I have ben writing about this for years. No child left behind should be, we are leaving about ten percent of them behind until they straighten up. -cpg
From an Urban Teachers Blog
How My School and District Failed its Students
The following is by Frank Beard, a graduate of Drake University and a former Teach For America corps member (Kansas City ’08). He taught middle school science, social studies, and communication arts in the Kansas City, Missouri School District.
A large number of this country’s schools are failing its students—but not in the way that many columnists, education reformers, or school experts would have you believe.
From 2008 to 2010, I taught at the middle school level in Kansas City as a Teach For America corps member. But don’t worry, I’m not going rehash Freedom Writers, and I certainly won’t tell one of those sappy “this is why I Teach For America” stories.
Instead, I want to offer some very candid thoughts about why I think my district and school were such abysmal failures.
When people ask me what I believe was the number one barrier to student achievement at my school, I always offer the same answer: the failure of the school and district to address chronically disruptive students. It was a problem created by negligent leaders who willingly allowed a free-for-all environment that was conducive to chaos instead of learning.
I’ll never forget the first day of staff development my second year. During the “welcome back” talk, my principal handed out a sheet which detailed the number of discipline referrals submitted by each teacher the previous year. We were informed that it is wrong to submit a lot of them because discipline is a classroom-management issue and therefore must be addressed within the classroom. Sending students to the office, she said, is simply not acceptable or allowed.
I didn’t think much of that at first. After all, I had just come from an amazing summer school experience in which I had supportive principals, a fantastic assistant principal who liked to hang out in my classroom, and students who were simply a joy to be around. Even though many of my students had received no science instruction at their regular schools (that time was used for extra reading and math test preparation), they were veritable experts on the scientific method at the end of our six weeks. I was continually impressed with their hard work and desire to learn.
Coming from that experience, I ignored my fellow teachers’ warnings that the new year was going to be complete and total chaos. I also ignored the fact that losing our vice principal—who tried his best to be an effective disciplinarian—was sure to affect the school’s climate. Instead, I was excited and ready to teach. The other middle school teachers and I collaborated and developed a student handbook in which we standardized all of our rules, expectations, grading practices, behavior management systems, and other relevant policies and procedures. We were a united front, and our students were going to have a successful year.
Or so I thought.
Everything was great for the first three weeks, but then a few students began testing the limits of what was acceptable behavior. It’s one thing when a student throws a paper ball at his friend, or when someone utters a rude comment. It’s quite another thing when a student tells you that she’ll “crack” your “bitch ass” or demands that you “get the fuck out of [her] face”. Unfortunately, as the students soon discovered, our principal offered no support whatsoever. Nearly ever discipline referral sent to the office was returned with a polite reminder to please contact the students’ parents. Clear and consistent consequences simply did not exist—even though they were mandated by the district’s code of conduct.
Once that realization spread, the school effectively went from quality to chaos overnight. The following is but a sample of what an average day looked and sounded like:
- Students standing in the hall and kicking classroom doors for five to ten minutes at a time
- Students fighting
- Teachers pelted with paper, pencils, erasers, and rocks whenever they turned their heads
- Assignments torn up and thrown on the floor the moment they’re passed out
- Teachers cursed at, threatened, and sometimes even assaulted
- Classroom supplies vandalized or thrown about the room
- Groups of students running the halls and showing up to one or two classes at most
- Constant yelling and shouting from the hallways
- Gang writing written on the walls with permanent markers
- Students talking and yelling so loud in the classroom that nobody could hear the teacher
By “students”, I’m of course referring to the 15-25% that were chronically disruptive. The truth is that the overwhelming majority in each class were great kids who came every day ready to learn. Besides being from an impoverished part of town, they were no different than students at any other school.
This wasn’t just a problem at my school. When I spoke with other teachers throughout the district, they told me that the situation at their school was nearly identical to mine. Some of their stories are just as outrageous.
When students are subjected to a toxic environment that prevents learning, all other education concerns—curriculum, standards, integrating technology, etc—become totally irrelevant. Unfortunately, this is something rarely ever addressed in both local and national media. And education reformers—whether from watching Freedom Writers one too many times or just understanding that blaming teachers is politically expedient right now—repeat until they’re red in the face the idea that a teacher with leadership skills and high expectations can fix everything short of the conflict in the Middle East.
So what did our school leaders focus on, if not the toxic atmosphere in the schools? The superintendent—a product of the Broad Superintendents Academy—was concerned mostly with “right-sizing” the district, preparing to implement standards-based learning at pilot schools, and token efforts towards “community involvement”. As for the school board…well, that’s anyone’s guess. I think they were more concerned with political in-fighting and a sudden attempt to appear legitimate.
I should be surprised that the toxic atmosphere wasn’t addressed, but I’m not. I came to realize a certain truth about this country’s urban schools: their leaders—especially those at the district level—rarely have any stake in whether or not the schools are successes or failures. They’re not a part of those communities, they don’t send their children to the schools they oversee (except, sometimes, the selective admissions-based ones), and at the end of the day, whatever happens doesn’t really affect them. They’re working with other peoples’ children. The only thing they have to lose is their jobs—and that’s easy to protect if they cover their rear, furnish the necessary documentation, and blame those below them.
Though I was also not a part of my district’s community, it was different for me since I was a teacher. Teachers bond with their students, become their advocates, share in the joy of their successes, and help them learn from their failures. They feel the pain of their situations at home, keep extra granola bars and juice boxes on hand for those who don’t get enough food, and go above and beyond to ensure that they get the education they need. Their students are real people and they care deeply about them. They’re not just a statistic on some document.
As a teacher, I saw firsthand the very people who were failed by my district’s leaders:
- They failed C.P., a quirky, wonderful student who was reading Plato’s Republic for fun in seventh grade
- They failed D.W., a bright, talented student who although sometimes lost his temper due to problems at home, would always apologize afterwards.
- They failed M.J., the sweetest, nicest, most prim and proper student I’ve ever met, who was forced to endure disruption day after day by one of her classmates who threatened to shoot others, was arrested for armed robbery, and made sexually harassing comments to girls
- They also failed M.W., a student who although acted as a class clown at times, was incredibly smart, motivated, and had the potential to do anything he wanted to in life
Were there other problems? Of course there were, but the chronically disruptive atmosphere was by far the most significant and destructive. It’s a problem that’s conspicuously absent from successful suburban schools—which don’t tolerate outrageous misbehavior—and is usually never mentioned by education reformers, policy experts, consultants, and the other people who pretend to know what’s best for our schools.
Perhaps my expectations are too high. After all, how can I expect them to understand the seriousness of this problem if they’ve spent little or no time working in the very schools they pretend to be experts about?
You can follow Frank Beard on twitter @FrankBeard, or email him at fbeard@gmail.com
http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2011/02/tfa-alumnus-describes-barriers-to.html
Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discipline. Show all posts
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Just what direction is the system moving in?
The system is moving in the right direction, Professor James Crooks wrote in the Folio Weekly about our school system because of reports that our graduation rates were improving and that the district has reported a decrease in discipline problems. The good professor however left out a couple of important things.
First there is the fact that the formula for graduation rates was dramatically changed recently, which led to our bump. It gets worse than that however. I have six kids in my classes who I have never met and despite me reporting them to the attendance team several times they have yet to be withdrawn, extrapolate that county wide and that could be thousands of kids who have effectively dropped out but have stayed on our rolls. Nor does he mention the loophole that prevents kids who enter adult education classes (GED, etc.) from being withdrawn, which probably counts for about a five percent improvement in out rates.
(http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-duval-countys-graduation-rate.html)
His claim that discipline has improved is also laughable. He failed to mention how the average teacher (probably because he doesn’t know any) would completely disagree with the statement that discipline has greatly improved. However what has improved is teachers ignoring bad behavior and enduring toxic learning environments. It’s common for administrators to “with quote marks” say, if a teacher writes to many referrals, his or her evaluation, performance pay and even job can be in jeopardy.
Professor Crooks with all due respect in the future when you write about Jacksonville why don’t you stick with the climate, the golf courses or special neighborhoods like Fernandina Beach or Avondale because you obviously have no idea what is happening in our schools and when you regurgitate statistics issued by self serving parties you do our city and it’s children a disservice.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
First there is the fact that the formula for graduation rates was dramatically changed recently, which led to our bump. It gets worse than that however. I have six kids in my classes who I have never met and despite me reporting them to the attendance team several times they have yet to be withdrawn, extrapolate that county wide and that could be thousands of kids who have effectively dropped out but have stayed on our rolls. Nor does he mention the loophole that prevents kids who enter adult education classes (GED, etc.) from being withdrawn, which probably counts for about a five percent improvement in out rates.
(http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-duval-countys-graduation-rate.html)
His claim that discipline has improved is also laughable. He failed to mention how the average teacher (probably because he doesn’t know any) would completely disagree with the statement that discipline has greatly improved. However what has improved is teachers ignoring bad behavior and enduring toxic learning environments. It’s common for administrators to “with quote marks” say, if a teacher writes to many referrals, his or her evaluation, performance pay and even job can be in jeopardy.
Professor Crooks with all due respect in the future when you write about Jacksonville why don’t you stick with the climate, the golf courses or special neighborhoods like Fernandina Beach or Avondale because you obviously have no idea what is happening in our schools and when you regurgitate statistics issued by self serving parties you do our city and it’s children a disservice.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
School Board rearanges deck chairs on Titanic... again
It’s hard not to be jaded. It’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard not to think of our school board as a hapless bunch feeling around in the dark and this was made all the more apparent with their recent announcement of their plan to split our four schools in danger of closing into eight smaller schools that will occupy the same campuses. They say the cost for this rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic during these trying financial times is merely 2.7 million more dollars.
The district was given three options of what to do if the three high schools and one middle school didn’t improve. Fire the principals and staff, turn them over to private management companies to run or close them. Admittedly none of these options are very satisfactory. The school board however went off the menu and has proposed splitting the schools into two specialty schools each that would occupy the same campuses. My fist question is, if the kids are struggling with the regular education how are they supposed to miraculously be successful with the specialized curriculums?
Here is a possible solution they might not have thought of, how about stop promoting kids to high schools when they don’t have the skills to be successful in them? Barring that our only conceivable back up plan with even a chance of working should include fairy dust or a magic wand.
Sadly what everybody seems to be dancing around and what nobody wants to admit is the fact we have already failed most of the kids at these high schools. They are done; there is not much we can do for them. At worse they will have a life long menial existence and at best their development has been set back years. We have promoted them along without the skills they need and without a work ethic or any discipline. I don’t like it but that’s how it is. They are following thousands upon thousands of other kids we have sent out into society ill prepared for college or the work force. That’s where we currently find ourselves. It however doesn’t have to stay like that.
What we can do is say enough is enough, we’re not going to fail any kids any longer and the biggest way we can do that is by failing some of them. I know that sounds counter intuitive and it will hurt the sacred cow that graduation rates have become but we can’t continue to pass kids and hope they somehow catch up. A decade of doing so should have proven to us by now that it’s not going to work. Graduating kids on time shouldn’t be the number one goal of Duval County’s Public Schools. Graduating children prepared to be productive and civil citizens should be and we should be okay if that takes some regardless of color a little while longer to get there.
Then all the specialty programs like the school board is recommending implementing in the world will not make a difference if schools are places where kids can’t and don’t want to learn. The first thing we must do is take back our hallways and classrooms. Discipline has not improved, teachers tolerance to bad behavior has. Teachers have become masters at ignoring inappropriate behavior that steals education time because they know nothing will be done, well nothing but them having their classroom management questioned and their bonuses, evaluations and potentially their jobs put in jeopardy. Teachers often receive harsher consequences for writing kids up than the kids themselves do.
