3 ms·

Articles like this are embarrassing. Here's how to fix the schools: 1. When a parent withdraws their kid from a school that's not doing the job, the parent's

by vogelke 10y ago

Articles like this are embarrassing. Here's how to fix the schools: 1. When a parent withdraws their kid from a school that's not doing the job, the parent's money GOES WITH THEM to whatever other school they ultimately choose. 2. If any kid in any class disrupts the class and prevents anyone else from learning, the teacher informs the principal. The principal says "Yes, sir/ma'am, I'll take care of it", removes the kid from the room, places them in a different room, and informs the kid's parents. 3. If any kid in any classroom verbally threatens or physically assaults a teacher for any reason at all, the kid is immediately expelled. Any lawsuit over this by any parent is dismissed via lack of standing to sue, and the parent pays the school's court costs. Problem solved. If you work at a school that can't seem to fire incompetent teachers, you'll be out of business and good riddance. If you teach at a school, your word is SCRIPTURE when it comes to a disruptive or dangerous student. That means you have the last word about when or whether a student is returned to your class, not the pricipal or the board or some parent who can't discipline a kid. If you're a parent and your little snowflake can't handle the concept of "don't hit the teacher and don't start screaming in class", you are free to educate him yourself.

djtriptych 10y ago
This is wrong on many levels. Here are some problems. 1a. This policy favors parents who can pick up and leave a school (and ship their kid somewhere else) if they're not happy with it. For low income parents, school often doubles as day care and this may not be feasible. 1b. We are ignoring the reason why this school might be failing your kid. Maybe it's a bad school. Maybe your kid has an undiagnosed learning disability. If it's the latter, and we flood the hardest-to-teach students to the best schools, what happens? In real life, schools have to worry about composing teachable classrooms, and this policy is a great way to destoy that balance. 2. This policy, in practice, will likely prove to be both sexist and racist. Boys are WAY more likely to disrupt classrooms especially at a young age. This policy is a good way to segregate the sexes. Not that that's necessarily bad, but certainly its an undeclared side effect. On the race front, black kids are way more likely to be punished harshly for similar offenses as white kids. Who determines what is disruptive and what's kids being kids? Why on earth you think any (every??) teacher is qualified to make these distinctions is beyond me. When you're talking about public dollars, this matters. 3a. Please show me a successful school where this policy is 100% implemented. It's absurd. For teenagers, you are dealing with people at the most emotionally volatile time of their life. Any school system should seek to first serve the student, and this policy flatly fails that test. Also, why just physical assault against teachers? What about physical assault against other students? How about sexual assault? Hate crimes ok? How about libel or slander? Kids, it turns out, will be kids. There's a reason we don't let them vote or drive or buy guns. Zero-tolerance policies are unlikely to be enforceable without devastating effects on outcomes. 3b. A 1-strike policy of expulsion for outbursts will guarantee a higher dropout rate, which costs taxpayers (that's you) hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost tax revenue over the dropout's lifetime. Still a great long-term idea? I could go on.
lpcrealmadrid 10y ago
Some examples of 1, 2, and 3 at work that I've witnessed firsthand: 1. Shaky-but-improving public school drops from a B to a C in district grade. Top-performing students try and enroll elsewhere. School funding in this district is tied to enrollment; funding drops. To push enrollment up, school buses in kids who've been expelled from other public schools in the area. 2. Disruptive kid goes to another classroom, where he goes and disrupts another teacher's classroom. Kid learns that if he wants to phone it in for the day, he can act out and be told to leave class. Kid's parents might not be present. Teacher/principal put in difficult position to choose between the child and the school. 3. Kid gets expelled and becomes another school's problem. edit: this echoes djtriptych's comments

by vogelke 10y ago

djtriptych 10y ago

This is wrong on many levels. Here are some problems. 1a. This policy favors parents who can pick up and leave a school (and ship their kid somewhere else) if they're not happy with it. For low income parents, school often doubles as day care and this may not be feasible. 1b. We are ignoring the reason why this school might be failing your kid. Maybe it's a bad school. Maybe your kid has an undiagnosed learning disability. If it's the latter, and we flood the hardest-to-teach students to the best schools, what happens? In real life, schools have to worry about composing teachable classrooms, and this policy is a great way to destoy that balance. 2. This policy, in practice, will likely prove to be both sexist and racist. Boys are WAY more likely to disrupt classrooms especially at a young age. This policy is a good way to segregate the sexes. Not that that's necessarily bad, but certainly its an undeclared side effect. On the race front, black kids are way more likely to be punished harshly for similar offenses as white kids. Who determines what is disruptive and what's kids being kids? Why on earth you think any (every??) teacher is qualified to make these distinctions is beyond me. When you're talking about public dollars, this matters. 3a. Please show me a successful school where this policy is 100% implemented. It's absurd. For teenagers, you are dealing with people at the most emotionally volatile time of their life. Any school system should seek to first serve the student, and this policy flatly fails that test. Also, why just physical assault against teachers? What about physical assault against other students? How about sexual assault? Hate crimes ok? How about libel or slander? Kids, it turns out, will be kids. There's a reason we don't let them vote or drive or buy guns. Zero-tolerance policies are unlikely to be enforceable without devastating effects on outcomes. 3b. A 1-strike policy of expulsion for outbursts will guarantee a higher dropout rate, which costs taxpayers (that's you) hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost tax revenue over the dropout's lifetime. Still a great long-term idea? I could go on.

lpcrealmadrid 10y ago

Some examples of 1, 2, and 3 at work that I've witnessed firsthand: 1. Shaky-but-improving public school drops from a B to a C in district grade. Top-performing students try and enroll elsewhere. School funding in this district is tied to enrollment; funding drops. To push enrollment up, school buses in kids who've been expelled from other public schools in the area. 2. Disruptive kid goes to another classroom, where he goes and disrupts another teacher's classroom. Kid learns that if he wants to phone it in for the day, he can act out and be told to leave class. Kid's parents might not be present. Teacher/principal put in difficult position to choose between the child and the school. 3. Kid gets expelled and becomes another school's problem. edit: this echoes djtriptych's comments