Shutting down the school to prison pipeline – what can we do?

Comments

1. sabutai says

   May 28, 2008 at 8:34 pm

   The “lock ’em up” mentality is pervasive in American culture, leading to a shameful rate of incarceration.  It only makes sense that such an attitude would seem down to educational bureaucracies hyperaware of the frivolous lawsuits thrown at them on a weekly basis.

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   p>Some suggestions.  First off, zero out “zero-tolerance”.  Zero tolerance in sentencing, administering, in almost any field is an attempt to remove decision-making from people qualified to do it.  Innocent, often blameless cases turn into real problems because of zero tolerance.  If a pen knife slips out of the pocket of a student who’s never shown evidence of violent thought in her life, zero tolerance means that she goes to court sometimes.

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   p>Secondly, better legal protections for school districts.  Lawsuit-happy parents and hired guns called “advocates” make sure that plenty of students struggling with emotional problems remain in schools, making zero tolerance more attractive.

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   p>Finally, (I know this is a broken record here), focus education away from tests toward kids.
   The guidance counselor who could have built a relationship with Shaquanda is too busy trying to schedule MCAS accommodations (typically, guidance and/or special education spend about 1/4 of their time on MCAS compliance).

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   p>The principal who could have befriended Darius is in her office trying to schedule pre-MCAS math drills.

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   p>The money that could go toward home- or community-liaison staff has gone instead to MCAS tutors, and curriculum folks who rewrite MCAS questions as class projects.

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   p>Teachers can’t try to connect with Marvin’s sister or family because they have to go to curriculum meetings to divine from previous MCAS exams what might be asked this time around.  I’m sick of turning away students who ask for help because I’m required to go to a pointless curriculum meeting.

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   p>Education has become an industry in which kids’ main role is to supply test scores.

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   p>I would be remiss if I did not encourage skepticism with the latest alarmism this story represents.  Children and injustice are a potent mix — regard what is increasingly looking like an hysterical reaction to the cult in Texas.  What’s going on there isn’t typical, but every day it comes out seeming less abusive.  

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   p>I don’t know the specifics of these cases, and the joy in them is that students’ records are kept confidential.  I find myself curious what else is in the history of these children.  How many threats were let go without a warning?  I’ve been around the system long enough to see students with several assaults on their peers and death threats on the staff and students slide by on a couple suspensions, thanks to MCAS demands on attendance and gunshy administration.  I doubt either of the cases mentioning these students is their first brush with the wrong side of decision-making.

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   p>Also, let’s remember the big picture.  Nobody wants to host the next Dylan Klebold or Cho Seung-Hui.  Much administration thinking is not just of the individual student, but all the students.  If Darius makes good on his threat and sticks a plastic fork into somebody’s eyeball, would I see any stories about how great it is that staff waited until he actually did something?  Here’s an anecdote — a student in my school last year assaulted a police officer in the course of duty.  This was after a 20-minute chase around the building, an assault on two staff members, all kicked off because someone checked out his lie that he’d turned in a paper he hadn’t.  I’m sure the news would declare “Student jailed for not turning in paper”.

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   p>(Incidentally, the fun of the chase and cruiser ride so inspired his classmates that three similar incidents happened over the next two weeks.)

   • amberpaw says

     May 28, 2008 at 10:16 pm

     Teachers today need hazard pay, I think.

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     p>When I asked my own parents “What did you do when I refused to do my homework?” – a problem I had with my own kids – they looked at me like I was a Martian and said, “You never did that.”  Not that I was an angel.

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     p>My husband and I had to come up with ways to make doing the right thing pay off more in positive ways, then the negative energy for doing the wrong thing.  The whole idea that for kids, negative energy, such as attention for doing bad things or power over adults – can be more rewarding then it is to do the right thing without real thought and consistency by adults.

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     p>Too many of the kids I wind up appointed to look out for [not represent – a whole other stody] as a guardian ad litem have never been needed, never done “real work” with a concrete result in their entire lives.

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     p>And most get precious little attention.  In so many communities, between Mom and Dad [IF there are both a Mom and a Dad, even] there are three to five jobs – sometimes more.  Just to make ends almost meet.

2. cos says

   May 29, 2008 at 12:22 am

   Here is what we can do.

   • stomv says

     May 29, 2008 at 8:09 am

      

3. mcrd says

   May 29, 2008 at 12:14 pm

   They must have because this stuff din’t go on when I was in school. Although we had our own exams, but they weren’t called MCAS.

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   p>Had we known that we would have burned the schhools, beat uo teachers, shot our classmates, done drugs at recess, had se in school rresulting in preganancy. It’s only right and just that the children be allowed to express themselves.

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   p>We need to lower standards, remove penalties for alleged
   bad” behavior, eliminate boundaries, have a student advocate in each classroom, and have on call attorneys for students who wish to injunct the school/administrators/teachers for unlawful conduct (or at least conduct that students deem “unfair”.

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   p>Superintendents, administrators, and teachers must be made to understand that their homes and pensions are in peril if they are perceived to be causing anxiety in the children. Perceived loss of esteem, escalation of anxiety, or arbitrary enforcement of student conduct and demeanor should be dealt with swift retribution against faculty.

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   p>The schools and classrooms must be returned to the children.

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   p>Where is the ACLU?  

   • sabutai says

     May 29, 2008 at 3:09 pm

     I will be replying to this comment using “MCRD rules”.

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     p>At which school do you work?  How many hours do you do there per week, what subject do you teach, and how did you obtain your certification?  What educational philosophy do you embrace?

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     p>Oh, you don’t work in a school?  You may think that your impressions gathered from secondhand knowledge, news coverage, and your own investigations permits you to opine on education, but you’re wrong.  Since you’re not in education you are perforce not allowed to comment on this issue.   Good-bye.

4. mplo says

   May 30, 2008 at 11:38 am

   overreaction is becoming more and more commonplace.  Taking it out on children in this  manner is especially horrific.