Schools lack discipline

I find all this debate about the high school magnet programs at Paxon, Stanton and Douglas Anderson and if we should keep them as they are both sad and laughable. Laughable because parents, the district and the media are missing the real causes of the differences between the grades and sad because the same entities don't seem to be doing anything to correct the real problems. The real problem is our neighborhood schools are filled with apathy and lack discipline, problems the magnet schools don't face. Take care of those two problems and I believe we could sit back and watch the neighborhood schools grades rise.

Where I think it borderline inappropriate to celebrate the successes the magnet schools are having when so many other schools are struggling the reality is, differences between our A schools and our D and F schools aren't that great and are definitely fixable. Where I believe it's true that the magnet schools play a role in the problems that neighborhood schools are experiencing by siphoning away some of the brightest and most motivated, who coincidently are often the students that are in the least amount of trouble, this definitely isn't the neighborhood schools biggest problem.

The differences between the neighborhood schools and the magnet schools are the neighborhood schools are filled with apathy and lack discipline. One set of schools battle these problems daily and the other set has received a pass. This is one of the reasons I would put the faculty of the F school I work at against any faculty in any magnet school in the district. Our amazing and dedicated group of teachers goes to work everyday, often unappreciated and then do great things with their students and that's while having to put up with the serious problems the teachers at the magnet schools don't have to. However it's not just my school that has a good staff, every school in the district has dedicated teachers doing their best to educate their students, a significant amount of who really want to learn and do well, and this is every where from Stanton, to Ribault to Ed White and all the schools in between. The differences are in the problems the staffs face.

First apathy, the students at the magnet schools want to be there where many of the students at the neighborhood school feel forced to be there. This is a hoop they must jump through on their way to adulthood. The main reason for this is that for some reason in Duval County we insist on preparing children just for a college education, when quite frankly a lot of the students in the neighborhood schools aren't interested in it or for a variety of reasons aren't ready for it. We have students taking classes they are not prepared for like algebra II, physics and chemistry (classes I didn't have to take and I am teaching at the public, neighborhood school that I went to), when they should be taking classes that teach them carpentry, plumbing, electronics, cooking, computers, etc. etc. etc. classes that will give them a skill, or prepare them for the real world. If we are going to have magnet schools for college prep., why don't we also have more magnet schools for skills preparation and not just Peterson, which every year gets harder and harder to get into?

Furthermore many students are not interested in those classes yet they are forced to take them. I'll tell you why, it's because some elected official who has never been in the classroom read a paper written by some college professor who has never been in a public school, which said we are falling behind in math and science. As the holder of multiple college liberal arts degrees that required very little background in math and science I am here to tell you we can be successful with just a cursory knowledge of advanced science and math. What about students that want to be social workers, (non math or science) teachers, writers, work in law enforcement or dozens of other fields, where is the liberal arts curriculum that serves them.

Instead of developing a practical curriculum for those students who don't want to go to college, who may want to work instead or for students interested in liberal arts subjects, the powers that be insist students take classes they will never use again. I saw a skit on the David Letterman show a few years back, it was about weird and unusual people; they introduced Mark Sampson from Tara Haute, Indian, he was weird and unusual because he had used algebra to solve an everyday problem. When I was in high school again at the school I am now teaching at, I took general math 2 as a junior and no math as a senior, I also took no sciences that required math either in high school or college. In case you are wondering I have degrees in political science and psychology, and I chose them partly based on the lack of math they required.

Its worse for some special education students working on special ed. diplomas which and I am not sure if they or their parents know this or not aren't worth the paper they are printed on. At a meeting the other day we were discussing putting some special education students in regular education classes because we thought they could do it, until somebody mentioned they would also have to take algebra 2 and chemistry. The enthusiastic attitude we had quickly changed to a defeated one as we agreed what's the point.

A worse problem than apathy however is the lack of discipline in our schools. Now don't get me wrong, most students are a treat or no worse than a momentary problem here or there, but there are also more than a few students who make educating the rest very difficult. Everyday in the teachers lounges throughout the district you hear educators lament, if only Johnny wasn't in my class I could teach, or thank goodness little Suzy was absent, I felt like a teacher today. The district has made it nearly impossible to remove these children to alternative schools unless they bring a gun to school (though not always) or beat up a teacher, as just threatening a teacher often isn't enough. By allowing these few students to skate by with little or no consequences and remember for a consequence to be effective it must have meaning, for their behavior we are courting disaster. Do we need a tragedy to happen, like a student being rushed to the hospital after a fight, something that happened at my school earlier in the week or something worse, before we bring discipline back to the classroom and get rid of these unruly few? Think about it, if a teacher spends just ten percent of his time disciplining those students who show no desire to be in school, who come not to learn but to see what trouble they can find, then all the students in the class are loosing out on 18 days of instruction in a school year, some teachers are forced to spend a lot more than ten percent. I wonder how discipline is at the magnet schools; I would guess it's not much of a problem.

Continuing when watching the news or reading the newspaper it is obvious our community has been infected by an epidemic of violence, and for the most part it is young people committing it. I wonder how these former students did while they were in school, if they were discipline problems or not, and if they were what kind of consequences they received for their behavior. My guess would be none, that they were managed instead of dealt with or socially promoted so they could be the next schools or societies problem. What do you think happens when children are allowed to do whatever they want in school with only the slightest of punishments, well they become adults without respect or care for their fellow citizens.

Imagine if students went to schools where they participated in curriculums that were relevant to their interests or desires. Imagine if students went to schools where their teachers could concentrate on teaching rather than disciplining a rowdy few. Imagine what the grades of those schools would look like. Imagine if all high schools could eject students with a 2.0 grade point average or less. I bet more parents would be involved if they knew they would have to pay for a private school if their child was evicted from public school.

Where I believe the magnet program is deeply flawed (mostly because of an unfair distribution of resources, and them being able to hand pick and drop their students, where other schools take what they get and do the best they can with them) I see the real problems at the neighborhood schools not being a brain drain but unrealistic expectations from the powers that be. We have curriculums that breed apathy and don't prepare students not headed to college for the real world. But worse neighborhood schools have students with severe discipline problems and when we coddle then we are in effect allowing the inmates to run the asylum. This serious lack of discipline impedes instruction. We must develop meaningful consequences for repeat and serious offenders, because if not, what is the point. I believe no child left behind should be changed to; we are leaving about ten percent of them behind until they straighten up. If we could fight apathy and instill discipline, then I believe we would watch the grades of neighborhood schools rise, and rise quickly and dramatically.