kids to the schools their "enlightened" policies are destroying. They can sit in comfort and call their victims "racists".
Regular Headline
"Madison High Schools Are Erupting In Chaos"
Prog Headline:
"There was a commotion in the guinea pig cage."
Surfed, I believe it. My wife didn't go into too many details about what her mentor had experienced. She did tell me that if she'd gone thru a similar trial by fire, she would not be a teacher anymore. Another program (not Teach for America - I don't remember what this one was called) tried to recruit her because she is a science teacher (honors level physics, chem, and the regular versions of both) and a certain district in Gary, Indiana, was desperately short on science teachers. They even offered her a juicy bonus if she would agree - enough to basically pay off almost half her student debt (she'd graduated less than a year before).
She refused and stopped taking their calls.
You got to have your priorities.
My wife now teaches at the same school she graduated from years ago. She just became the Science Department Chair for the entire district - youngest Dept Chair in the district's history.
She is an amazing woman. I'm glad she is still teaching and didn't go thru one of those urban horroshow programs. It's what she was born to do and she's super good at it.
involving a subset of the student population
Three guesses.
And the first two don't count.
We used to be afraid of our parents. Of their disappointment, their punishment, their disapproval. To this day I get somewhere 5 minutes early because my Mom instilled that in me and she would roll over in her urn if I didn't. I still care what they think of me many, many years after they have passed.
And the kids I grew up with were the same way, black, white, asian, jew, christian. All of them.
But I think two things happened. The touchy-feely crowd grew a voice and suddenly discipline was a bad thing. I remember my mother-in-law lectured me about never saying no to my two year old boy. She didn't want me to inhibit his natural exuberance.
When her son popped me in the snot locker for a sarcastic (but very funny) comment I made about his car, I stood there with a broken nose wishing someone would have inhibited his natural exuberance.
And the other thing was when the recession hit in the 70s. Families that could not make it because Dad was out of work and could only get welfare if Mom was single. I saw families break up over that. God it was sad.
But it all came down to family. And now kids have no family, except the government I guess.
At my mixed race high school blacks were the most violent students. And there were a lot of violent black students, girls as well boys. By "a lot" I don't mean 'a disproportionate number relative to the total student population"; I mean, a lot. Too many black were violent racist bullies and thugs, and the fact that my HS was located in an inner city neighborhood only exacerbated the problem for white students. Attending that high school was daily adventure, and not in a good way.
My wife has similar stories of San Francisco schools of the 1960s-70s. Extreme bodily harm even in the fourth grade - campaigns of terrorism - one kid had her face dragged along rough concrete, requiring stitches and resulting in permanent disfigurement. And the girls at least as dangerous as the boys.
Rabel: You got to have your priorities.
Jesus, that link. Grotesque.
Michael K said...One teacher was having to irrigate a kid's feeding tube.
Why didn't he/she say it wasn't in their union contract and flat-out refuse. What goo are these public employee unions?
Identity politics necessarily creates other, opposing Identities
Judge people by the "color" of their skin, rather than the content (e.g. principles) of their character. Diversity a.k.a. racism, sexism, congruence ("="). We're all a colorful clump of cells, until deemed worthy, then unworthy, selectively. The left's religious doctrines are a clear and progressive risk to civil and human rights.
This is why school choice is so popular.
This is why parents sacrifice their pursuit of wealth, pleasure, and leisure, to invest in a better neighborhood, with a better class (i.e. character) of people, in order to reduce the risk and increase the opportunity for their sons and daughters.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a racist.
From Rabel's link above I learned that Madison Metropolitan School District is a sanctuary school district. Go to the "compiled resources" link for immigrant students and you'll happily read the following:
Student and family immigration status is confidential: Under no circumstance should staff ask a student or family about their immigration status or ask a question that may lead families to self-disclose their status. Do not make assumptions about their status. If you learn of a student or family’s immigration status, do not share that information with anyone in any way, including recording such information in our data systems or email.
Communication with federal agencies or officials is prohibited: Staff may not initiate communication to federal agencies or officials about a student’s or family’s confidential information, including actual or perceived immigration or citizenship status. Staff will deny any request by immigration agents for information or access to a school,. If an agent requests information or access, immediately contact your principal and the principal shall contact the Superintendent.
Althouse:
Did you note the inability of the authors to note that human agency was involved?
Were the schools erupting? Like Mt Saint Helens?