We must improve our learning environments, we don’t have to be harsh, strict and fair will suffice but if we want to have any chance of having a solution that doesn’t involve fairy dust or a magic wand then bringing discipline and meaningful consequences to our schools and classrooms is where we have to start. If this means we lose a few that won’t conform along the way, well that’s unfortunate but we’ll have addition through subtraction. We will save the ones we can, which I think is a better plan than keeping the ones that pull everybody around them down with them.
After that then we need to make our schools enjoyable. Kids who find school a chore are not going to excel, we need to make multiple and realistic curriculums that fit more of their needs and to do so we have to realize we don’t have the kids we wish we had, we have the kids we do and plan accordingly. Some might not like to hear it but that means that a fair amount of our kids aren’t going to go to college right after graduating high school either because of aptitude or desire. That however should be okay. Remember the goal of our public schools should be to prepare our children to be productive and civil citizens with whatever they choose to do, whether that is college or something else.
Kids in the lower grades need to play and be exposed to the arts, and then kids in the upper grades need to play a role in what their education consists of. Kids that want to drive trucks shouldn’t have to take algebra II. Kids that want to be artists or musicians should have those opportunities and kids that are more interested in earning a decent wage upon graduation rather than going to college should have the opportunity to learn a trade or a skill.
You want children to do well in school? Well make it both a place where learning can occur and a place where they want to be.
My next question is, what doesn’t the school board get?
The school board has been floundering around for a decade now, trying this and trying that to no avail. How many more chances are we going to give them? When are we going to say enough is enough? It’s hard not to be jaded. It’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard not to think of our school board as a hapless bunch feeling around in the dark. Split the schools up they say, it’s only 2.7 million more dollars they cry, lets ignore the real problems, a lack of discipline and kids hating school, for a little bit longer they ask.
We have a choice, we can continue on the same path or we can say enough is enough.
The district was given three options of what to do if the three high schools and one middle school didn’t improve. Fire the principals and staff, turn them over to private management companies to run or close them. Admittedly none of these options are very satisfactory. The school board however went off the menu and has proposed splitting the schools into two specialty schools each that would occupy the same campuses. My fist question is, if the kids are struggling with the regular education how are they supposed to miraculously be successful with the specialized curriculums?
Here is a possible solution they might not have thought of, how about stop promoting kids to high schools when they don’t have the skills to be successful in them? Barring that our only conceivable back up plan with even a chance of working should include fairy dust or a magic wand.
Sadly what everybody seems to be dancing around and what nobody wants to admit is the fact we have already failed most of the kids at these high schools. They are done; there is not much we can do for them. At worse they will have a life long menial existence and at best their development has been set back years. We have promoted them along without the skills they need and without a work ethic or any discipline. I don’t like it but that’s how it is. They are following thousands upon thousands of other kids we have sent out into society ill prepared for college or the work force. That’s where we currently find ourselves. It however doesn’t have to stay like that.
What we can do is say enough is enough, we’re not going to fail any kids any longer and the biggest way we can do that is by failing some of them. I know that sounds counter intuitive and it will hurt the sacred cow that graduation rates have become but we can’t continue to pass kids and hope they somehow catch up. A decade of doing so should have proven to us by now that it’s not going to work. Graduating kids on time shouldn’t be the number one goal of Duval County’s Public Schools. Graduating children prepared to be productive and civil citizens should be and we should be okay if that takes some regardless of color a little while longer to get there.
Then all the specialty programs like the school board is recommending implementing in the world will not make a difference if schools are places where kids can’t and don’t want to learn. The first thing we must do is take back our hallways and classrooms. Discipline has not improved, teachers tolerance to bad behavior has. Teachers have become masters at ignoring inappropriate behavior that steals education time because they know nothing will be done, well nothing but them having their classroom management questioned and their bonuses, evaluations and potentially their jobs put in jeopardy. Teachers often receive harsher consequences for writing kids up than the kids themselves do.
We must improve our learning environments, we don’t have to be harsh, strict and fair will suffice but if we want to have any chance of having a solution that doesn’t involve fairy dust or a magic wand then bringing discipline and meaningful consequences to our schools and classrooms is where we have to start. If this means we lose a few that won’t conform along the way, well that’s unfortunate but we’ll have addition through subtraction. We will save the ones we can, which I think is a better plan than keeping the ones that pull everybody around them down with them.
After that then we need to make our schools enjoyable. Kids who find school a chore are not going to excel, we need to make multiple and realistic curriculums that fit more of their needs and to do so we have to realize we don’t have the kids we wish we had, we have the kids we do and plan accordingly. Some might not like to hear it but that means that a fair amount of our kids aren’t going to go to college right after graduating high school either because of aptitude or desire. That however should be okay. Remember the goal of our public schools should be to prepare our children to be productive and civil citizens with whatever they choose to do, whether that is college or something else.
Kids in the lower grades need to play and be exposed to the arts, and then kids in the upper grades need to play a role in what their education consists of. Kids that want to drive trucks shouldn’t have to take algebra II. Kids that want to be artists or musicians should have those opportunities and kids that are more interested in earning a decent wage upon graduation rather than going to college should have the opportunity to learn a trade or a skill.
You want children to do well in school? Well make it both a place where learning can occur and a place where they want to be.
My next question is, what doesn’t the school board get?
The school board has been floundering around for a decade now, trying this and trying that to no avail. How many more chances are we going to give them? When are we going to say enough is enough? It’s hard not to be jaded. It’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard not to think of our school board as a hapless bunch feeling around in the dark. Split the schools up they say, it’s only 2.7 million more dollars they cry, lets ignore the real problems, a lack of discipline and kids hating school, for a little bit longer they ask.
We have a choice, we can continue on the same path or we can say enough is enough.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
My 19 year old sophomore says, Jail is Cool
My 19 year old sophomore returned to class today after a five week absence. I know for a good part of the time he was gone he had been in jail. I know this because he was arrested here at school. It happened when after a fight between him and another student was broke up he punched a security guard. Even though this is his first appearance in my class since then, I also know he came one other day, a day where he didn’t make it through his first period class before he had to be forcibly removed.
Yet there he was sitting in my class, with a cat eating grin on his face.
These were far from his first run-ins of the year. I myself had written him up several times for being defiant and disrespectful and I know other teachers have too. Also a few months back he went to a conduct review hearing for threatening to murder one of the deans. As an ESE student he is entitled to a conduct review to see if his behavior is a manifestation of his disability. What’s this young man’s disability, you ask; well he has a learning disability, he needs extra time to process information. How that manifests to him threatening and hitting school board employees, fighting with other children (and at nineteen he’s an adult, it’s the people he is fighting with that are children), being disrespectful and disruptive is beyond me but somehow the school district reasons it does as they stamped his and routinely stamp most conduct review visits “manifestation of disability”.
A master of the system he promised to enter the work program, but three weeks later and with no sign of employment in sight we realized that this had been a ruse and that we had been duped by him once again. Then a little less than two months ago I sat in a meeting where a district psychiatrist after interviewing him and reviewing his records said she was going to recommend he be sent to an alternative school so he could no longer “terrorize students… and teachers.” An interesting choice of words I thought at the time, but as long as he went away I was okay with it, yet there he was back in my class.
As I said, I had written him up a few times. After one time particularly nasty outburst in my room, he told me if I wrote him up I would be the one who got in trouble not him, and in a way he was right. If teachers write to many referrals, then their classroom management and skills as a teacher are questioned. Furthermore a lot of teachers don’t see the point of writing kids up just to see them returned to class with no real consequences for their actions. Often when they come back they are worse, not contrite as they should be but angry for the momentary time away from their friends. So teachers just endure or kick them out when they can’t endure anymore, but they aren’t the only ones that are forced to put up with their behavior, the other students in the class, your sons and daughters have to endure it as well.
Speaking of enduring, I had to endure my 19 year old sophomore talk about how jail was not so bad to his classmates. You got three squares a day and if you had money in your commissary you could get a packet of noodles for fifteen cents and a Little Debbie for a quarter, he told them. He continued, I said when they arrested me that I’m not scared of jail, and it was actually kind of fun sometimes, talking to the old timers. When a kid says jail is kind of fun, what do teachers have left, what can we do? The answer is not much.
I sometimes write about magnet schools and how I think they are unfair but in a way I am a hypocrite. You see if I had any high school aged children I would want them to go to a magnet school and it’s not because the teachers there are better, it’s because they are safer as your modern high school can be a dangerous place. Furthermore I wouldn’t want my children around kids who didn’t care about themselves or school and who thought that it was okay to disrupt class and be disrespectful to teachers. A colleague told me what he said to his class once. He said, “If you don’t care about school or you want to come to my class and just skate through you can, I don’t ask a whole lot, the class isn’t that tough and like most things in your life learning is up to you but if that’s what you want to do can you at least pretend to be decent human beings, while you do it.” I would want my children to be around decent human beings.
That’s not to say there are not a lot of good kids at my school; in fact I would say most of them are. Some of the kids in my classes who are just marginally, at best, interested in school are also some of my favorites. Sadly however there is a significant number of kids who don’t care, who only come to school because they are forced to or to see what trouble they can find or to take care of business. And what’s worse, is the fact a lot of these kids, like my 19 year old sophomore, who when he wants to be can be very charming, are role models. I don’t know when it happened but at some point looking up to teachers became not cool and looking up to kids who are disruptive and disrespectful to teachers did. It was so disheartening seeing several of my students hanging on my nineteen year old sophomores every word, especially his words, “jail is kind of fun.”
How do we turn these kids around? I would first suggest changing the schedule, ninety minutes in high school is way too long. When is the last time you got a 14 year old to focus that long on anything? Next have curriculums kids are interested in, bring back trades and skills, plus having more electives that can have an accompanying academic component couldn’t hurt either. Then we have to bring back discipline, when a child acts out they must get a meaningful consequence for their actions, if not all they have learned is it doesn’t matter what they do and that invariably means that their behavior will worsen.
So what’s going to happen to my nineteen year old sophomore? I am told he goes back for another conduct review later this month. Until then he is allowed to come to school, where I am sure he will let his classmates know, “jail is kind of fun.”
Yet there he was sitting in my class, with a cat eating grin on his face.
These were far from his first run-ins of the year. I myself had written him up several times for being defiant and disrespectful and I know other teachers have too. Also a few months back he went to a conduct review hearing for threatening to murder one of the deans. As an ESE student he is entitled to a conduct review to see if his behavior is a manifestation of his disability. What’s this young man’s disability, you ask; well he has a learning disability, he needs extra time to process information. How that manifests to him threatening and hitting school board employees, fighting with other children (and at nineteen he’s an adult, it’s the people he is fighting with that are children), being disrespectful and disruptive is beyond me but somehow the school district reasons it does as they stamped his and routinely stamp most conduct review visits “manifestation of disability”.
A master of the system he promised to enter the work program, but three weeks later and with no sign of employment in sight we realized that this had been a ruse and that we had been duped by him once again. Then a little less than two months ago I sat in a meeting where a district psychiatrist after interviewing him and reviewing his records said she was going to recommend he be sent to an alternative school so he could no longer “terrorize students… and teachers.” An interesting choice of words I thought at the time, but as long as he went away I was okay with it, yet there he was back in my class.
As I said, I had written him up a few times. After one time particularly nasty outburst in my room, he told me if I wrote him up I would be the one who got in trouble not him, and in a way he was right. If teachers write to many referrals, then their classroom management and skills as a teacher are questioned. Furthermore a lot of teachers don’t see the point of writing kids up just to see them returned to class with no real consequences for their actions. Often when they come back they are worse, not contrite as they should be but angry for the momentary time away from their friends. So teachers just endure or kick them out when they can’t endure anymore, but they aren’t the only ones that are forced to put up with their behavior, the other students in the class, your sons and daughters have to endure it as well.
