60% of students suspended or expelled

[Schadenfroh]

At least once...

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/19/138495061/report-details-texas-school-disciplinary-policies

Researchers in Texas have released the most comprehensive analysis of school suspension and expulsion policies ever conducted.
...
Texas, though, is the only state that has been able to use this data to track kids and see what happens to them after they're suspended or expelled.
...
The study, titled Breaking Schools' Rules, is extraordinary in that it looked at individual school records and tracked all seventh-graders in Texas — 1 million of them — for six years. One finding surprised even veteran educators: 60 percent of those students were suspended or expelled at least once between their seventh- and 12th-grade years.

The discipline problem is not isolated to Texas:

"For example, in California in 2010 alone, nearly 13 percent of students were put in out-of-school suspension or expelled," he said. "In Florida, that was 9 percent."

Something quite shocking, significant numbers are not responding to the discipline:

15 percent were disciplined repeatedly — 11 times or more. Half of them ended up in juvenile-justice facilities or programs for an average of 73 schooldays. These students were likely to repeat a grade and not graduate from high school.

This indicates that either the punishment is ineffective or that students are continuing to cause trouble and receive discipline for student culture reasons (ie, it is cool to be bad).

The reasons were not related to weapon or drug possession:

very few cases in Texas — 3 percent — involved drug or weapons possession

Much of the discipline results from an excessively poor work ethic, which could carry over into their careers:

"it could be for never doing the work, talking back, tardiness,"

Also, possible discrimination?

"African-American students and those with particular educational disabilities experience a disproportionately high rate of removal from the classroom for disciplinary reasons," he said.

One glaring example: 70 percent of black girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 37 percent of white girls

This is all part of a trend nationally:

the frequency with which kids in Texas are suspended and expelled reflects a 20-year trend that has seen the rate double nationally

It is likely correlated with (not necessarily caused by) a decline in physical punishment , which has declined significantly due to lawsuits / abuse concerns. I recall that my high school offered the parents a choice, their children could either be held in detention or have corporal punishment applied. More and more parents chose non-corporal punishment, thus more children are getting suspended instead of a paddling. My parents speak of the days when teachers would slap you with a ruler if you talked back or whip you with a spanking in front of the class to combo the physical pain (less effective) with public humiliation (more effective) when you cried from the paddling. I do not think either would pass these days...

I wonder if the rate at which students are having to go to Juvi is increasing with the trend in suspensions / expulsions.

 

[a777pilot]

I disagree with your conclusion that this is a trend that can be traced to the lack of school/parental discipline.

It is likely correlated with a decline in physical punishment (paddling), which has declined significantly due to lawsuits / abuse concerns. I recall that my high school offered the parent's a choice, their children could either be held in detention or have corporal punishment applied. My parents speak of the days when teachers would slap you with a ruler if you talked back or whip you with a paddle in front of the class to combo the physical pain with public humiliation when you cried. I do not think either would pass these days...

I believe it is more fundamental than that. I opine it is the lack of parents. If did not say parent. I said parents.

 

[ichy]

Crappy parenting, lack of discipline, schools too scared of lawsuits to punish students in a meaningful way. This stuff all adds up.

Re: the statistic about black students being suspended at a higher rate, look at teenage and out of wedlock pregnancy statistics in the African-American community. There's your answer. I bet that black kids who come from homes with two gainfully employed, responsible parents aren't suspended at a higher rate than their white peers.

 

[Macamus Prime]

It's simple; start shooting misbehaving students.

When the parents complain, shoot them as well.

YEEEEEEEE-HHHHHAAAAAAAAWWWW!!!

 

[ShawnD1]

Blah, sounds like a whole lot of nothing. My brother was suspended from school lots of times. He was a regular trouble maker. Now he's an engineer and his income is about twice the national average.

 

[Thump553]

Sounds to me like suspension/explusion is being overused. /slips into old geezer voice/ When I was a kid suspensions and explusions were very rare-probably none in elementary school, no more than one or two a year throughout my junior high and high school years for the entire class. We didn't get beaten either-just tons of detentions, parent-principal conferences, write out essays on how I will not do XXX again, etc).