Or were humans starting and joining violence against other humans?
I went to West High School in Minneapolis in the late 1970s. The student body was 50% black, 25% native American, and 25% white.
The first day I attended, there was a race riot in the lunchroom. Somebody bumped somebody in line, and then people started hitting each other over the head with lunch trays. The teacher "monitors" ran away and called the police from the teachers' lounge. I never went into the lunchroom after that. Too much drama.
From Rabel's link'
"We are a school district that values and celebrates diversity unequivocally."
Now see, we need to get to a place where that statement is a firing offense. While people can get paid a middle-class salary to write idiotic, destructive drivel like that, there is no hope for the public schools. The public schools should be a place where people who can't afford a good education can at least get a decent one. And if they can't behave themselves, and allow others to get an education, throw 'em out in the street. It's where they're going to end up anyway. The idea that everyone must receive an education is pernicious nonsense.
It's the Amish, right?
One day, yes. The social liberals are doing their best to isolate, denigrate, and provoke them. The easiest approach is to mock their social (e.g. family) practices. For example, the derogatory terms: "flyover", "bitter clinger", are all premeditated efforts to undermine the stature and cohesiveness of these deplorable people.
My patients who teach in the Akron Public school system tell me similar stories, even in elementary schools. They don't get any back up from the administration. The teachers in Akron recently protested over the state of affairs. The response of the administration was to accuse them of racism.
Just remember everyone: It takes a village to raise a child!
I believe someone wrote a book about it.
Diversity of color, not individuals. The left's concept of diversity denies individual dignity (e.g. character, principles), in favor of color, sex, orientation, and other incidental features. Diversity doctrine is a subset of political congruence. The bigotry inherent to [color] diversity is a first-order forcing of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and progressive (e.g. generational) prejudice.
Madison, like Europe with their immigration, will destroy itself. It's already too late. All the proof of the error of their ways is right in front of them. But they refuse to admit they're wrong. It's going to end up like DC.
Danno said...
Michael K said...One teacher was having to irrigate a kid's feeding tube.
Why didn't he/she say it wasn't in their union contract and flat-out refuse. What goo are these public employee unions?
Maybe that's how I heard about it. Some teachers spend most of the time with three kids and the rest are on their own.
We used to be afraid of our parents.
Character development begins at home. It doesn't help that both mother and father are simultaneously absent, while the popular culture normalizes doctrines that excuse liberal and irresponsible behavior (e.g. Pro-Choice), deny individual dignity and intrinsic value, and advance dreams of redistributive and retributive change.
We're not South Africa. Not yet. While they are pitting people against each other, women against men, mothers against their babies, white against white, black against black, and ever combination thereof, they have failed to force the mass abortion fields, and pervasive dysfunction, that are common to "great leaps forward".
Now, more than ever, we need our weave.
My brother is a ~20 year special ed teacher in Chester County PA.
Last year a teenage student injured a school admin so badly in a fight - in a deliberate and well-witnessed attack on the admin who was not attempting to restrain the student - that the admin spent 6 months in recovery for brain injury.
The admin still has not fully recovered mental ability. The student was back in school the next day.
That admin had been promoting a policy of non-interference, non-restraint of students, and non-punishment. Now that admin is still promoting that stance but....well....now they are mentally impaired. But still holding their job.
Madison, like Europe with their immigration, will destroy itself. It's already too late. All the proof of the error of their ways is right in front of them. But they refuse to admit they're wrong. It's going to end up like DC.
"Does anyone know when, and what precipitated, the black culture turning from the american dream to the thug culture we see today?"
Yeah: MLK and Roy Innis lost; Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael won. But I, too, am unclear as to how that happened.
Bob Boyd:
What, you want some innocent kid to, at best, get their phone stolen, or at worst get beat up?
Melissa,
And you didn't go to the police because... ?
"The idea that everyone must receive an education is pernicious nonsense."
Yeah, but that's putting it too generically. The problem isn't with the "everyone", it's with the resistant.
For most of human history, the primary means of education was the apprentice system. Young people were surrounded by adults in a social hierarchy based on competence, in which they were on the bottom rung. This was a very strong incentive to develop adult habits and competence.
When the Prussians invented modern schools, to produce workers for their factories, children were no longer surrounded by adults, but they were still in a situation where adults controlled them and set the standard of social acceptance.