Speaking of enduring, I had to endure my 19 year old sophomore talk about how jail was not so bad to his classmates. You got three squares a day and if you had money in your commissary you could get a packet of noodles for fifteen cents and a Little Debbie for a quarter, he told them. He continued, I said when they arrested me that I’m not scared of jail, and it was actually kind of fun sometimes, talking to the old timers. When a kid says jail is kind of fun, what do teachers have left, what can we do? The answer is not much.
I sometimes write about magnet schools and how I think they are unfair but in a way I am a hypocrite. You see if I had any high school aged children I would want them to go to a magnet school and it’s not because the teachers there are better, it’s because they are safer as your modern high school can be a dangerous place. Furthermore I wouldn’t want my children around kids who didn’t care about themselves or school and who thought that it was okay to disrupt class and be disrespectful to teachers. A colleague told me what he said to his class once. He said, “If you don’t care about school or you want to come to my class and just skate through you can, I don’t ask a whole lot, the class isn’t that tough and like most things in your life learning is up to you but if that’s what you want to do can you at least pretend to be decent human beings, while you do it.” I would want my children to be around decent human beings.
That’s not to say there are not a lot of good kids at my school; in fact I would say most of them are. Some of the kids in my classes who are just marginally, at best, interested in school are also some of my favorites. Sadly however there is a significant number of kids who don’t care, who only come to school because they are forced to or to see what trouble they can find or to take care of business. And what’s worse, is the fact a lot of these kids, like my 19 year old sophomore, who when he wants to be can be very charming, are role models. I don’t know when it happened but at some point looking up to teachers became not cool and looking up to kids who are disruptive and disrespectful to teachers did. It was so disheartening seeing several of my students hanging on my nineteen year old sophomores every word, especially his words, “jail is kind of fun.”
How do we turn these kids around? I would first suggest changing the schedule, ninety minutes in high school is way too long. When is the last time you got a 14 year old to focus that long on anything? Next have curriculums kids are interested in, bring back trades and skills, plus having more electives that can have an accompanying academic component couldn’t hurt either. Then we have to bring back discipline, when a child acts out they must get a meaningful consequence for their actions, if not all they have learned is it doesn’t matter what they do and that invariably means that their behavior will worsen.
So what’s going to happen to my nineteen year old sophomore? I am told he goes back for another conduct review later this month. Until then he is allowed to come to school, where I am sure he will let his classmates know, “jail is kind of fun.”
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Leave Some Behind
Leave some behind
I and nine thousand of my fellow teachers roll up our sleeves and go to work every day work, sometimes excited for what the new day will bring and other times pessimistic that it will be more of the same.
When I first became a teacher nine years ago, after a decade working in special needs camps, I thought I was going to change the world, that every student who came threw my classroom would leave not only educated but a better human being as well. However the sad fact is some of my students weren't just learning they were teaching to, and what they taught me was, you can't save them all.
Way to many students come to school with no pretense of learning, they come to be with their friends, they come because society tells them they have to and more than a few come to see what trouble they can find and these few bad apples are spoiling the whole bunch. You hear it everyday, in the offices and teachers lounges of schools, if only Johnny wasn't in my classroom I could teach. If only little Suzy would stop disturbing class the other kids could learn, I had a good day today because so and so was absent, I felt like a teacher. If that one bad apple was gone the whole class could thrive.
Every year you see the same students in the hall after the tardy bell rings, they aren't carrying books and they aren't in a hurry to get anywhere; then when you ask them where they are supposed to be, they inform you often with the word fuck added in somewhere, that it's none of your business, well I say enough is enough because if not now, if not this year then when? It's time we took back from our school system from those unruly few that have hijacked it.
If you don't believe me, try this parents wait a week or two after school begins and then go ahead and ask your little Suzy and/or your little Johnny, if there is a student or two in their class that the teacher always has to discipline, and then ask them if the same student picks on their classmates or does their work, if you don't already know, I believe you will be unpleasantly surprised.
And now parents let me ask you a couple of questions, at your place of employment are you routinely threatened and harassed, and what would you do if you were, and your bosses did nothing about it, would you show up the next day? Also do you think this would be a good way to run a business; well sadly that's how some of our schools are run, and it's one of the reasons that our school system is suffering.
Did you know over half of the districts teachers have five years experience teaching or less and two of the things that make teachers leave the field so quickly are unruly students and lack of support from our administration when it comes to discipline. Teachers for the most part only write students up as a last resort when every other option has failed, but there is nothing more defeating than to see this same student returned to our classrooms a few moments later with no consequences, now something may have happened but for a consequence to be effective it must be meaningful, and what we do to the kids is not meaningful. To make matters worse often we receive visits from our administration wondering why we have written the same student up several times, instead of supporting us they question our teaching methods when the blaring reason we have done this is they haven't done anything.
Furthermore what type of message does this send to the child, well I'll tell you, that's they can do whatever they want whenever they want to and they can then expect no real punishment. I often wonder how many times these criminals we read about in the news or see on television were in trouble while they were in school or what punishments they received, I would bet the answers would be often and little.
One of the reasons discipline is so bad is it's nearly impossible to remove a student to an alternative school unless they are caught with a gun or physically assault a teacher, no matter how often they are in trouble. The thing is by letting them stay with just the meekest of consequences after they misbehave over and over is just courting tragedy. Do we need a student to be shot or a teacher to be beat up before we do anything? Instead of being reactive it's time our school system stepped up and was proactive. If you get in two fights in a year you should be gone. If you get written up five times in nine weeks you should be gone. If you miss more than nine days in nine weeks without a doctor's note you should be gone, if you are late fifteen times in nine weeks you should be gone, if you get arrested while not at school for violence, stealing or drugs you should be gone, and if you threaten a teacher or school board employee once, and just once is all it should take, you should be gone.
I and many of my colleagues are tired of ignoring bad behavior because we figure nothing will be done. We are tired of being looked at in an accusatory matter when we attempt to impose discipline. We are tired of not being backed up and seeing the same student returned to our classrooms with no consequences, but most of all we are tired of not being able to teach.
You see we spend so much of our time on the five percent of students who create ninety-five percent of the problems, we have lost focus on those students who want to be there and want to learn, and sadly many of these students are falling through the cracks, because they aren't getting the services and attention they deserve.
These disruptive students are a cancer to our school system, and when a body has a cancer we don't say, it didn't mean it, lets give it a chance, then another chance and another, we don't ask if we think it's being serious, no what we do is cut it out, and we do so because that's the only way we can save the body, and it may be the only way we can save our school system to.
Mr. Superintendent I call on you to get your teachers back, to make sure we have a safe working environment and to reinstall discipline into our schools. You want f-cat scores to go up, you want student achievement to improve lets try that. No child left behind should be changed to; we're leaving about five percent of them behind until they shape up. By doing so we can help make sure the ninety-five percent of students who want to learn, who want to achieve can be as successful as possible.
I and nine thousand of my fellow teachers roll up our sleeves and go to work every day work, sometimes excited for what the new day will bring and other times pessimistic that it will be more of the same.
When I first became a teacher nine years ago, after a decade working in special needs camps, I thought I was going to change the world, that every student who came threw my classroom would leave not only educated but a better human being as well. However the sad fact is some of my students weren't just learning they were teaching to, and what they taught me was, you can't save them all.
Way to many students come to school with no pretense of learning, they come to be with their friends, they come because society tells them they have to and more than a few come to see what trouble they can find and these few bad apples are spoiling the whole bunch. You hear it everyday, in the offices and teachers lounges of schools, if only Johnny wasn't in my classroom I could teach. If only little Suzy would stop disturbing class the other kids could learn, I had a good day today because so and so was absent, I felt like a teacher. If that one bad apple was gone the whole class could thrive.
Every year you see the same students in the hall after the tardy bell rings, they aren't carrying books and they aren't in a hurry to get anywhere; then when you ask them where they are supposed to be, they inform you often with the word fuck added in somewhere, that it's none of your business, well I say enough is enough because if not now, if not this year then when? It's time we took back from our school system from those unruly few that have hijacked it.
If you don't believe me, try this parents wait a week or two after school begins and then go ahead and ask your little Suzy and/or your little Johnny, if there is a student or two in their class that the teacher always has to discipline, and then ask them if the same student picks on their classmates or does their work, if you don't already know, I believe you will be unpleasantly surprised.
And now parents let me ask you a couple of questions, at your place of employment are you routinely threatened and harassed, and what would you do if you were, and your bosses did nothing about it, would you show up the next day? Also do you think this would be a good way to run a business; well sadly that's how some of our schools are run, and it's one of the reasons that our school system is suffering.
Did you know over half of the districts teachers have five years experience teaching or less and two of the things that make teachers leave the field so quickly are unruly students and lack of support from our administration when it comes to discipline. Teachers for the most part only write students up as a last resort when every other option has failed, but there is nothing more defeating than to see this same student returned to our classrooms a few moments later with no consequences, now something may have happened but for a consequence to be effective it must be meaningful, and what we do to the kids is not meaningful. To make matters worse often we receive visits from our administration wondering why we have written the same student up several times, instead of supporting us they question our teaching methods when the blaring reason we have done this is they haven't done anything.
Furthermore what type of message does this send to the child, well I'll tell you, that's they can do whatever they want whenever they want to and they can then expect no real punishment. I often wonder how many times these criminals we read about in the news or see on television were in trouble while they were in school or what punishments they received, I would bet the answers would be often and little.
One of the reasons discipline is so bad is it's nearly impossible to remove a student to an alternative school unless they are caught with a gun or physically assault a teacher, no matter how often they are in trouble. The thing is by letting them stay with just the meekest of consequences after they misbehave over and over is just courting tragedy. Do we need a student to be shot or a teacher to be beat up before we do anything? Instead of being reactive it's time our school system stepped up and was proactive. If you get in two fights in a year you should be gone. If you get written up five times in nine weeks you should be gone. If you miss more than nine days in nine weeks without a doctor's note you should be gone, if you are late fifteen times in nine weeks you should be gone, if you get arrested while not at school for violence, stealing or drugs you should be gone, and if you threaten a teacher or school board employee once, and just once is all it should take, you should be gone.
I and many of my colleagues are tired of ignoring bad behavior because we figure nothing will be done. We are tired of being looked at in an accusatory matter when we attempt to impose discipline. We are tired of not being backed up and seeing the same student returned to our classrooms with no consequences, but most of all we are tired of not being able to teach.
You see we spend so much of our time on the five percent of students who create ninety-five percent of the problems, we have lost focus on those students who want to be there and want to learn, and sadly many of these students are falling through the cracks, because they aren't getting the services and attention they deserve.
These disruptive students are a cancer to our school system, and when a body has a cancer we don't say, it didn't mean it, lets give it a chance, then another chance and another, we don't ask if we think it's being serious, no what we do is cut it out, and we do so because that's the only way we can save the body, and it may be the only way we can save our school system to.
Mr. Superintendent I call on you to get your teachers back, to make sure we have a safe working environment and to reinstall discipline into our schools. You want f-cat scores to go up, you want student achievement to improve lets try that. No child left behind should be changed to; we're leaving about five percent of them behind until they shape up. By doing so we can help make sure the ninety-five percent of students who want to learn, who want to achieve can be as successful as possible.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Mayor Peyton calls Duval County school district colossal failure
In a Times Union editorial Mayor John Peyton referred to the Duval County Public School District as a colossal failure. Wow right, not just a failure but a colossal failure. Why didn’t he just say a failure of biblical proportions?
