EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: But how bad will things have to get before educationists see the light?
You know things are bad when the left-leaning Education Week allows an article even mildly critical of progressive school discipline measures.
“Nationwide, both new and veteran teachers report grappling with deteriorating levels of student behavior in classrooms,” Olina Banerji reports. “Students are abrasive, disrespectful, refuse to complete tasks, and in some severe cases, violent towards their peers and teachers.”
Specifically, so-called “restorative” justice methods are in the crosshairs; they’ve “garnered criticism—largely from teachers—for letting students off the hook with few to no consequences.”
Well, yeah. I, and many other educators, current and retired, have been clamoring about such nonsense for years. Restorative practices, which Ed Week describes as “more inclusive and arguably kinder,” essentially were a (leftist) response to “zero tolerance” policies.
Although zero tolerance basically says “here’s the rules — you break ’em, you suffer the consequences,” Ed Week notes that “research showed” they “often overlook[ed] inherent economic and social fractures.”
This translates to “students of color” (generally lower socio-economic status) and kids with (mainly behavioral) disabilities are disproportionately disciplined. Disproportionality that results in a negative against such groups is an absolute no-no among liberals.
Things in the “restorative” realm really began chugging along during the Obama administration‘s “White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans” which attempted to “decrease African American dropout rates ‘by promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools.’”
But as Joanne Jacobs writes, “the softer approach ‘has had limited success in curbing behavioral issues, and it has garnered criticism — largely from teachers — for letting students off the hook with few to no consequences.'”
Jacobs notes “Sending a disruptive student to the principal’s office is useless, teachers on social media complain. The student will return to class in five or 10 minutes with a snack.”
This to be 100 percent true. It happened to me several times in my last few years of teaching alone, happened to many of my peers, and continues to happen to teachers today.
Just imagine a kid who was mouthing off to no end, you finally get fed up and send him out, and 10 minutes later he’s knocking at your door with a snack in hand, a smirk on his face, and a hall pass from the asst. principal.
Also true is what an educator wrote on social media: “Even if a principal wants to suspend a kid, [his] hands are tied by the district office.” And I’d add even if a district office wants to enforce rational discipline, its hands are tied by local and state legislators.
Jacobs cites a RAND Corporation study which notes student misbehavior is a bigger contributor to teachers wanting out than their workload and alleged poor salaries (this isn’t new, either … and teachers’ alleged low salaries are offset in large measure by excellent benefits).
Last year, the Manhattan Institute’s Jennifer Weber ripped restorative practices for allowing classroom chaos to continue, which she said may lead to rules-following kids deciding — correctly — it isn’t worth even going to school because the teachers can’t teach.
How bad does it have to get before we see some common-sense changes?
My guess it’ll still be a while yet. Many of the administrators who implement restorative nonsense (most in central offices) don’t have to deal with the consequences of their idiocies, and they even get brownie points for having schools implement measures like restorative justice. (A nicely worded district mailer will read something like “Dr. So-and-So, an Ed.D, oversaw district schools’ implementation of revised discipline measures designed to better address students’ needs,” but few parents have a clue what this really means … or will actually take the time to investigate.)
So until common-sense changes manifest, get your kid into a school that actually enforces rules and policies, and deals with the constant troublemakers. Or homeschool. It’s much better than having your child become merely another notch in some administrator’s continuing résumé … which looks good to educationists, but in the real world is just blithering nonsense.