Formal education goes through popularity cycles-when I was a kid it was New Math and immersion teaching of foreign languages in elementary school. Suspensions/explusions seems to be the hot thing now. Suspending a kid for not doing the work/paying attention will do nothing but reinforce that negative behavior.

 

[thraashman]

Hell, I was suspended in 8th grade due to a friend's screw up that I got involved in and chose to stick by my friend rather than turn him in. It was literally the only disciplinary problem I ever had, I never even got detention. And the only time I was ever removed from a class was for refusing to stand for the pledge on religious grounds.

Now I'm a software engineer, home owner, make more then most of my peers

 

[a777pilot]

My suggestion to do many things....such as improve the education, pay teachers more and lower overall costs of the school system for the put upon taxpayers is......wait for it....privatize the entire system, i.e., a public school system open to all but run by contract with a private company.

A local school board would contract out for a system that included administration as well as the teaching, to include coaching. The physical plants, i.e. the builds would remain the property of the school system. Their maintenance would be part of the contract.

Let the rock throwing begin.

 

[ShawnD1]

Sounds to me like suspension/explusion is being overused. /slips into old geezer voice/ When I was a kid suspensions and explusions were very rare-probably none in elementary school, no more than one or two a year throughout my junior high and high school years for the entire class. We didn't get beaten either-just tons of detentions, parent-principal conferences, write out essays on how I will not do XXX again, etc).

Read the teacher's union contract. They're not going to do that for free. I wouldn't either. Teachers have better things to do than stay an extra half hour or hour at school just to babysit some little shit with discipline problems. Doing parent principal conferences would count as overtime pay as well since that would happen some time in the evening well after school has ended. Telling them to write an essay won't do anything because they will just half ass it in 5 minutes and there's nothing you can do to stop them.

The only thing the teachers can do is tell the parents that there is a problem and kick the kid out of class if that doesn't work.

Suspending a kid for not doing the work/paying attention will do nothing but reinforce that negative behavior.

Kids are generally not suspended just for being lazy. Kids are suspended because their behavior disrupts the flow of the class. If you can't get a kid to stop being a distraction, removing him from class is the only thing that will solve the problem.

 

[a777pilot]

Read the teacher's union contract. They're not going to do that for free. I wouldn't either. Teachers have better things to do than stay an extra half hour or hour at school just to babysit some little shit with discipline problems. Doing parent principal conferences would count as overtime pay as well since that would happen some time in the evening well after school has ended. Telling them to write an essay won't do anything because they will just half ass it in 5 minutes and there's nothing you can do to stop them.

The only thing the teachers can do is tell the parents that there is a problem and kick the kid out of class if that doesn't work.


Kids are generally not suspended just for being lazy. Kids are suspended because their behavior disrupts the flow of the class. If you can't get a kid to stop being a distraction, removing him from class is the only thing that will solve the problem.

Read the teacher's union contract.

There's the genesis of the problem. A public sector union. why would any sane person that pays taxes allow public sector employees to have a union. These employees have a vote, that is sufficient.

 

[ShawnD1]

There's the genesis of the problem. A public sector union. why would any sane person that pays taxes allow public sector employees to have a union. These employees have a vote, that is sufficient.

Killing the union won't help. I'm non-union and I would still tell my boss to go fuck himself if he asked me to stay an extra hour without getting overtime pay.

 

[a777pilot]

Killing the union won't help. I'm non-union and I would still tell my boss to go fuck himself if he asked me to stay an extra hour without getting overtime pay.

See. Unions are not necessary. Especially a public sector union.

Good for you.

 

[Anarchist420]

This is one of many reasons as to why the Public education system should be abolished (in addition to the fact that education isn't a right, nor could it be construed to be something that protects rights, and the fact that the public education teaches kids that the government is good and finally, it drives up the cost of private education because it's a monopoly)

The bad kids often screw it up for the good kids, while they cost the tax-payer billions/state. The really bad kids are just born with problems, and it's best to just let them do whatever the hell they want to until they damage someone or something that they don't own.

Unfortunately, my niece lives in Richmond (IIRC, they expel more people than they graduate) and my brother won't pay for private schools because he pays taxes.