The Times Union said they wouldn’t go that far, after all the district has received a B grade from the state. Sorry to disappoint the Times Union but it is a gentlemen’s B as the district has become an expert at massaging certain numbers like more kids taking A.P. classes, giving fewer suspensions and making it nearly impossible to withdraw kids to inflate our grade. Though to be honest I wouldn’t go as far as “colossal failure” either.
The truth is there are incredible things going on at all our schools; even our supposed worse schools and for the most part they are the interactions between our teachers and our students. The thing is the district cannot continue to put our students and teachers in no win situations and then scratch their heads when they don’t succeed to the level that they wanted. It’s a wonder and a credit to our fine teachers dedication and professionalism that we are doing as well as we are.
We can’t continue to push kids through with out the skills they need, ignore discipline and over load and dump on teachers. We must try to address our most struggling kids problems most of which aren’t school related and also have more than the one size fits all, everybody is going to go to college curriculum which serves fewer and fewer children that we have now. If we want to be successful that is. If we don’t do those things then it probably won’t be long before the Times Union as most of the city already does, agrees with the mayor.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
The Times Union said they wouldn’t go that far, after all the district has received a B grade from the state. Sorry to disappoint the Times Union but it is a gentlemen’s B as the district has become an expert at massaging certain numbers like more kids taking A.P. classes, giving fewer suspensions and making it nearly impossible to withdraw kids to inflate our grade. Though to be honest I wouldn’t go as far as “colossal failure” either.
The truth is there are incredible things going on at all our schools; even our supposed worse schools and for the most part they are the interactions between our teachers and our students. The thing is the district cannot continue to put our students and teachers in no win situations and then scratch their heads when they don’t succeed to the level that they wanted. It’s a wonder and a credit to our fine teachers dedication and professionalism that we are doing as well as we are.
We can’t continue to push kids through with out the skills they need, ignore discipline and over load and dump on teachers. We must try to address our most struggling kids problems most of which aren’t school related and also have more than the one size fits all, everybody is going to go to college curriculum which serves fewer and fewer children that we have now. If we want to be successful that is. If we don’t do those things then it probably won’t be long before the Times Union as most of the city already does, agrees with the mayor.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Editorial Bias
I know editorials are little more than opinions but when presented in respected forums like newspapers they often take on more meaning than that and many people believe what is written to be fact. Take for example the Times Union writing about how only 23 percent of America’s top graduates go into education as if that is a bad thing. Can any other profession boast about so many top graduates joining it. Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that it’s used as an indictment against teachers. Here is a stat the Times Union didn’t mention, less than half of all first year teachers whether they are the best the nation has to offer or not do not make it to year five preferring to find employment in other fields. Rarely are the reasons, the children or the money, given for their decision to leave.
Then the Times Union further muddies the water by comparing American teachers to the teachers in Finland, which draws the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates. They fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
There are many issues in education and teacher quality is one of them, as we should always strive to put our best and brightest in our classrooms. However if we were to list the issues with education, poverty, standardized tests, one size fits all curriculum, a lack of discipline, unfunded mandates, etc. teacher quality however would be way down the list, not at the forefront as the Times Union and others would have the public believe.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Then the Times Union further muddies the water by comparing American teachers to the teachers in Finland, which draws the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates. They fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
There are many issues in education and teacher quality is one of them, as we should always strive to put our best and brightest in our classrooms. However if we were to list the issues with education, poverty, standardized tests, one size fits all curriculum, a lack of discipline, unfunded mandates, etc. teacher quality however would be way down the list, not at the forefront as the Times Union and others would have the public believe.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Rick Scott's education reform heads in wrong direction
Those seeking to steer the course of education reform in Florida, which includes many of Governor elect Rick Scott’s education team, would have the public believe several falsehoods.
Poverty is just an excuse. The truth is, poverty is a huge issue. Kids that come from homes with absentee parents, where a lack of food and violence are constant factors often perform poorly in school. Quite frankly they have more serious issues to deal with than learning the capital of Alaska and dividing two digit numbers.
Class size doesn’t matter: Class size is extremely important. It allows students to gain more valuable face time with their teachers and fewer kids get lost in the crowd. The Heritage Foundation (Jeb Bush’s education think tank) recently touted all of the great progress that Florida’s schools have experienced over the last decade but completely ignored the fact that most of the progress has occurred since 2003 when the class size amendment began to be phased in.
Test scores are the way to measure student learning. Test scores should be a component of education not the end all be all that they have become. Some kids don’t test well, some kids have bad days, and no kid should be tested at one time over a whole year, or several years’ worth of material.
Reform MUST be driven by external measures such as comprehensive tests. Assessments are most useful and reliable when they are closely connected to classroom instruction. Furthermore just who is going to get rich creating and scoring these tests? The Bush family profited greatly from the F-Cat and No Child Left Behind.
Classroom experience doesn’t matter. Most teachers don’t hit their stride, where they are most effective, till they are several years in. Unfortunately about half of all teachers do not last five years.
Tenure provides teachers with lifetime jobs. Teachers do not have "jobs for life"; they have due process and what’s wrong with allowing professionals who sacrifice so much having at least that.
Charter schools are deserving of public funds and support. Actually, charters have not been shown to have better test scores, on average, than regular public schools, their teachers aren't certified and they pick and choose who they allow in and retain.
Data must drive our children’s education. How about having a child’s ability, aptitude and desire drive their education; that might prove more effective.
Vouchers give parents choice. Vouchers also provide welfare for the well off and take much needed resources from cash starved public schools. The answer at least in the short term should be to improve public schools, not further erode them by siphoning money away.
Performance Pay for the most deserving teachers. This sounds great in a vacuum, unfortunately when put in practice it is arbitrary and hard to quantify. Somebody way smarter than me would have to come up with a way for this to be done fairly if it is to be both effective and meaningful.
Advanced degrees do not matter. I find it ironic that in every profession but education, do most people feel the need for more education is a good thing, ironic and disingenuous that is.
Improving teacher quality is the number one issue facing our schools. Improving teacher quality should always be an issue, but as long as we keep doing things the way we do now; we will never have meaningful improvement. Teachers don’t set the policies that put them and their children in no win situations and teachers did not choose to erode discipline nor bury themselves with mountains of superfluous paper work. Teachers did not decide to practically eliminate the teaching of the trades, skills and arts and put every child, regardless of aptitude, desire and ability into a one size fits all curriculum either. Yet teachers, not the policy makers, politicians, absentee parents, the public and children devoid of discipline or a work ethic are the ones who bear the brunt of the responsibility for the problems in education.
Education without a doubt needs to improve but many of the ideas put forth by the “education reformers” will do more harm than good, and serve interests other than schools and children. The truth is it wouldn’t take reinventing the wheel, breaking the bank or demonizing teachers to make things dramatically improve. Bring back discipline, develop alternative, rigorous and realistic curriculums, that play to children’s strengths, abilities and desires, and then stop overloading teachers, try giving them autonomy and encouraging creativity instead.
Governor Scott I can make the time if you need some help, unlike most of your education team the only special interests I serve are our children and the teachers who toil selflessly day in and day out.
Above was inspired by (and a tad bit was borrowed from) the Blog Lessons Learned: http://lessonslearnedteacher.blogspot.com/
Poverty is just an excuse. The truth is, poverty is a huge issue. Kids that come from homes with absentee parents, where a lack of food and violence are constant factors often perform poorly in school. Quite frankly they have more serious issues to deal with than learning the capital of Alaska and dividing two digit numbers.
Class size doesn’t matter: Class size is extremely important. It allows students to gain more valuable face time with their teachers and fewer kids get lost in the crowd. The Heritage Foundation (Jeb Bush’s education think tank) recently touted all of the great progress that Florida’s schools have experienced over the last decade but completely ignored the fact that most of the progress has occurred since 2003 when the class size amendment began to be phased in.
Test scores are the way to measure student learning. Test scores should be a component of education not the end all be all that they have become. Some kids don’t test well, some kids have bad days, and no kid should be tested at one time over a whole year, or several years’ worth of material.
Reform MUST be driven by external measures such as comprehensive tests. Assessments are most useful and reliable when they are closely connected to classroom instruction. Furthermore just who is going to get rich creating and scoring these tests? The Bush family profited greatly from the F-Cat and No Child Left Behind.
Classroom experience doesn’t matter. Most teachers don’t hit their stride, where they are most effective, till they are several years in. Unfortunately about half of all teachers do not last five years.
Tenure provides teachers with lifetime jobs. Teachers do not have "jobs for life"; they have due process and what’s wrong with allowing professionals who sacrifice so much having at least that.
Charter schools are deserving of public funds and support. Actually, charters have not been shown to have better test scores, on average, than regular public schools, their teachers aren't certified and they pick and choose who they allow in and retain.
Data must drive our children’s education. How about having a child’s ability, aptitude and desire drive their education; that might prove more effective.
Vouchers give parents choice. Vouchers also provide welfare for the well off and take much needed resources from cash starved public schools. The answer at least in the short term should be to improve public schools, not further erode them by siphoning money away.
Performance Pay for the most deserving teachers. This sounds great in a vacuum, unfortunately when put in practice it is arbitrary and hard to quantify. Somebody way smarter than me would have to come up with a way for this to be done fairly if it is to be both effective and meaningful.
Advanced degrees do not matter. I find it ironic that in every profession but education, do most people feel the need for more education is a good thing, ironic and disingenuous that is.
Improving teacher quality is the number one issue facing our schools. Improving teacher quality should always be an issue, but as long as we keep doing things the way we do now; we will never have meaningful improvement. Teachers don’t set the policies that put them and their children in no win situations and teachers did not choose to erode discipline nor bury themselves with mountains of superfluous paper work. Teachers did not decide to practically eliminate the teaching of the trades, skills and arts and put every child, regardless of aptitude, desire and ability into a one size fits all curriculum either. Yet teachers, not the policy makers, politicians, absentee parents, the public and children devoid of discipline or a work ethic are the ones who bear the brunt of the responsibility for the problems in education.
Education without a doubt needs to improve but many of the ideas put forth by the “education reformers” will do more harm than good, and serve interests other than schools and children. The truth is it wouldn’t take reinventing the wheel, breaking the bank or demonizing teachers to make things dramatically improve. Bring back discipline, develop alternative, rigorous and realistic curriculums, that play to children’s strengths, abilities and desires, and then stop overloading teachers, try giving them autonomy and encouraging creativity instead.
Governor Scott I can make the time if you need some help, unlike most of your education team the only special interests I serve are our children and the teachers who toil selflessly day in and day out.
Above was inspired by (and a tad bit was borrowed from) the Blog Lessons Learned: http://lessonslearnedteacher.blogspot.com/
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Suspension Centers part 2
Suspension centers made the paper today, this is a piece I wrote about them at the begining of the 09-10 school year. -cpg
As the school year begins I think it’s time we revisited the suspension centers that the school board created last year and just so you know that as things presently are I think this is a terrible idea and the school board should be embarrassed for coming up with and implementing it.
To be fair, if we disregard the fact that being suspended is supposed to be a punishment, suspension centers in a vacuum doesn’t sound to bad. To me it’s kind of like getting the undercoating when you buy a new car. If you have lots of money and nothing else going on, then sure why not splurge. However, that’s not how things are in Duval County. The reality is we have very few resources and lots of serious problems. This means having suspension centers is like complimenting Nero’s fiddle playing while Rome burned to the ground. Sure the music might sound delightful but the city was experiencing a few more pressing matters at the time.