By eliminating that control, we have produced a situation in which children establish their own social hierarchy. Its standards are very different than those of the adult community.
john mosby said...
How much of this is race, and how much of it is class tracking closely with race?
I would bet that the Madison white student population comes mostly from college-educated families associated in some way with the University.
I bet that census data shows that over 60% of the people "living in poverty" in Madison are white.
over 60% of the people "living in poverty" in Madison are white.
And 13% are black.
> Is it a culture of despair or of entitlement?
I blame the left for this, assimilation of American blacks by the left was the worst thing that has happened to them since slavery. Striving was bourgeois, all problems were due to racism and oppression, standards should be adjusted without reference to results. Basically, the left ideal is the creation of a violent mob to serve as revolutionary cannon fodder. Blacks have been used.
Michael K said...
"I don't know why this particular kid was in classes with the mainstream given his violent behavior.
The Laguna Niguel school district in Orange County CA is mainstreaming kids at parental demand.
One teacher was having to irrigate a kid's feeding tube."
Same thing with my oldest daughter in Fountain Valley. She's a very tough girl but she's burning out.
"MLK and Roy Innis lost; Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael won. But I, too, am unclear as to how that happened."
Don't forget Malcolm X. He won so bigly that Madison named a high school in his honor.
As a student I witnessed a teacher attacked by an LD student. The teacher was legally forbade to restrain the students, much less fight back.
I grabbed the student by his throat, shoved him against the wall, held him on his tiptoes and assured him in no uncertain terms that I was under no obligation not to hit him back if he took a swing at me. The LD student went limp and did not resist. He understood fully the rules about teachers. He also fully understood the lack of rules between us. Later in the school year we had to evacuate because the same student tried to burn the school down. But he never so much as gave me a sideways look.
Amazing what students will do when they know they can.
[Cruz] Parkland shooter always in trouble, never expelled. Could school system have done more?
In 2014, administrators transferred Cruz to an alternative school for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities — only to change course two years later and return him to a traditional neighborhood school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Cruz was banished from Douglas a year later for other disciplinary violations — then toggled between three other alternative placements, school records obtained by the Miami Herald show.
If the frequent transfers — records show there were six in three years — did little to stanch Cruz’s disruptive behavior, they eventually became the only option left in the school district’s toolbox. Contrary to early reports, Cruz was never expelled from Broward schools. Legally, he couldn’t be.
So the school is allowing behavior from a subset of average students that they would never accept from other average students because the school's standards for that subset of students is so low? The school has decided that it has no obligation to fully educate and prepare that subset of students for adult life? The school doesn't care if that subset of students ends up disproportionately in prison because the school set them up for failure by teaching them that violence will be tolerated?
Sounds like there's an ism going on in there somewhere.
If I read the whole thing, will I ever get past the euphemisms and learn who did what?
There was no rule that adults could not fight back when I was in school. The stories of the few students who found that out the hard way were the stuff of legends.
I think the fed govt provide free lunches in many, many school districts. That seems so wrong to me that Uncle Sam has his hands in local school lunch programs. Such a disconnect from who should actually be responsible to feed their own kids. Is it any wonder when fights or mass shootings occur, many of us look to blame so many other things except the fighters and the shooter?
Hmm, parents joining the fray. Wonderful.
Madison is controlled by Democrats. Democrats are turning our cities into Shitholes.
Democrats are turning our cities into Shitholes
with shitshows (hat tip: Obama).
"Contrary to early reports, Cruz was never expelled from Broward schools. Legally, he couldn’t be."
Yes, and also contrary to early reports, the "football coach" who got killed trying to protect kids was actually a security guard. An unarmed security guard. He ran to the sound of the gunfire, and died trying to do his job without the necessary tools.
The gal who stopped the Fort Hood shooter also ran to the sound of the gunfire, as trained, and was seriously injured. But since she was a cop, she had the tool she needed on her belt, and she was able to stop the shooter. Unfortunately, she didn't kill the sack of shit, so we're still paying to have him spit on us daily.
I always enjoy it when 'polite society' does their level best not to notice that black people are black people. "subset" is the new 'minority'.
(World Famous Lurker says....)
I haven't heard any discussion of the possibility that this deterioration of the American educational system is, at least partially, the result of deliberate efforts by the Russians and their American stooges. Sort of a parallel effort to their "long march through the institutions". At one time, we had the best schools in the world. Of course they would be targeted by our enemies.
