Letter From The Teacher #12: They're Gonna Mess With Texas!

Anytown High School, Any State, USA

To: Mr. Discipline, Principal, Anytown High School
From: Mr. English Teacher
Re: They're Gonna Mess With Texas!

Dear Mr. Discipline:

Let me provide the links to two articles I think you'll find very interesting:

(1) "Half of Texas' Student Have Been Suspended, Study Finds (here), and

(2) "New Initiative Targets 'School-to-Prison' Pipeline" (here)

In the first article, the author reports that:

"Using discipline records of nearly 1 million Texas middle and high school students that cover much of the last decade, researchers found that more than half of them were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grades, that the punishments were applied unevenly among students of different races, abilities, and schools, and that students disciplined with these methods were more likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school than students who were not punished in the same way."

The article suggests that " of the half a million times students were suspended or expelled, only 3 percent of those suspensions or expulsions were for behavior Texas law requires be punished that way."

The second article begins:

"A new undertaking from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education targets school discipline policies that end up pushing children into the juvenile-justice system for crimes and rule-breaking on campus—and keeping them from pursuing their education."

The author adds:

" Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled the Supportive School Discipline Initiative at a meeting of a Justice Department committee meeting Thursday afternoon.

'When our young people start getting locked up early... they start to move out of schools, out of the pipeline to success,' Mr. Duncan said."

Apparently Mr. Duncan and Mr. Holder's initiative has four parts:
"• building consensus for action among federal, state and local education and justice stakeholders; 
• collaborating on research and data collection needed to shape policy, such as evaluations of alternative disciplinary policies and interventions; 
• developing guidance to ensure school discipline policies and practices are in line with the federal civil rights laws; 
• and promoting awareness and knowledge about evidence-based and promising policies and practices."

The author concluded with this:

"Holder and Duncan referenced a report by the Council of State Governments Justice Center from earlier this week that found that more than half of all Texas middle and high school students were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grades.

'I think these numbers are kind of a wake-up call,' Mr. Holder said. 'It's obvious we can do better.'"

I can't help but wonder what the "researchers" considered as being "suspended." Unless they counted kids spending a day or two in On Campus suspension (OCS) for mid-level disciplinary issues, the idea that half of kids were suspended—actually temporarily removed from the campus--or expelled—removed for a semester or a year--makes no sense; the numbers are simply too large. I suspect that they cherry-picked the kids involved. Notice that the article very carefully doesn't specify that the "nearly 1 million" kids represented all Texas students in that decade. If half of all kids were suspended or expelled at least once, it would be simply impossible to actually have a school.

I looked it up: in 2011, 4.9 million kids were enrolled in Texas schools. I wonder if the authors involved purposely made it appear that more than half of all kids in Texas schools were suspended or expelled? Yeah. I know the answer too.

I wonder what they mean when they said "…that the punishments were applied unevenly among students of different races, abilities and schools?" That would seem to suggest a one-size fits all disciplinary scheme that treats every kid alike, regardless of the circumstances, their past disciplinary records, or their individual needs. That's all we need: Another bit of "zero-tolerance" nonsense that requires us to abuse the hell out of kids because some boneheaded bureaucrat thinks he knows better than we do and is determined to impose his political ideology on the real world.

I really liked this one too: "… that students disciplined with these methods were more likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school than students who were not punished in the same way." I think we've both seen this sort of thing before by people who say, for instance, that a larger portion of young black males are in prison than the same portion of young white males. They latch onto the statistic and believe that it is indicative or racism or prejudice or some other social ill rather than the obvious: more young black men are committing serious crimes than any other group. They're not the victims of some evil conspiracy, they're criminals who need to be behind bars because when they're not, they're preying on innocent people.

In the case of schools, we both know that the kids who are such serious and continuing discipline problems that they end up actually suspended or expelled are also the same group of kids who will end up repeating a grade or dropping out. It's not the evil schools that suspend or expel them; it's their behavior. And they are being suspended or expelled because that behavior is so constant, so disruptive or so dangerous that when they're in school, they make it difficult or impossible for other kids to learn, or they prey on them. Sadly, all too often their parents don't lift a finger to control them and expect the schools to be their surrogate parents.

These articles obviously assume that the kids they're talking about are some kind of victims of evil school officials who only want to see them kicked out of school and locked up. They don't seem to realize or care that before a kid is subjected to such mild punishment as a day of OCS, they have already exhausted no less than 4-5 (sometimes more) lesser steps on the discipline scale and their behavior is so disruptive that they have to be removed from classes so other kids have the chance to learn.

What I'm really worried about is the federal government getting involved. The Education Secretary's statement says it all: "When our young people start getting locked up early... they start to move out of schools, out of the pipeline to success." Mr. Duncan has no idea what's actually going on out here in the real world. He sees some kids being "locked up early"—whatever that means—and that mere fact—if it is a fact—tells him that something horrible is happening, something that only the federal government can and must fix? Don't these people ever ask questions like: "Do these kids deserve to be locked up?" Ronald Reagan was right. The most horrifying words in the English language are: "I'm from the Federal Government and I'm here to help."

The four initiatives are particularly troubling, such as: "developing guidance to ensure school discipline policies and practices are in line with the federal civil rights laws." You know what that means. The Obama Administration is going to decide one-size-fits-all, race, gender and sexual orientation related disciplinary policies for middle school and high schools and is going to side with kids who want to sue their schools for daring to discipline them so that the rest of the student body can learn and doesn't end up being their victims.

Can you imagine federal agencies or federal judges running discipline policies for individual schools? I have no doubt that Mr. Holder and Mr. Duncan can. I thought the federal government was kind of busy with the whole national debt and multiple foreign wars thing. Apparently not. You haven't done anything to annoy these people, have you? I'm pretty sure I haven't.

Anyway, I know you don't have nearly enough to worry about, but I thought I'd better give you a heads-up on this. I suppose we ought to thank our lucky stars we're not living in Texas. The Obama Administration really seems to hate those poor people, and now they're going after their schools. With any luck, they'll be able to turn Texas schools into California or Detroit schools with the same kinds of policies that have made those places the outstanding educational success stories they are today. Perhaps they can start student's unions? I'm sure the SEIU would be interested.

Yours,

Mr. English Teacher