As a teacher I am constantly learning, trying to pick up bits of information or techniques that will help me in my classes. Last spring I learned something very important. I learned never to be eating or drinking when I read articles about our school district as I almost choked to death when I saw how much was budgeted for the four suspension centers that can at one time hold a maximum of 150 students. By the way that’s a number they didn’t come anywhere close to having, and most like never will. If they were run by nonprofits and didn’t cost the tax payer anything I might be okay with it but they aren’t, you see the suspension centers have a two million dollar budget.
Suspension centers are a new program designed to keep students when they are suspended off the street. This way they won’t fall behind in their classes and they won’t get in trouble, a pretty good idea right. Here is another idea, instead of asking them to go to a suspension center where they won’t have their class work anyway, DON’T SUSPEND THEM! What is the difference between keeping them in school and hoping they attend a voluntary and yes they are voluntary, suspension center? I’ll tell you what it is, its two million dollars.
At first I was flabbergasted but as soon as I stopped choking I knew I shouldn’t have been that surprised. You see this kind of misallocation of resources for our district this is pretty typical.
My friends sometimes plead with me not to write about educational issues. They worry that I may lose my job or there may be consequences for me being critical. Which I reply, criticism of the process should be encouraged. It can expose inequalities and the need for change, besides we should never fear the truth. And the sad, simple truth is suspension centers are an unnecessary luxury.
Friends two million dollars could pay for about 20 new teachers, or social workers over two years, or hundreds and hundreds of after school tutors and extended day workers or some combination thereof. These new employees would be in the position to affect thousands of children daily not just the 150 suspension centers would serve if they were at peak capacity. What do you think will make a bigger difference on education or in our community: Voluntary suspension centers that can be attended only by a few students or the options above?
Often kids act out because they don’t understand or fall behind on in their subjects. What would happen if we had smaller classes or intensive remediation for struggling students? Something we could have more of if we could hire new teachers?
Often kids act out because they are having troubles at home. What would happen if we hired social workers who could follow up on our districts troubled children and provide services and or referrals to other agencies?
Often kids act out because they run with the wrong crowd. What would happen if we had more after school programs where kids could be safe and cared for, and where they could get help with their academics?
Often kids act out because they are bored. What would happen if we had more classes they were interested in, what if we brought more art, music and vocational classes back to the schools and made attendance in these classes dependent on behavior?
Heck, I think the money would be better spent if we just gave it away. Why don’t we give it to the students who attend struggling schools and have worked hard and have done the right thing, perhaps the most underserved group in the county? They deserve to have the money spent on them so much more than the children who are constantly in trouble. Let’s divide the money up to the F schools and give two thousand dollar scholarships to a thousand needy, deserving students. This may even prove to be an incentive for the often suspended student.
The sad fact is we don’t know what would happen if we took the suspension center money and instituted any those programs, though I think we could guess if they would be more meaningful or not. The thing is we do know what happened at the suspension centers last year. They weren’t attended and we spent lots of money.
The law of parsimony says the simpler of two competing theories is to be preferred. Which theory do you think is simpler, let’s put discipline back in our schools and give students and teachers the resources they need to be successful or lets create voluntary suspension centers that students need to find their own way to, that cost an exorbitant amount of money and serve only a few children.
I grew up in Jacksonville and I attended the school I teach at now, though when I went there it was safe to walk in the halls, adults were treated with respect and students learned the basic skills they needed for life. I pretty much lived in the same neighborhood I do now and when growing up I could jog my streets safely at night and I if I forgot to lock my car door it didn’t matter. Years ago in Jacksonville reading about a young person committing or being the victim of a crime was an exception not an everyday occurrence, and all of these things have their roots in education.
It makes me sad when I see the county give lip service to special education students sacrificing the future of these children, because they don’t know what to do with them. It hurts me when I see resources stolen from the have not’s to set up magnet programs for the haves. It frustrates me when the district tries to fit all children into one go to college category whether they want to or are prepared to, and it angers me, when I see precious resources allocated to things like suspension centers, especially since Rome is burning down around us.
I have to believe if the people of Jacksonville knew and thought about these things they would care, I also want to believe the school board is capable of doing a good job and they just haven’t shown us (more evidence is that graduation rates and dropout rates are some of the lowest and highest respectively in the state) yet.
If I get out of teaching I think maybe me and a couple buddies will start a suspension center, it sounds like pretty lucrative and easy work, if you can get it, but that’s another story all together.
As the school year begins I think it’s time we revisited the suspension centers that the school board created last year and just so you know that as things presently are I think this is a terrible idea and the school board should be embarrassed for coming up with and implementing it.
To be fair, if we disregard the fact that being suspended is supposed to be a punishment, suspension centers in a vacuum doesn’t sound to bad. To me it’s kind of like getting the undercoating when you buy a new car. If you have lots of money and nothing else going on, then sure why not splurge. However, that’s not how things are in Duval County. The reality is we have very few resources and lots of serious problems. This means having suspension centers is like complimenting Nero’s fiddle playing while Rome burned to the ground. Sure the music might sound delightful but the city was experiencing a few more pressing matters at the time.
As a teacher I am constantly learning, trying to pick up bits of information or techniques that will help me in my classes. Last spring I learned something very important. I learned never to be eating or drinking when I read articles about our school district as I almost choked to death when I saw how much was budgeted for the four suspension centers that can at one time hold a maximum of 150 students. By the way that’s a number they didn’t come anywhere close to having, and most like never will. If they were run by nonprofits and didn’t cost the tax payer anything I might be okay with it but they aren’t, you see the suspension centers have a two million dollar budget.
Suspension centers are a new program designed to keep students when they are suspended off the street. This way they won’t fall behind in their classes and they won’t get in trouble, a pretty good idea right. Here is another idea, instead of asking them to go to a suspension center where they won’t have their class work anyway, DON’T SUSPEND THEM! What is the difference between keeping them in school and hoping they attend a voluntary and yes they are voluntary, suspension center? I’ll tell you what it is, its two million dollars.
At first I was flabbergasted but as soon as I stopped choking I knew I shouldn’t have been that surprised. You see this kind of misallocation of resources for our district this is pretty typical.
My friends sometimes plead with me not to write about educational issues. They worry that I may lose my job or there may be consequences for me being critical. Which I reply, criticism of the process should be encouraged. It can expose inequalities and the need for change, besides we should never fear the truth. And the sad, simple truth is suspension centers are an unnecessary luxury.
Friends two million dollars could pay for about 20 new teachers, or social workers over two years, or hundreds and hundreds of after school tutors and extended day workers or some combination thereof. These new employees would be in the position to affect thousands of children daily not just the 150 suspension centers would serve if they were at peak capacity. What do you think will make a bigger difference on education or in our community: Voluntary suspension centers that can be attended only by a few students or the options above?
Often kids act out because they don’t understand or fall behind on in their subjects. What would happen if we had smaller classes or intensive remediation for struggling students? Something we could have more of if we could hire new teachers?
Often kids act out because they are having troubles at home. What would happen if we hired social workers who could follow up on our districts troubled children and provide services and or referrals to other agencies?
Often kids act out because they run with the wrong crowd. What would happen if we had more after school programs where kids could be safe and cared for, and where they could get help with their academics?
Often kids act out because they are bored. What would happen if we had more classes they were interested in, what if we brought more art, music and vocational classes back to the schools and made attendance in these classes dependent on behavior?
Heck, I think the money would be better spent if we just gave it away. Why don’t we give it to the students who attend struggling schools and have worked hard and have done the right thing, perhaps the most underserved group in the county? They deserve to have the money spent on them so much more than the children who are constantly in trouble. Let’s divide the money up to the F schools and give two thousand dollar scholarships to a thousand needy, deserving students. This may even prove to be an incentive for the often suspended student.
The sad fact is we don’t know what would happen if we took the suspension center money and instituted any those programs, though I think we could guess if they would be more meaningful or not. The thing is we do know what happened at the suspension centers last year. They weren’t attended and we spent lots of money.
The law of parsimony says the simpler of two competing theories is to be preferred. Which theory do you think is simpler, let’s put discipline back in our schools and give students and teachers the resources they need to be successful or lets create voluntary suspension centers that students need to find their own way to, that cost an exorbitant amount of money and serve only a few children.
I grew up in Jacksonville and I attended the school I teach at now, though when I went there it was safe to walk in the halls, adults were treated with respect and students learned the basic skills they needed for life. I pretty much lived in the same neighborhood I do now and when growing up I could jog my streets safely at night and I if I forgot to lock my car door it didn’t matter. Years ago in Jacksonville reading about a young person committing or being the victim of a crime was an exception not an everyday occurrence, and all of these things have their roots in education.
It makes me sad when I see the county give lip service to special education students sacrificing the future of these children, because they don’t know what to do with them. It hurts me when I see resources stolen from the have not’s to set up magnet programs for the haves. It frustrates me when the district tries to fit all children into one go to college category whether they want to or are prepared to, and it angers me, when I see precious resources allocated to things like suspension centers, especially since Rome is burning down around us.
I have to believe if the people of Jacksonville knew and thought about these things they would care, I also want to believe the school board is capable of doing a good job and they just haven’t shown us (more evidence is that graduation rates and dropout rates are some of the lowest and highest respectively in the state) yet.
If I get out of teaching I think maybe me and a couple buddies will start a suspension center, it sounds like pretty lucrative and easy work, if you can get it, but that’s another story all together.
Suspended Belief
Suspension centers made the Times Union today, this is a piece I rote about a year ago about them. -cpg
“School suspensions drop dramatically” was the headline of the December 8th issue of the Florida Times Union. Good news right! Reading this the people of Jacksonville might think things are “dramatically better” here in Duval County sadly however that is far from accurate. All it is another case of smoke and mirrors propagated by the Duval County School Board. This time however they had accomplices as the Times Union and education writer Topher Sanders refused to bring up any issues of substance.
Such as how are suspensions down 71 percent but referrals down only 30? In the past were administrators just suspending students at the drop of a hat? How have teachers written over 19,000 referrals but less than fifteen percent have resulted in suspensions, are teachers writing students up for the most trivial of offences? The article said thirteen hundred children have been referred to the suspension centers, but it doesn’t say how many have actually attended? Even if they all attended which is extremely doubtful wouldn’t that mean the suspension centers are operating at less than five percent of their capacity? Did we waste two million dollars in their creation? If these students aren’t technically suspended and they aren’t in schools what are they? Why hasn’t the school board just said, refer all suspended children to the suspension centers. This by their computing process would eliminate all suspensions. A 71% drop is great but a 100% drop is even better.
Would you like to know some reasons why referrals are down here in Duval County? Well make sure your tables are in their upright position and you have strapped yourself in, because you are about to go on a wild ride.
The biggest reason there are fewer suspensions is because some teachers have stopped writing children up. Quite frankly nothing happens too many of them when they do so. Students rarely receive appropriate consequences for their behavior and even freshmen psychology students will tell you that often leads to worse behavior. Furthermore teachers are afraid to write up children. If they write to many referrals then their classroom management skills are questioned and that can affect their evaluations. So instead many teachers just endure little Johnny or little Suzie’s disruptive, disrespectful and defiant behavior. Sadly however they aren’t the only ones that have to do so; it’s the other children in the class who have come to learn who have to endure it too.
Suspensions are also happening less because suspending kids affect a schools grade. The school board would rather keep misbehaving children in school without real consequences for their behavior, again despite the fact this practically ensures the behavior will repeat and worsen. And it doesn’t matter to them that this also robs parents of the opportunity to be parental and steals instruction time from children to whom school is important. Meeting their self imposed benchmark and looking better in the eyes of the state, not teachers and students are apparently their chief concern.