We've just been told how they interfered with the last national election - why would anyone doubt that they have been trying to undermine one of the foundations of American society these last 6 decades or so?
We've just been told how they interfered with the last national election - why would anyone doubt that they have been trying to undermine one of the foundations of American society these last 6 decades or so?
They've been trying to interfere in our elections for years. Hell, Ted Kennedy himself ASKED for Russian help in the 1980 election. The only reason this has any light on it now is because Trump won, and the Clintons and Obamas needed a deflection from the things they did this last election.
That said - do we have dyed-in-the-wool pro Soviet communists in schools in this country? I'd say yes, and Russia doesn't need to do anything for that to be true - there are plenty of useful idiots in the American education system.
Blogger TreeJoe said...
That admin had been promoting a policy of non-interference, non-restraint of students, and non-punishment. Now that admin is still promoting that stance but....well....now they are mentally impaired. But still holding their job.
2/21/18, 1:11 PM
Which as it should be. His mental impairment before the injury didn't affect his job status.
Rabel,
Interestingly, Malcolm X seemed to back away from that "burn it all down" perspective, right at the end of his life. Back then I assumed this had nothing to do with his demise, but now... I'm not quite so sure.
Jupiter,
People in the genuine security business have a term for unarmed security: "sacrificial lambs".
I blame everything on tequila. Children shouldn't drink the teachers' tequila.
Schools worked better when the students were afraid of the adults rather than the adults afraid of the students.
"MLK and Roy Innis lost; Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael won. But I, too, am unclear as to how that happened."
That was round two.
The first round was Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois. And, God help us, DuBois won.
langford peel
There has never been a nation control controlled by blacks that did not devolve into a shithole. See Zimbabwe, Hati or Baltimore.
Consider Barbados, which is 90% black. Consider Trinidad and Tobago, which is 37.6% East Indian, 36.3% Black, and 24.4% mixed. The PNM- largely an "Afro-Trindadian" party- has been the party in power for most of Trinidad's existence as an independent nation. No, Trinidad isn't perfect, but it's far from a shithole.
eddie willers
Not sure about round one. I taught in an historically black college in the deep south in the late 1960s and early 1970s and BTW was clearly the model for most of my students and all of my colleagues. However, sometime during 1970 or 71 there appeared a clear fork in the road, two choices. One was to adhere to the BTW and MLK formula or to take the path of the Malcolm X faction that said black culture was just fine and thus no need to integrate with the larger culture. The former approach requiring a certain level of discipline and work a great many took the latter, softer and easier path. That is the calamity in which we find ourselves these decades later.
Warm bodies in the buildings - the number of student-days - is how the State pays the local districts in Texas. That is the vital metric to keep teachers and staff employed.
Teach for America
An old friend has a son that worked for TfA. He lasted a year in Los Angeles. Today, he's an officer in the Marine corp.
RichardJohnson,
Kenya is not a hellhole, neither is Uganda. (The same is said about Botswana, but I have no direct experience of that.)
Well - when the Obama admin mandated that suspensions/expulsions/transfers/in school stuff had to be racially balanced, they made things worse for public schools. And for public school students.
What can we say? If schools are not allowed to have firm behavioral standards, the situation will get worse. I find the idea that they want to take the cops out of the schools INCREDIBLE, but it may be because they have problems with their clientele being racially/ethnically imbalanced. Such as when Madison held off on arresting the perps with outstanding warrants until the murder rate got too high, apparently partly due to how it would look due to racial imbalances.
A while ago Ann posted something about a local AA mother who was claiming that the lack of discipline was a problem and felt it was discriminatory and impacted AA kids more? I'm pretty sure I have that right, but I can't find the post.
Hurry up Secretary Davos and get vouchers in place. Public Schools are dangerous to children's health.
I went to High School in Atlanta in the late 60s. There were fights most every day, but they were almost always after school, outside by the tennis courts. It was a system that allowed fighting but maintained order. Quite civilized I think compared to today. yeah, I got in a couple
Kirk Parker said...
"Kenya is not a hellhole, neither is Uganda."
Ah yes, Uganda. Little Zurich on Lake Victoria. Are they still calling it Lake Victoria?