 

[Exterous]

Crappy parenting, lack of discipline, schools too scared of lawsuits to punish students in a meaningful way. This stuff all adds up.

Re: the statistic about black students being suspended at a higher rate, look at teenage and out of wedlock pregnancy statistics in the African-American community. There's your answer. I bet that black kids who come from homes with two gainfully employed, responsible parents aren't suspended at a higher rate than their white peers.

:thumbsup:

The only thing the teachers can do is tell the parents that there is a problem and kick the kid out of class if that doesn't work.

The scariest thing a teacher can do is write a referral to the principle explaining the situation (and then the principle will decide the punishment)

 

[ichy]

I knew a guy in college who'd gone to a Catholic high school that still occasionally paddled students. He said that while nobody wanted to get punished that way the stuff that students really dreaded was being forced to do custodial work after school or on weekends. Make students stay after school & clean out nasty bathrooms, there's an effective punishment.

 

[Thump553]

For the first two hundred years of public education in the USA teachers did "stay extra" to babysit kids on detention without extra overtime pay-it was considered part of the job covered by their salary. They graded papers, did lessons plans, etc. during this time.

This has little to do with unions, it has more to do with society's corruption of the concept of what a teacher is-one of the great noble professions (lawyers, doctors, teachers and the clergy), each of which traditionally does a lot of unpaid pro bono work.

 

[ichy]

This has little to do with unions, it has more to do with society's corruption of the concept of what a teacher is-one of the great noble professions (lawyers, doctors, teachers and the clergy), each of which traditionally does a lot of unpaid pro bono work.

Maybe if teachers were treated with more respect they'd be more inclined to do that. The amount of disrespect and back-talk that teachers get from students and their loathsome parents is appalling.

 

[a777pilot]

Maybe if teachers were treated with more respect they'd be more inclined to do that. The amount of disrespect and back-talk that teachers get from students and their loathsome parents is appalling.

I agree. Every time a student or their parents backtalk, lower that student's grade. See how long it take for anyone to catch on. Grades are subjective anyway.

Or go into another line of work.

 

[ichy]

I knew someone who was a Baltimore high school teacher who'd gotten punched multiple times by students during her three years teaching there. I don't know what consequences the students suffered, but I'm sure they were something meaningless. Any student who dares to assault a teacher should be on the receiving end of SERIOUS (i.e. the kind that leaves bruises for days) corporal punishment.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I knew someone who was a Baltimore high school teacher who'd gotten punched multiple times by students during her three years teaching there. I don't know what consequences the students suffered, but I'm sure they were something meaningless. Any student who dares to assault a teacher should be on the receiving end of SERIOUS (i.e. the kind that leaves bruises for days) corporal punishment.

The consequences of a minor punching a cop and a student punching his / her teacher should be the same.

 

[lord_emperor]

1. Hate going to school.
2. Doing bad things gets you suspended from school.
3. ???
4. Inevitable conclusion.

 

[OlafSicky]

"One glaring example: 70 percent of black girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 37 percent of white girls"


This is probably the same percentage as single parent households or very close to it.

 

[schneiderguy]

Also, possible discrimination?

Uh, no. I'd say about 90% of the black kids at my high school were just disturbances to the class and they deserved whatever punishment they got. And that was in a middle class suburb.

 

[polarmystery]

My suggestion to do many things....such as improve the education, pay teachers more and lower overall costs of the school system for the put upon taxpayers is......wait for it....privatize the entire system, i.e., a public school system open to all but run by contract with a private company.

A local school board would contract out for a system that included administration as well as the teaching, to include coaching. The physical plants, i.e. the builds would remain the property of the school system. Their maintenance would be part of the contract.

Let the rock throwing begin.

Paying teachers more money != better quality teachers.

 

[Munky]

Also, possible discrimination?
Quote:
"African-American students and those with particular educational disabilities experience a disproportionately high rate of removal from the classroom for disciplinary reasons," he said.

One glaring example: 70 percent of black girls were suspended or expelled, compared with 37 percent of white girls

Or, more likely, 70% of black girls acted in a way that warranted disciplinary action, as opposed to only 37% of white girls.