Referrals are being ignored. Boxes of unprocessed referrals were recently found at my school and where I can’t say with a certainty this happens elsewhere I wouldn’t be surprised, but I do know that more than half the referrals I write I never get back.
Finally suspensions are happening less because the school board told principals to suspend less and they told their deans to suspend less, regardless of the consequences.
Who wins when these things happen? It’s not the teacher that can’t teach, the children that can’t learn or the children who don’t receive consequences for their actions? It’s the school board who can point to deceptive statistics pat themselves on the back and say; look we’re doing a good job.
Continuing, the principal quoted in the piece said, “If a teacher is talking to a child rather than stopping instruction to write them up, then you get better results and you’re building relationships.”
The thing is which she must have forgotten is that teachers are already talking to the unruly students and probably a lot more than to the students who care about school. Please have a seat, please stop talking when I am talking, please pay attention, please stop bothering your neighbor, please stop screaming at me, and please stop cursing at me usually follows, if you want to talk I am here for you and what can I do to help.
Furthermore all the teachers I know only write up kids when they are forced to, when a student’s behavior is so badly or their defiance is so great that teachers have no other choice. Also while the teacher is spending so much time on the unruly student, who do you think is being neglected? I’ll tell you it’s the students who want to be there that are.
If keeping little Johnny in my class means, Linda, Michael, Bob and Allen can’t learn, then little Johnny has to go.
I had a parent teacher conference a few weeks back where the parent was very angry with me accusing me of singling out her child. He had been written up nine times, seven by me, one by a sub and one by another teacher. This child, a second year freshmen also had six F’s and one D on his report card the first nine weeks and at the conference I brought e-mails about this student from all his other teachers, saying he didn’t do any work and didn’t behave in their classes either. I reasoned to the mother, who cares most about this student, the person who just accepts their behavior or the person who says enough is enough, you need to improve. At the mother’s insistence he is now in another class and his grades and behavior are as bad as ever.
Offering no consequences for behavior doesn’t seem to be working. If you want proof sit in on a tenth grade geometry class or ninth grade reading class at your average turn around school. Or look in the streets and jails of our city. How about we try the opposite and give some consequences including suspensions for bad behavior, it seemed to work for our parents and our grandparents.
When the Times Union prints these misleading puff pieces on behalf of the school board it does their readers, the citizens of Jacksonville and most importantly the children of Jacksonville a disservice. The Times Union should write an article about how the school board and the school system here in Jacksonville is in trouble, deep trouble and we need the help of the whole community to turn it around because if we don’t things are going to get worse much worse. That story would at least be accurate.
“School suspensions drop dramatically” was the headline of the December 8th issue of the Florida Times Union. Good news right! Reading this the people of Jacksonville might think things are “dramatically better” here in Duval County sadly however that is far from accurate. All it is another case of smoke and mirrors propagated by the Duval County School Board. This time however they had accomplices as the Times Union and education writer Topher Sanders refused to bring up any issues of substance.
Such as how are suspensions down 71 percent but referrals down only 30? In the past were administrators just suspending students at the drop of a hat? How have teachers written over 19,000 referrals but less than fifteen percent have resulted in suspensions, are teachers writing students up for the most trivial of offences? The article said thirteen hundred children have been referred to the suspension centers, but it doesn’t say how many have actually attended? Even if they all attended which is extremely doubtful wouldn’t that mean the suspension centers are operating at less than five percent of their capacity? Did we waste two million dollars in their creation? If these students aren’t technically suspended and they aren’t in schools what are they? Why hasn’t the school board just said, refer all suspended children to the suspension centers. This by their computing process would eliminate all suspensions. A 71% drop is great but a 100% drop is even better.
Would you like to know some reasons why referrals are down here in Duval County? Well make sure your tables are in their upright position and you have strapped yourself in, because you are about to go on a wild ride.
The biggest reason there are fewer suspensions is because some teachers have stopped writing children up. Quite frankly nothing happens too many of them when they do so. Students rarely receive appropriate consequences for their behavior and even freshmen psychology students will tell you that often leads to worse behavior. Furthermore teachers are afraid to write up children. If they write to many referrals then their classroom management skills are questioned and that can affect their evaluations. So instead many teachers just endure little Johnny or little Suzie’s disruptive, disrespectful and defiant behavior. Sadly however they aren’t the only ones that have to do so; it’s the other children in the class who have come to learn who have to endure it too.
Suspensions are also happening less because suspending kids affect a schools grade. The school board would rather keep misbehaving children in school without real consequences for their behavior, again despite the fact this practically ensures the behavior will repeat and worsen. And it doesn’t matter to them that this also robs parents of the opportunity to be parental and steals instruction time from children to whom school is important. Meeting their self imposed benchmark and looking better in the eyes of the state, not teachers and students are apparently their chief concern.
Referrals are being ignored. Boxes of unprocessed referrals were recently found at my school and where I can’t say with a certainty this happens elsewhere I wouldn’t be surprised, but I do know that more than half the referrals I write I never get back.
Finally suspensions are happening less because the school board told principals to suspend less and they told their deans to suspend less, regardless of the consequences.
Who wins when these things happen? It’s not the teacher that can’t teach, the children that can’t learn or the children who don’t receive consequences for their actions? It’s the school board who can point to deceptive statistics pat themselves on the back and say; look we’re doing a good job.
Continuing, the principal quoted in the piece said, “If a teacher is talking to a child rather than stopping instruction to write them up, then you get better results and you’re building relationships.”
The thing is which she must have forgotten is that teachers are already talking to the unruly students and probably a lot more than to the students who care about school. Please have a seat, please stop talking when I am talking, please pay attention, please stop bothering your neighbor, please stop screaming at me, and please stop cursing at me usually follows, if you want to talk I am here for you and what can I do to help.
Furthermore all the teachers I know only write up kids when they are forced to, when a student’s behavior is so badly or their defiance is so great that teachers have no other choice. Also while the teacher is spending so much time on the unruly student, who do you think is being neglected? I’ll tell you it’s the students who want to be there that are.
If keeping little Johnny in my class means, Linda, Michael, Bob and Allen can’t learn, then little Johnny has to go.
I had a parent teacher conference a few weeks back where the parent was very angry with me accusing me of singling out her child. He had been written up nine times, seven by me, one by a sub and one by another teacher. This child, a second year freshmen also had six F’s and one D on his report card the first nine weeks and at the conference I brought e-mails about this student from all his other teachers, saying he didn’t do any work and didn’t behave in their classes either. I reasoned to the mother, who cares most about this student, the person who just accepts their behavior or the person who says enough is enough, you need to improve. At the mother’s insistence he is now in another class and his grades and behavior are as bad as ever.
Offering no consequences for behavior doesn’t seem to be working. If you want proof sit in on a tenth grade geometry class or ninth grade reading class at your average turn around school. Or look in the streets and jails of our city. How about we try the opposite and give some consequences including suspensions for bad behavior, it seemed to work for our parents and our grandparents.
When the Times Union prints these misleading puff pieces on behalf of the school board it does their readers, the citizens of Jacksonville and most importantly the children of Jacksonville a disservice. The Times Union should write an article about how the school board and the school system here in Jacksonville is in trouble, deep trouble and we need the help of the whole community to turn it around because if we don’t things are going to get worse much worse. That story would at least be accurate.
Call the parents first
There is a new discipline directive given to Duval county's teachers for its unruly students and that's before you write a referral or send them out of glass you must call the parents first. Instead of writing these children up, something most of us do as a last resort anyways, we are supposed to stop in the middle of class and call the parents before we do anything else. My grade book and attendance folder have been replaced on my desk with a list of contact numbers, and emergency numbers. I have to tell my class, hold on, I'll be back in as soon as I can, that is, after I track down the parent, explain the situation and ask for help, please be patient we'll start learning as soon as I get back, and you little Johnny just continue cursing me out, running around the room, refusing to do your work or doing whatever you were doing.
That's right, the student walks out of class we are supposed to call the parent first, the student curses you out, we are supposed to call the parent first, the student threatens to gut you with a lawn mower blade (something that happened to a colleague of mine just the other day) call the parent first. And do it right then and there, the other twenty-five students will just have to make do.
If we do write a referral the first thing we hear from an administrator is, and you probably guessed it, did you call the parent first before you wrote them up, though that's better than do you really think he was going to gut you with a lawn mower blade, to which I imagine my teacher friend replied, "…well now that I think about it, when he was screaming at me, spit flying out of his mouth, with his fists clenched, he may have been kidding a little, I guess." We never hear, how much is it going to cost to replace the overhead projector, sorry your family lineage was called into question, or if he does show up with a lawn mower blade what we should do, perhaps we should call the parent first then to.
A P.E. teacher at Paxon Middle school followed this directive the other day. He had a student who was reportedly out of control in his class, at some point he had enough and rather than write the student up on a referral, he call the parent. He asked the parent to come to the school to discipline the child, while doing this he reportedly asked the parent to bring his belt.
When the parent arrived the student was taken to a separate room, and was disciplined presumably with the belt his father was asked to bring, afterwards the student then apologized to the coach, and to many of us, who daily are cursed out and are threatened, who have children run amok in our classrooms, that when we write them up, are back either later in the day or the next day to repeat, for many of us even though we didn't know all the facts, we thought this was a victory.
Others though must have thought differently because later that day the teacher was reassigned to a non-instructional position, the child was taken by the Department of Children and Families and the father was arrested.
Now I wasn't there, I only know what was reported in the paper, an article every teacher in my department read with jaws dropped, not believing what had happened, at first stunned, as a colleague was in danger of loosing his job, and a parent who took the time to come out, when so many don't, was arrested, we wondered if what happened was excessive or not, we also wondered if the child was injured, but if not then we agreed what was happening to the teacher and the parent was a shame.
I understand why we want to have the parents involved, they can be a huge help and should be involved, but I also understand that a big reason we have a discipline problem in school, is because many parents have abdicated their parental responsibilities, they haven't taught their children what respect and responsibility are. They think I'll send them to school, there they will be straightened out, to which we now reply, call the parents they will take care of the problem, and in this catch twenty-two never ending circle, the children receive no meaningful consequences for their actions. This will ultimately lead to worse and worse behavior, perhaps behavior that will have tragic consequences. You see by doing nothing we without a doubt are courting tragedy either for them or for somebody else.
Sometimes when we call the parents, we do so with a wink and a nod, we know we can't put our hands on the child, but we also no if reason or time out doesn't work in our class room, we know it probably won't work at home either, and we hope the parent may have a harsher discipline they can employ. That means unless it was excessive, what the parent at Paxon middle did wasn't the problem, the problem was where he did it at.
In my seven years of teaching, when I have called the parents, usually after school or on my planning period, not when I was in the middle of teaching other students, for the most part they have been helpful and concerned, working with me to fix the problem, but problems with those kids that have involved, supportive parents are usually just a blip and easily correctable. But I have also heard at different times, can you beat the child, they are the same way here, I can't control them either, call the police when you have a problem because I am done, if you fail my child I will fuck you up, and more than a few fuck offs.
Discipline or the lack there of, is the number one problem that many of the teachers in the trenches, not classrooms but trenches of our public schools face. I wrote trenches there because that's how a lot of teachers feel day in and day out, like they are going to battle.
The unruly five percent of kids are ruining classrooms and schools throughout the district; they are taking away from the ninety-five percent of students who want to learn who want to do well. I hope parents understand that, most of teacher's time and energy go to those students who are most frequently in trouble, not the child who might be a little behind but wants to learn, those children who if they don't get he extra help will fall farther and farther behind, and these same unruly children are chasing teachers out of the field.