Kenya is definitely not a hellhole but the road system is about the same as it was when the English left:
total: 161,452 km
paved: 14,420 km (8,500 km highways, 1,872 urban roads, and 4,048 rural roads)
unpaved: 147,032 km (2017)
Virgil Hilts
Blacks do worse relative to whites (income, unemployment, incarceration, etc.) in WI and Madison than almost anywhere else in the entire USA.
Which reminds me of an old Iowahawk posting: Longhorns 17, Badgers 1, where he points out that while overall Wisconsin students outscore Texas students, when when broken down by race and/or ethnicity, Texas students outscore Wisconsin students.
The Economist passes on what appears to be the cut-'n'-paste lefty factoid du jour:
Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:
South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th
If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country....
So how does brokeass, dumbass, redneck Texas stack up against progressive unionized Wisconsin? (using NAEP data)
2009 4th Grade Math
White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)
Black students: Texas 231, Wisconsin 217 (national 222)
Hispanic students: Texas 233, Wisconsin 228 (national 227)
2009 8th Grade Math
White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)
Black students: Texas 272, Wisconsin 254 (national 260)
Hispanic students: Texas 277, Wisconsin 268 (national 260)
2009 4th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)
Black students: Texas 213, Wisconsin 192 (national 204)
Hispanic students: Texas 210, Wisconsin 202 (national 204)
2009 8th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)
Black students: Texas 249, Wisconsin 238 (national 245)
Hispanic students: Texas 251, Wisconsin 250 (national 248)
2009 4th Grade Science
White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)
Black students: Texas 139, Wisconsin 121 (national 127)
Hispanic students: Wisconsin 138, Texas 136 (national 130)
2009 8th Grade Science
White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)
Black students: Texas 133, Wisconsin 120 (national 125)
Hispanic students: Texas 141, Wisconsin 134 (national 131)
To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8,
Freeman Hunt wrote: "So the school is allowing behavior from a subset of average students that they would never accept from other average students because the school's standards for that subset of students is so low?"
In the Obama administration, schools were warned that if there were racial/ethnic imbalances in their disciplinary proceedings, they would be held accountable. We have reached full paradox - the measures undertaken to address what may be considered the remnants of racism are now hurting the very students they are trying to help.
Most students would respond in a well-disciplined environment, and of course for students with a disadvantaged background, access to high-quality public education has a disproportionate effect on the rest of their lives.
I suggest you read the 2014 guidance:
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2014/01/08/dcl.pdf
"The administration of student discipline can result in unlawful discrimination based on race in two ways: first, if a student is subjected to different treatment based on the student's race, and second, if a policy is neutral on its face – meaning that the policy itself does not mention race – and is administered in an evenhanded manner but has a disparate impact, i.e., a disproportionate and unjustified effect on students of a particular race. Under both inquiries, statistical analysis regarding the impact of discipline policies and practices on particular groups of students is an important indicator of potential violations."
In other words, it is not enough to have a facially and factually neutral behavioral policy. Even if there is a standard such as "Cursing a teacher or disobeying a classroom rule three times in a classroom warrants removal and referral to disciplinary staff", and even if the school can prove that the rule are strictly followed, so that there is no possibility of racial/ethnic discrimination, the argument is that if one racial group is found to be more impacted, that the policy should be changed due to disparate impact.
You can imagine the results.
I think I just read that Betsy DeVos rescinded the guidance regarding discipline and disparate impact.
Uganda is 163rd on the Human Development Index.
Kenya is 146th.
Libya is 102nd.
Sure sound like shitholes to me.
Jupiter, Micheal [not Kennedy]:
When was the last time you were in East Africa? For me it was less than I year ago, and my previous trip in 2013 showed the roads outside Nairobi to be magnificently improved. (Nothing is without concern, of course; and mine was how much of that improvement was due to the Chinese who can give daily lessons in exploitation to the West.)
My other fascinating observation about Kenya 2013 was that all the Internet Cafes were going out of business because everyone had cell phones--if not smartphones at least low-end feature phones that provided email and Facebook, and what else could you need?
Kyzernick,
The real measure is not some arbitrary, absolute figure (much less from a pathetic NGO issuing a "Human Development Index") but rather the trajectory these countries are on.
Really, you have to visit a country like Kenya to see the absolute reverence these people place on education, and the insistence the foist on even the least of theirs, to see how badly our Ghetto Culture compares.
Barack Obama really could have done something, at least one thing that would have been significant in his presidency. He could have used the bully pulpit to preach the importance of fathers for black children, the futility of affirmative action. He could have pointed to many blacks who have made huge successes of their lives and held them up as examples. He could have condemned black on black crime.
