Posted by Jay Livingston
Several teachers and administrators in Texas were shocked to learn of the report.From the New York Times article about a study of disciplinary procedures in Texas schools. Thirty percent of students had been suspended or expelled; with “in-school” suspensions included, the rate is 60%.
“That’s astronomical,” said Joe Erhardt, a science teacher at Kingwood Park High School in the Houston suburb of Humble, Tex. “I’m at a loss.”
The great state of Texas has an incarceration rate higher than that of all but a handful of states. Since the Supreme Court started allowing death penalty laws in 1976, Texas has executed four times as many people as has the next most execution-friendly state. It accounts for nearly 40% of all executions in the US.
So why should anybody be surprised that Texas schools deal with kids by punishing them? Punitiveness seems to be a fairly strong element of Texas culture. Even before today’s report, it was well known that nearly all school districts in Texas allow corporal punishment. In 2006-07, the most recent year I could find statistics for, 49,000 Texas kids were paddled in school.
As for the effectiveness of suspension and expulsion
“We see so many kids being removed from the classrooms for disciplinary reasons, often repeatedly, demonstrating that we're not getting the desired changes in behavior,” Thompson [one of the authors of the report] said. “When we remove kids from the classroom, we see an increased likelihood in that student repeating a grade, dropping out or not graduating. We also see an increased likelihood of juvenile justice involvement.” (From the Houston Chronicle)Will the report affect state and school policies. Maybe. But I suspect that this will be another instance where values (ideas about what is good) shape beliefs (ideas about what is true). If cultural values hold that punishing bad behavior is right, people will cling to the belief that punishment is also effective, i.e., that it reduces bad behavior. People who cherish these ideas will dismiss the evidence from this report and others as wrong or irrelevant. If they refer to these studies, they will be careful to put the word in quotation marks. You might have to pay attention to a study, but you can ignore evidence from “studies.”
Jay,
ReplyDeleteDo you have any kids? Are any of currently in elementary, middle or high school?
My son is in college, but he went through the NYC public schools K-12. I can’t imagine what the relevance of that fact is. I’m pretty sure he had nothing to do with the difference in disciplinary policy between New York and Texas, nor with the shock that some people expressed at discovering how often Texas suspends and expels students, which is what the blogpost was about.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering Jay if you had any connection with reality.
ReplyDeleteDid you bother to do any research on the issue before you posted?
And exactly just what is the purpose of your post?
To show how backwards Texas is...after all what does executing criminals have to do with suspensions in school?
You don't talk about crime rankings
http://www.cqpress.com/pages/statecrime2009
Does that site show New York with higher crime rates than Texas?
Did you know the school districts in the state are required - by law -- to put certain students into suspension or alternate education facilities if they are caught committing a crime OFF campus?
You don't talk about the natural consequences of misbehavior either.
What should be done with student that require discipline?
The fine folks in charge of our education system have been tying teachers & administrations hands regarding discipline for decades.
Isn't this just the result of the policies you support my friend?
If cultural values hold that punishing bad behavior is right, people will cling to the belief that punishment is also effective, i.e., that it reduces bad behavior. People who cleave to these ideas will dismiss the evidence from this report and others as wrong or irrelevant.
What evidence??
I have just a bachelor's of business management so forgive me if you showed or linked to any evidence concerning reducing bad behavior or not....could you point it out?
“What we really need to do is go in to those districts and see if these really are choices being made,” Mr. Skiba said. “We don’t really know enough about the reasons for African-American and Latino over-representation in school discipline. We have enough data to show that it’s more than just poverty and any greater misbehavior. My guess is it’s very subtle interactional effects between some teachers and students.”
I love how he freely admits they don't know enough to determine anything then goes on to blame the 'student teacher interaction'.
Maybe it is just the 'student' interaction with authority, eh?
While the study found links between school discipline and criminal activity, there is no way to know whether one caused the other. Educators have long complained that many students, particularly from poor families, arrive in classrooms with problems far beyond academics that they have few tools to control.
I noticed you didn't mention this in your post. Care to elaborate on the link?
Or maybe it is a link between the collapse of the family, the collapse of expectation success in schools?
How many parents show up for parent-teacher conferences, how many parents support the teachers when their kids are in trouble instead of attacking the teacher?
How many parents expect the schools to teach their kids not only English, Grammar, math but also values and ethics?
How many parents teach their kids not to talk back to a teacher (much less don't steal) and then supports the teacher when junior/juniorette sasses them?
How many parents teach their kids to actually obey a teacher's reasonable requests instead of "doing what is right for them"?
Do you know that many teachers aren't allowed to do anything more than suspend or expel a child?
That folks like you and your fellow university residents have pushed that restriction on their ability to discipline children -- reap what you sow.
When I was a wee lass, my parents moved from Minnesota (I was in kindergarten at this school, a stereotype of progressive, flaky MN: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/06/13/webster-elementary-history/) to Texas where I began first grade. My developmental psychologist friends tell me I was near the age where one develops permanent memories -- the paddle (large, wooden, always in plain view) on my first grade teacher's desk is a vivid (and scary) one. I was shocked (shocked!) that the teacher might hit me and still can't quite put into words how wrong it seemed to me at the time (and more so today, now that I have a feisty child of my own about to enter kindergarten).
ReplyDeleteI also was a pretty serious delinquent later on so I'm not sure it had the intended effect. :)