It comes down to this if they don't get any discipline at home, we are doing them no favors by not giving it to them at school either, for a consequence to have meaning it must mean something, if they get no consequences at home then calling home will mean nothing.
Hello Mrs. Doe, where I find Johnny very bright and engaging at times, when he runs around the room cursing, refusing to do his work, threatening me, it distracts from the learning environment of the other twenty kids who want to be there, and prevents him from achieving his full potential, oh it's my problem and I should deal with it, oh I should f**k off, well thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
That's right, the student walks out of class we are supposed to call the parent first, the student curses you out, we are supposed to call the parent first, the student threatens to gut you with a lawn mower blade (something that happened to a colleague of mine just the other day) call the parent first. And do it right then and there, the other twenty-five students will just have to make do.
If we do write a referral the first thing we hear from an administrator is, and you probably guessed it, did you call the parent first before you wrote them up, though that's better than do you really think he was going to gut you with a lawn mower blade, to which I imagine my teacher friend replied, "…well now that I think about it, when he was screaming at me, spit flying out of his mouth, with his fists clenched, he may have been kidding a little, I guess." We never hear, how much is it going to cost to replace the overhead projector, sorry your family lineage was called into question, or if he does show up with a lawn mower blade what we should do, perhaps we should call the parent first then to.
A P.E. teacher at Paxon Middle school followed this directive the other day. He had a student who was reportedly out of control in his class, at some point he had enough and rather than write the student up on a referral, he call the parent. He asked the parent to come to the school to discipline the child, while doing this he reportedly asked the parent to bring his belt.
When the parent arrived the student was taken to a separate room, and was disciplined presumably with the belt his father was asked to bring, afterwards the student then apologized to the coach, and to many of us, who daily are cursed out and are threatened, who have children run amok in our classrooms, that when we write them up, are back either later in the day or the next day to repeat, for many of us even though we didn't know all the facts, we thought this was a victory.
Others though must have thought differently because later that day the teacher was reassigned to a non-instructional position, the child was taken by the Department of Children and Families and the father was arrested.
Now I wasn't there, I only know what was reported in the paper, an article every teacher in my department read with jaws dropped, not believing what had happened, at first stunned, as a colleague was in danger of loosing his job, and a parent who took the time to come out, when so many don't, was arrested, we wondered if what happened was excessive or not, we also wondered if the child was injured, but if not then we agreed what was happening to the teacher and the parent was a shame.
I understand why we want to have the parents involved, they can be a huge help and should be involved, but I also understand that a big reason we have a discipline problem in school, is because many parents have abdicated their parental responsibilities, they haven't taught their children what respect and responsibility are. They think I'll send them to school, there they will be straightened out, to which we now reply, call the parents they will take care of the problem, and in this catch twenty-two never ending circle, the children receive no meaningful consequences for their actions. This will ultimately lead to worse and worse behavior, perhaps behavior that will have tragic consequences. You see by doing nothing we without a doubt are courting tragedy either for them or for somebody else.
Sometimes when we call the parents, we do so with a wink and a nod, we know we can't put our hands on the child, but we also no if reason or time out doesn't work in our class room, we know it probably won't work at home either, and we hope the parent may have a harsher discipline they can employ. That means unless it was excessive, what the parent at Paxon middle did wasn't the problem, the problem was where he did it at.
In my seven years of teaching, when I have called the parents, usually after school or on my planning period, not when I was in the middle of teaching other students, for the most part they have been helpful and concerned, working with me to fix the problem, but problems with those kids that have involved, supportive parents are usually just a blip and easily correctable. But I have also heard at different times, can you beat the child, they are the same way here, I can't control them either, call the police when you have a problem because I am done, if you fail my child I will fuck you up, and more than a few fuck offs.
Discipline or the lack there of, is the number one problem that many of the teachers in the trenches, not classrooms but trenches of our public schools face. I wrote trenches there because that's how a lot of teachers feel day in and day out, like they are going to battle.
The unruly five percent of kids are ruining classrooms and schools throughout the district; they are taking away from the ninety-five percent of students who want to learn who want to do well. I hope parents understand that, most of teacher's time and energy go to those students who are most frequently in trouble, not the child who might be a little behind but wants to learn, those children who if they don't get he extra help will fall farther and farther behind, and these same unruly children are chasing teachers out of the field.
It comes down to this if they don't get any discipline at home, we are doing them no favors by not giving it to them at school either, for a consequence to have meaning it must mean something, if they get no consequences at home then calling home will mean nothing.
Hello Mrs. Doe, where I find Johnny very bright and engaging at times, when he runs around the room cursing, refusing to do his work, threatening me, it distracts from the learning environment of the other twenty kids who want to be there, and prevents him from achieving his full potential, oh it's my problem and I should deal with it, oh I should f**k off, well thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
Suspension Centers
Duval county's suspension centers made the Times Union today. This is a piece I wrote about them almost 18 months ago. -cpg
The editorial praising suspension centers for misbehaving school children elicited a response from me; it was me slapping my forehead exclaiming, “Are you kidding me!” In addition to sending them there why don’t we pat them on the back and give them a big bag of gumdrops too?
Being suspended is supposed to be a punishment, have we forgotten that,
has our touchy feely, politically correct society gotten to that point? If done correctly suspensions can have several positive outcomes. If disruptive children are sent home for a few days it gives the other students an opportunity to have a positive learning environment and teachers an opportunity to teach. The teachers lament is, if little Johnny or little Suzy wasn’t here I could teach, most students that get suspended are little Johnnies and little Suzies. Bottom line, the suspension of an unruly child often gives other students a chance to learn and teachers a chance to teach.
More importantly however is a child’s suspension gives a parent an opportunity to act like one. I knew if I was ever suspended from school there were far worse punishments than that waiting for me at home. Too many parents have abdicated their responsibilities or left it to the schools to discipline their children, well society isn’t supposed to work like that, parents are supposed to teach children how to behave and schools are just supposed to teach.
If instead of sending them home all we are going to do is send them to a suspension center which sounds like a glorified coddling center to me what’s the point in suspending them in the first place? Where is the punishment? If schools are to become the discipline tool of the family let’s not play around and let’s do it right. If we don’t it’s only all of society hangs in the balance and if you think I am exaggerating or using grandiose terms for effect, just read the crime report or law and disorder sections of any paper.
Discipline has become a huge problem in many of our schools as evident by another teachers lament and that’s the inmates are running the asylum. When we don’t give children consequences for their actions, and remember for a consequence to be effective it must have meaning, we are in danger of creating more problems down the line. Violent, disruptive and disrespectful children often become violent, disruptive and disrespectful adults. When a student gets to the point they need to be suspended it rarely is the first problem the school had had with the child. Furthermore many students who are suspended are often the recipients of multiple suspensions, this is because suspensions aren’t consequences to them and now inexplicably we are watering down suspensions further with suspension centers.
I personally don’t expect the suspended student to learn anything from not being in school, all I expect is now I will have a few days of peace where I can make sure my other students do.
Instead of going to a voluntary suspension center for a few days something that will unlikely make a difference, why not send the repeat offending child to an alternative school for nine weeks. A school where there is no P.E. or art, no talking in the halls or in the cafeteria, for every day you miss a day is added on and for every bad day you get an extra week. We can have character education and social workers there and then they can get those services for more than an easily forgettable few days. Then let’s make the parents responsible for getting them there and hold them accountable when they don’t. Why not do something that will matter, that has teeth, that will make a difference, because if we’re not going to do that then what is the point, and friends what we are currently doing isn’t worth of a hill of beans to far too many.
If students know going to an alternative center is a real possibility how do you think this will affect their decision making process? Furthermore as I stated above, students who are suspended are often those students who are repeatedly in trouble, after nine weeks away from their friends in a very restrictive environment how much repeat behavior do you think they will have? I’ll tell you how much affect a three day suspension has on many of them, it’s none.
To be honest though I don’t think it should stop there. Once you turn fifteen if you get in two fights in a year thanks for coming but instead of taking the risk you might assault someone else you can go home and be your parent’s problems for a year. Threaten or hit a teacher welcome to the alternative school for the rest of your academic career. Get caught at school with drugs (I recently had an 18 year old student return after just three weeks) feel free to reapply next year.
I don’t particularly like the idea of having these students on the street, but to be honest keeping them in the schools scares the heck out of me and has a detrimental effect on the other students. If a kid comes to hang out with his friends or to see what trouble they can find, it’s time to tell them they are no longer wanted because keeping them takes resources away from the kids that want to be there that have an opportunity to do well. In other words a few bad apples are threatening to spoil all the apples in the cart.
Ask your son or daughter if they know any students who are always in trouble or who never do their work, I bet many of them will know a handful. If a teacher has to constantly deal with disruptive children then that’s time taken away from your child. I hope your child just doesn’t need that little bit extra to be successful.
We have to wake up, by coddling these children, by not giving them real consequences for their actions, by sending them to suspension centers, which are voluntary by the way, we are courting more tragedies. I say more because we already have tragedies in our streets daily. Young people are committing and being the victim of crimes at a terrifying rate and it’s just a matter of time before this violence invades our schools more than it already has. Do we need a student or a teacher to be gunned down in the halls before we stand up and demand something meaningful be done.
In the last few weeks at my school there have been several vicious assaults that probably wouldn’t have taken place if the perpetrators would have received real consequences for past behavior. I say again we are courting tragedy, I just hope it’s not me or one of my peers, or your son or daughter that it happens to.
Suspension centers are those ideas that sound good in a vacuum, that are created by far off academics or people brainstorming around coffee and doughnuts, not by the teachers and administrators in the schools on the front lines, and I mean front lines because with some of these students it’s like going to battle daily. Suspension centers are like putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds which we will have in our halls and our classrooms if we don’t start doing something.
The editorial praising suspension centers for misbehaving school children elicited a response from me; it was me slapping my forehead exclaiming, “Are you kidding me!” In addition to sending them there why don’t we pat them on the back and give them a big bag of gumdrops too?
Being suspended is supposed to be a punishment, have we forgotten that,
has our touchy feely, politically correct society gotten to that point? If done correctly suspensions can have several positive outcomes. If disruptive children are sent home for a few days it gives the other students an opportunity to have a positive learning environment and teachers an opportunity to teach. The teachers lament is, if little Johnny or little Suzy wasn’t here I could teach, most students that get suspended are little Johnnies and little Suzies. Bottom line, the suspension of an unruly child often gives other students a chance to learn and teachers a chance to teach.
More importantly however is a child’s suspension gives a parent an opportunity to act like one. I knew if I was ever suspended from school there were far worse punishments than that waiting for me at home. Too many parents have abdicated their responsibilities or left it to the schools to discipline their children, well society isn’t supposed to work like that, parents are supposed to teach children how to behave and schools are just supposed to teach.
If instead of sending them home all we are going to do is send them to a suspension center which sounds like a glorified coddling center to me what’s the point in suspending them in the first place? Where is the punishment? If schools are to become the discipline tool of the family let’s not play around and let’s do it right. If we don’t it’s only all of society hangs in the balance and if you think I am exaggerating or using grandiose terms for effect, just read the crime report or law and disorder sections of any paper.
Discipline has become a huge problem in many of our schools as evident by another teachers lament and that’s the inmates are running the asylum. When we don’t give children consequences for their actions, and remember for a consequence to be effective it must have meaning, we are in danger of creating more problems down the line. Violent, disruptive and disrespectful children often become violent, disruptive and disrespectful adults. When a student gets to the point they need to be suspended it rarely is the first problem the school had had with the child. Furthermore many students who are suspended are often the recipients of multiple suspensions, this is because suspensions aren’t consequences to them and now inexplicably we are watering down suspensions further with suspension centers.