Instead, he sat and watched if not encouraged, the formation of Black Lives Matters and he aided and comforted black resistance to lawful authority that protected the blacks themselves more than anyone else. He has set race relations back many decades and made a problem where none existed before.
Blogger RichardJohnson said...
langford peel
There has never been a nation control controlled by blacks that did not devolve into a shithole. See Zimbabwe, Hati or Baltimore.
Consider Barbados, which is 90% black. Consider Trinidad and Tobago, which is 37.6% East Indian, 36.3% Black, and 24.4% mixed. The PNM- largely an "Afro-Trindadian" party- has been the party in power for most of Trinidad's existence as an independent nation. No, Trinidad isn't perfect, but it's far from a shithole.
I spend a very good amount of time in Trinidad. They lime together, but they vote along racial line. And there is a color of crime.
From instapundit, regarding Broward County school policies and the Florida tragedy:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/289188/
As a result of Obama's lack of leadership, blacks have a sense of entitlement that shows up in many areas where it didn't exist before he came along. No one can even hint in the public arena that blacks are their own worst enemy without being condemned. Even Donald Trump can't touch this one.
Professional lady - It's been discussed, but I don't think she did. I can't find any reference to it? She rescinded the 2011 Title IX thing about gender stuff/sexual assault.
However she may not need to explicitly rescind it, because the Justice dept recently has changed its policy so that it will not conduct enforcement actions based on guidances rather than rules.
Uganda and Kenya? As far as I can discern their contribution to the human race consists of a few Marathon runners, bush meat and AIDS.
Of course they did produce two of the most egregious Iryants in recorded history in Idi Amin and Barrack Obama.
So there is that.
Kirk Parker said...
"When was the last time you were in East Africa?"
Never been. And you are correct, of course. The nations of East Africa are among the most attractive spots on Earth. When are you moving your family there? I understand this is a good time to buy in Africa, most Africans are moving to Europe.
langford peel said...
"Of course they did produce two of the most egregious Iryants in recorded history in Idi Amin and Barrack Obama."
Don't try to blame the Kenyans for Obama. Obama's father was an American Communist from Chicago.
Oso Negro
I spend a very good amount of time in Trinidad. They lime together, but they vote along racial line. And there is a color of crime.
If you refer to liming as in socializing/hanging out, you have definitely spent time in Trinidad.
Color of crime- yes. I was told that the reason most vegetables were imported was that vegetable growers got tired of midnight raids on their ready-to-be-harvested veggies.
Richard Johnson, GMTA - that was one of my favorite Iowahawk postings ever and I mention it to my wife all the time. It's so easy to lie with statistics.
When did influential parts of black culture "turn from the American dream to the thug culture?"
It began when white intellectuals began to fall in love with the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois and reject those of Booker T. Washington. Du Bois took little interest in the importance of fostering positive character traits in young blacks. Whereas good character was the core of Washington's philosophy. Washington may have had DuBois in mind when he wrote this:
"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs--partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays."
Booker T. Washington
Time for teenager control.
MaxedOutMama
That's probably what I read and the article probably mentioned Betsy DeVos. Thanks!
I spend a very good amount of time in Trinidad. They lime together, but they vote along racial line. And there is a color of crime.
One of my medical students was from Trinidad. She confirmed my impression that blacks from outside the US do not have the victim pathology that so infects black Americans.
I don't doubt there is crime and an underclass but some can emerge intact while i see few American blacks, unless they had middle class homes, emerge intact.
Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
Parents don't parent and expect the schools to provide the parenting. The bureaucracy makes a bad parent.
GOD!! I just want to scream this.
Parents, back in the 60's (?) started to slowly allow school administrators to rule as dictators. School boards were cowed, time gobbled up with an incomprehnsible accounting system, and all decisions pertaining to education, and student needs questions were allowed to be made by "proffessionals" Those in acedamia had to skin in the game, and a large percentage of them were hoodwinked into believing the scams (new math)?
We as people can form govt to do our chores (instructing our kids) but parents are never relieved of parental responsibility, and the govt will always claim the power and authority, but never be responsible for the outcome.
