It could soon be illegal in California for schools to suspend students for being disruptive.See, they're only interested in graduation rates. They aren't interested in the quality of learning at all.
A bill banning that practice for K-12 students, in both public and charter schools, sailed to passage in the California Senate on Monday, 30-8. The bill moves on now to the Assembly.
“An overwhelming body of research confirms that suspending students at any age fails to improve student behavior and greatly increases the likelihood that the student will fail, be pushed out of school and/or have contact with the juvenile justice system,” wrote Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who is the primary author of Senate Bill 419. “SB 419 helps keep students in school, increases student success rates, and increase high school graduation rates.”
But behavior isn't changed by suspensions, either, you might say. OK, I'm willing to concede that. But suspensions are remarkably effective at providing a better education for the rest of the students when a disruptive student is removed. Supporters of stupid bills like this are willing to sacrifice the education of good students so that they can pretend to show they care about "students of color, with disabilities or who are part of the LGBTQ community" who are supposedly suspended at higher rates. But you know who's penalized by having to be in class with disruptive students? Other students of color, with disabilities, or who are part of the LGBTQ community in the same class.
The question I don't see answered: are "students of color", etc., suspended at higher rates than Asians (who are not considered "students of color" in education) for the same offense, or do they commit a disproportionate number of offenses? Doesn't anyone think that is important?
6 comments:
Snarky suggestion.
Let the disruptive students have a week long field trip to the offices of each of the legislators who voted for the bill. Each class should meet for a full school day, and be at least 25 students with the legislator being lead teacher. NO passing off to staff members, who would probably quit after 1 day.
No, no they don't think that is important. I'm surprised you even asked the question.
Easy for them to pass the laws because they don't have to live with the consequences. It's just like the State Graduation Tests--I doubt if many of the legislators could pass them; let these lawmakers come and spend one week and see how they do trying to teach with constant disruptions. I've taught HS English for over 30 years and I hate when one student can keep an entire class from being able to concentrate, learn something, and enjoy the class and the teacher. Oh, and teach that class with 6 kids reading 4 years below grade level with 3 of the smartest kids in the school--differentiation cannot find a meeting place between the two extremes when you have 6 classes a day with a total of 160 kids. Where did common sense go?
This is part of the continual focus of activists on perpetrators and complete ignoring of victims. Whether it is violent criminals or disruptive students, activists always focus on those who are doing wrong, and not on those suffering. Criminals overwhelmingly prey on their own communities. Activists could choose to defend the suffering majority, but don't.
The one exception to this was the call by community activists in the '80's to increase the punishment for dealers of crack cocaine. Ignored in the current discussion of sentencing disparities for cocaine, is that the push for harsher sentences came largely from within the black community, who were tired of having their shops robbed, drug dealers, addicts and prostitutes on the streets, gang wars, and families who had to put their kids to bed in bath tubs to protect them from stray bullets. They demanded tougher sentences to get the trash out of their community.
Anonymous,
You have my greatest respect for your skills and patience. My last elementary age teaching (religion once a week) was in a similar situation. I quit a few weeks in the year before getting reprimanded or fired for letting a boy keep his ball cap on during class. (I was alone with about 10 or so kids in a room that was used during the day for normal school class, so I couldn't even do much about the environment)
This is why, on Friday, I submitted my retirement papers. I could have worked a few more years and probably should have, but under the current crop of restorative justice inspired administrators there are no expectations of civil behavior in the hallways or classrooms. Here's just a few examples
-I had two boys square off to fight in my class on the first day of class. I grabbed them by the elbows and marched them to the nearest administrator's office telling them the story and expecting them to be put in ISS for the rest of the day at least. Instead, 20 minutes later, an administrator showed up with the boys saying they were "really really sorry" and admitting them back to class. No lessons were learned here because they disrupted the class for the rest of the term.
-A girl, transferred in from a private school, claims to have medical issues that require her to have full access to the bathroom any time she wants. Mom backs her up, but never files any sort of documentation with the nurse from a doctor stating such. This girl goes to the bathroom every day for sometimes as much as 30 minutes. She has threatened to pee on the floor.
-My millennial coworkers (I am Lead teacher) have a habit of going to an administrator they have snowed to get their way on everything from spending to scheduling. This is how, in spite of my efforts to share the burden of level one students, I find myself now facing five level one classes after 19 plus years of teaching, and the newbies-who don't have my experience or time in the classroom-have all the upper level courses. It's simply not worth the meager increase in pension per month to stay and deal with this.
I am done. And I'm not alone-I've noticed across my district long term experienced teachers, many of them department heads, are leaving. The administrators don't value experience and in spite of promises of a $5K increase in pay from the Texas Legislature (which we KNOW will be given as a block and distributed to football coaches and band directors)we are leaving in droves. I taught in what was formerly a "good school." I'm not sure I would call it that anymore.
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