I listen to some of the kids from the school in Floridia, trying to grasp the killings. One was mad, and scared (he has every right) and said he is prepared to drop out of school and work to solutions and wont go back until politicians see it his way. We have lost our way as a nation, when we truly believe the only solutions rests in the hands of politicians. If parents want solutions, put some armed guards in place on Monday, and train up volunteers to go armed as teachers, and other school employees in the building. Fuck the politicians, take control of your owns safety. The govt can only give lip service, not fix things.
Booker T. Washington
A better class of character.
turn from the American dream to the thug culture?
Long-term smoothing functions, especially welfare schemes that alienate husbands from wives, fathers from mothers, and normalize single-parenting, are first-order forcings of spiritual destruction, cultural corruption, and general dysfunction.
Diversity, including racism, sexism, and congruence, promotes bias formation and generational prejudice.
The religious/moral doctrine of selective-child and recycled-child are a cause and effect of debased human life.
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world. Around and around and around. We need to be smarter. Look for the principles that are internally, externally, and mutually consistent.
A data point:
A few years back, Yale started a program where they waived tuition ($32k) and paid a stipend of around $25k to get a one-year Masters degree in Urban Education Studies, along with a state teaching certification. The only catch was that you had to spend two years teaching in New Haven's public high schools or middle schools after you got your degree.
At first glance, you'd think that getting paid $25,500 to spend one year getting a tuition-free Masters degree from Yale and getting a guaranteed job with a salary starting around $60,000/year and great benefits as part of the package would be a great deal for a lot of people.
Yale discontinued the program after only five or six years in large part because of disappointing enrollment, which was somewhere between 30-40% of what was originally projected.
Sounds like the inmates are running the prison.
Where's the video?
2/21/18, 11:20 AM
Worldstar?
@Freeman Hunt:So the school is allowing behavior from a subset of average students that they would never accept from other average students because the school's standards for that subset of students is so low? The school has decided that it has no obligation to fully educate and prepare that subset of students for adult life? The school doesn't care if that subset of students ends up disproportionately in prison because the school set them up for failure by teaching them that violence will be tolerated?
Sounds like there's an ism going on in there somewhere.
What you wrote, to the people who set the policies, is utter gibberish. There is no shared premise between you and them.
To the people who set that policy, the differing behavior of differing demographic groups is purely to their being discriminated against, or privileged. Students who "behave", students who "study", students who "succeed" are no different from the ones who fail except in how they are treated.
You don't succeed in life because you behaved and studied in school. You succeed in life because of a privilege you did not earn, where people labeled you as someone who behaved and people labeled you as someone who studied because they liked your skin color or your family background. They gave you good grades which you didn't earn, and your success in life is unearned. Everything you have you are being handed because someone in power favors you.
They honestly believe this. They believe if they treat everyone the same, regardless of how they behave, then everyone will turn out the same. If they don't, someone is wrecking it, and if we find that person and stop them we will fix it.
@Jupiter: either you are trolling me when you said Obama's father is a communist from Chicago or Obama trolled Americans by claiming Kenyan as his father????!!
either you are trolling me when you said Obama's father is a communist from Chicago or Obama trolled Americans by claiming Kenyan as his father????!!
There are a number of people who believe that the reason we have never seen Obama's original birth certificate is because the line for father was either blank, or said Frank Davis, who was a Black Communist who worked in Chicago before he moved to Hawaii and became a family friend of Barack's grandparents.
Mosby said this, which I think gets at something but misses what that something is.
"Back in the day, regardless of the color of the students involved, the working-class students went thru an academic track designed for them. Classes teaching useful skills; alpha male teachers; teaching styles with more regimentation, sacrificing the development of critical thinking for the keeping of the peace."
I do not accept that working class students or racial minorities are failing because they have a "critical thinking" academic track forced on them rather than "useful skills, alpha males teachers and more regimentation." I believe the whole "critical thinking" content-loose hodgepodge of current teaching approaches is a catastrophe for ALL students. ALL students need a lot more regimented structure with a stress not only on useful skills but on rich and demanding subject content, with lots more alpha male teachers for ALL the boys and lots of the girls, too. But I also think that is only one part of the two parts needed, and the other part is what is relevant here - NEAR COMPLETE TEACHER CONTROL OVER CLASSROOM AND GENERAL SCHOOL ORDER. Whether the lax attitude revealed by this story is due to federal-government-augmented obsessions about racial disparate impact, or also to a general hostility to adult assertion of authority, it is a catastrophe. I really have to wonder where the supposedly so progressive teachers unions are on this, given that a lack of classroom control is probably the biggest misery in young teachers' lives and the biggest factor driving so many of them to give up on the profession.
My suggestion... make the schools prisons. I mean hell they are the ones killing other students.
1. Metal detectors in ALL school entrances.
2. Drug and gun sniffing dogs will check lockers every day.
3. Mandatory random drug/alcohol test for all students.
4. Money bounty for snitches.
5. Hall monitors for every hall.
6. All social media (facebook, Twitter, etc) post by all students will be monitored.
7. Any student acting out will be subject to a psychological examination.
8. Yellow lines on the hall floors. Students must walk to one side like we drive on roads.
9. Students must behave in class. Failure to do this will result in a psychological examination.
10. NO BACKPACKS. Kindle like device with just PDFs loaded by the school. Read only.
Student turns in homework on paper. If student damages the Kindle, they are then issued BOOKS. Books they have to take to and from school WITHOUT BACKPACKS.
Why should all Americans give up their basic freedoms coded into the Bill of Rights?
Why not instead we make schools (pubic at lease cause parochial schools just don't have these problems) virtual prisons, SINCE THEY, THE STUDENTS, ARE DOING THE KILLINGS. If we have to take away rights, take them from the students.
There are a number of people who believe that the reason we have never seen Obama's original birth certificate is because the line for father was either blank, or said Frank Davis, who was a Black Communist who worked in Chicago before he moved to Hawaii and became a family friend of Barack's grandparents.
Yes. There are some arguments for this although we are unlikely to ever learn the truth,
A lot of the obviously true statements and anecdotes related above remind me of John Derbyshire's infamous essay on "The Talk". Didn't work out too well for him, did it? As another, wiser person said here: how can you solve a problem that you can't even talk about?
Please, people, let's not jump to conc-- aaaaand it's black kids.
It’s those damn Lutherans again. I just know it. One wisecrack about pickled fish and there they go soaping windows and cow tipping. Laws a mercy Molly, it’s a stoolstorm.
One thing these absurd policies are doing is raising a generation of Asians who have no truck with the SJW nonsense.
When an inoffensive Asian punching bag is attacked for no reason by "you know who", and the white SJW schoolmarm deems both kids equally at fault for getting in a fight, even though "you know who" was clearly the one who started it, and only the Asian kid is suspended because the quota of suspensions has already been used up for a certain category of "you know who", then not just the Asian kid but his whole family and all his friends are mightily red-pilled.
Over time this effect might be enough to outweigh the supposed advantage that the Left keeps expecting to reap from the illegal alien invasion from south of the border.
Maybe the kids were pumped on the Ta-Nehisi Coates story, "Black Panther."
"Professional lady said...
I think I just read that Betsy DeVos rescinded the guidance regarding discipline and disparate impact.
2/21/18, 4:02 PM"
Doesn't matter. As with the Title IX memo, the Leftists running the schools used that as cover to get the policies in place, and it will take DoJ intervention (and removal of Obama judges) to get them reversed.
SDN
It's a step in the right direction.
Years ago, something similar to this happened at a Seattle high school down the street where I lived. I didn't bother to ask the cops, since they rarely explain why. When I asked TV news crews, they told me to watch the evening news. It turned out to be a black v. white race riot among the students.
I wasn't surprised. I had met the principle and he struck me as a wuss, not the kind of person who should be in charge of a large, big-city high school.
Over 40 years ago my brother Joe became a school teacher. Six foot two, athletic. He could, and did, coach multiple teams, including football, tennis, and soccer. Taught math, chemistry and physics. Great grades in college. Every school district's dream applicant.
His first year teaching he was offered a position at the wealthiest high school in our home town area. Top flight lab equipment, great ACT scores, motivated students with high parental support.
Instead he accepted a job in the poorest school in the area. "Giving back" as they say. A shit hole, if you will.
One day there was a fight in the hall. Joe stepped in to separate the kids. A student jumped on his back. Joe backed up slamming the kid against a locker. That was enough to stop that kid. Joe then managed to stop the fight and send both of the original fighters to the Principal's office.
He was called in later that day for discipline. Told one more incident and he'd be fired.
Joe told them he would not renew a contract at a school that would not support a teacher's right to self defense. He told me the principal cried.
Joe taught at several other schools during his career, both in the US and overseas. Never in a school like the first.
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