I personally don’t expect the suspended student to learn anything from not being in school, all I expect is now I will have a few days of peace where I can make sure my other students do.
Instead of going to a voluntary suspension center for a few days something that will unlikely make a difference, why not send the repeat offending child to an alternative school for nine weeks. A school where there is no P.E. or art, no talking in the halls or in the cafeteria, for every day you miss a day is added on and for every bad day you get an extra week. We can have character education and social workers there and then they can get those services for more than an easily forgettable few days. Then let’s make the parents responsible for getting them there and hold them accountable when they don’t. Why not do something that will matter, that has teeth, that will make a difference, because if we’re not going to do that then what is the point, and friends what we are currently doing isn’t worth of a hill of beans to far too many.
If students know going to an alternative center is a real possibility how do you think this will affect their decision making process? Furthermore as I stated above, students who are suspended are often those students who are repeatedly in trouble, after nine weeks away from their friends in a very restrictive environment how much repeat behavior do you think they will have? I’ll tell you how much affect a three day suspension has on many of them, it’s none.
To be honest though I don’t think it should stop there. Once you turn fifteen if you get in two fights in a year thanks for coming but instead of taking the risk you might assault someone else you can go home and be your parent’s problems for a year. Threaten or hit a teacher welcome to the alternative school for the rest of your academic career. Get caught at school with drugs (I recently had an 18 year old student return after just three weeks) feel free to reapply next year.
I don’t particularly like the idea of having these students on the street, but to be honest keeping them in the schools scares the heck out of me and has a detrimental effect on the other students. If a kid comes to hang out with his friends or to see what trouble they can find, it’s time to tell them they are no longer wanted because keeping them takes resources away from the kids that want to be there that have an opportunity to do well. In other words a few bad apples are threatening to spoil all the apples in the cart.
Ask your son or daughter if they know any students who are always in trouble or who never do their work, I bet many of them will know a handful. If a teacher has to constantly deal with disruptive children then that’s time taken away from your child. I hope your child just doesn’t need that little bit extra to be successful.
We have to wake up, by coddling these children, by not giving them real consequences for their actions, by sending them to suspension centers, which are voluntary by the way, we are courting more tragedies. I say more because we already have tragedies in our streets daily. Young people are committing and being the victim of crimes at a terrifying rate and it’s just a matter of time before this violence invades our schools more than it already has. Do we need a student or a teacher to be gunned down in the halls before we stand up and demand something meaningful be done.
In the last few weeks at my school there have been several vicious assaults that probably wouldn’t have taken place if the perpetrators would have received real consequences for past behavior. I say again we are courting tragedy, I just hope it’s not me or one of my peers, or your son or daughter that it happens to.
Suspension centers are those ideas that sound good in a vacuum, that are created by far off academics or people brainstorming around coffee and doughnuts, not by the teachers and administrators in the schools on the front lines, and I mean front lines because with some of these students it’s like going to battle daily. Suspension centers are like putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds which we will have in our halls and our classrooms if we don’t start doing something.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
School Board Questions
An editor for the Times Union told me they plan to interview the candidates for the school board next week and asked if I had any questions I would like to see them answer. This is what I came up with and then for fun I answered them.
Do you think principals evaluations should be tied to how many suspensions they give out? Definitely not. It takes a tool out of their toolbox and hurts discipline in general.
Do you think severely disabled students should be taught access points or learn life and employability skills? No access points are watered down academics that they will never get or use. We should be teaching them things that would be beneficial to them.
What do you think about reintroducing the teaching of skills, trades and the arts on a district wide level? I think this should be a priority.
What do you think about school board employees making in excess of a hundred thousand dollars? No school board employee should make more than a hundred thousand dollars. The argument that we have to pay to attract top talent for me doesn’t hold water especially since so many teachers are paycheck to paycheck.
Do you think students who can’t read at grade level or read several grades below grade level should be promoted? After school and summer school should not be optional for these students. If a student is more than a grade level or two behind it is going to greatly diminish the chances of them being legitimately successful.
The district currently has a one size fits all curriculum, a kid that has an I.Q. of 130 who loves school and wants to be an engineer has to take and pass algebra II just like a kid with a ninety I.Q. that doesn’t care for school and who wants to drive trucks. Do you think this one size fits all curriculum benefits all students. No it hurts many of them and leads to many of the problems we are having. We need to develop alternate curriculums.
How would you have teachers evaluated? I would have them evaluated by teams of peers from other schools, they will no what should be happening and have little concern for office politics.
Would you support making grade recovery just for students who had legitimate reasons for missing class or for students who came, participated and tried but still failed, instead of the anybody can take it for any reason system we have now? Only kids that legitimately missed class or tried should be allowed to use grade recovery.
Diploma option 2 conveys none of the same benefits as a regular diploma, kids who graduate with one cannot go to college or join the military do you think having them take GED classes instead would be more or less beneficial? GED classes should be worked into their curriculums.
How do you think enforcement of the code of conduct should be handled? It should be vigorously enforced. Kids need consequences for inappropriate behavior.
Many teachers work dozens of hours of unpaid over time a week to complete all the tasks assigned to them. What do you think about paying them overtime or prioritizing the tasks they need to complete so they don’t have to work so much unpaid over-time? Either works for me but regardless teachers should not be working dozens of hours of unpaid overtime.
Do you think being in a classroom makes one more or less prepared to be a member of the school board? More prepared by far.
Would you be willing to substitute one day a week in the schools you represent? Yes
In order, whom do you think you will represent the most too least: the administration, parents, stakeholders, students, and teachers? Students and teachers would be 1 and 1A, then parents and stakeholders with union and administration concerns coming in last.
Do you think students who are classified a level one, two or three should be allowed to take advanced placement classes as they are now? No, they are not prepared.
Superintendent Pratt-Dannals said, we are a good community away from having a good school system. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? I vigorously disagree where I think the both play a role on each other, schools have a bare minimum they should be doing, such as instilling discipline and ending social promotions and until we are doing that we are exacerbating societies problems.
What’s your big idea to turn things around? Getting back to the basics. Discipline, multiple curriculums and ending social promotions.
Do you think principals evaluations should be tied to how many suspensions they give out? Definitely not. It takes a tool out of their toolbox and hurts discipline in general.
Do you think severely disabled students should be taught access points or learn life and employability skills? No access points are watered down academics that they will never get or use. We should be teaching them things that would be beneficial to them.
What do you think about reintroducing the teaching of skills, trades and the arts on a district wide level? I think this should be a priority.
What do you think about school board employees making in excess of a hundred thousand dollars? No school board employee should make more than a hundred thousand dollars. The argument that we have to pay to attract top talent for me doesn’t hold water especially since so many teachers are paycheck to paycheck.
Do you think students who can’t read at grade level or read several grades below grade level should be promoted? After school and summer school should not be optional for these students. If a student is more than a grade level or two behind it is going to greatly diminish the chances of them being legitimately successful.
The district currently has a one size fits all curriculum, a kid that has an I.Q. of 130 who loves school and wants to be an engineer has to take and pass algebra II just like a kid with a ninety I.Q. that doesn’t care for school and who wants to drive trucks. Do you think this one size fits all curriculum benefits all students. No it hurts many of them and leads to many of the problems we are having. We need to develop alternate curriculums.
How would you have teachers evaluated? I would have them evaluated by teams of peers from other schools, they will no what should be happening and have little concern for office politics.
Would you support making grade recovery just for students who had legitimate reasons for missing class or for students who came, participated and tried but still failed, instead of the anybody can take it for any reason system we have now? Only kids that legitimately missed class or tried should be allowed to use grade recovery.
Diploma option 2 conveys none of the same benefits as a regular diploma, kids who graduate with one cannot go to college or join the military do you think having them take GED classes instead would be more or less beneficial? GED classes should be worked into their curriculums.
How do you think enforcement of the code of conduct should be handled? It should be vigorously enforced. Kids need consequences for inappropriate behavior.
Many teachers work dozens of hours of unpaid over time a week to complete all the tasks assigned to them. What do you think about paying them overtime or prioritizing the tasks they need to complete so they don’t have to work so much unpaid over-time? Either works for me but regardless teachers should not be working dozens of hours of unpaid overtime.
Do you think being in a classroom makes one more or less prepared to be a member of the school board? More prepared by far.
Would you be willing to substitute one day a week in the schools you represent? Yes
In order, whom do you think you will represent the most too least: the administration, parents, stakeholders, students, and teachers? Students and teachers would be 1 and 1A, then parents and stakeholders with union and administration concerns coming in last.
Do you think students who are classified a level one, two or three should be allowed to take advanced placement classes as they are now? No, they are not prepared.
Superintendent Pratt-Dannals said, we are a good community away from having a good school system. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? I vigorously disagree where I think the both play a role on each other, schools have a bare minimum they should be doing, such as instilling discipline and ending social promotions and until we are doing that we are exacerbating societies problems.
What’s your big idea to turn things around? Getting back to the basics. Discipline, multiple curriculums and ending social promotions.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Recent Headline
An 18 year old was charged with a fatal shooting in Arlington.
Another teen 16 was part of a gang that murdered a man over a drug deal and stuffed his body in the trunk of a car.
Three teens, ages 15, 16 and 17 recently killed a man for three dollars.
This on the heels of last springs killing of pizza delivery woman Sarah Hotham being murdered by three teens age 18, 17 and 15.
When I read these tragic headlines about teenage murderers I can’t help but think, after I stop shaking my head in disgust, how were these kids in school? My guess is they weren’t the best and some undoubtedly were the worse. That and after a moment of reflection, that I also wouldn’t be surprised if their school experience led at least one of them if not more down the tragic and disastrous paths they took.
Schools are often a place where you meet your best friends at, the ones you go to the movies with, to the mall with and sadly these days where some children decide to kill with.
When schools don’t give children consequences for their behavior they learn however they act is acceptable and believe you me this is a lesson they will keep a lot longer than how to break down a sentence or how to do a quadratic equation. When other children see those students receiving no real consequences they learn that bad behavior is acceptable as well. This causes many to start, repeat or imitate bad behavior. Schools in effect are teaching numerous kids, even kids from decent homes with involved parents that bad behavior is okay. It’s an unfortunate fact but when schools ignore bad behavior they accept and teach it.
Many kids no longer look up to their teachers. We’re not the role models we were a generation ago. Now they look up to the kid who is always in trouble and I use the word trouble loosely. They are the cool ones to followed and revered and teachers are green or worse for not understanding why. It’s the norm to talk back, question and argue with adults, to curse in class or to dress however they want.
Students look up to those kids who always seem to get away with whatever they do or are unfazed by punishments. I have had kids come back from jail and captivate their peers with their stories. Jail sounds fun, are actual words I have heard from some students.
Teachers at many schools now days either accept a lot of bad behavior or just look the other way and hope for the best. There are so many battles we choose not to fight because there is usually a bigger battle coming or because we don’t get any back up when we decide to make a stand. What have you done we are asked or quizzed to prevent the bad behavior, almost as if kids aren’t supposed to know cursing, threatening, arguing, yelling, not doing their work or sleeping in class is okay to do.
Did you stop class and call the parents? What are you doing wrong? The student said this, what do you have to say about that? Are things I and others have heard from administrators. Though what I have heard from students is worse.
Besides expletive riddled tirades I have also heard, you’re the one who’s going to get in trouble if you write me up or nothings going to happen me or good I don’t want to be here anyways. These are all common responses from students to warnings that if their behavior doesn’t improve their presence will no longer be allowed. The inmates are practically running the asylum
I think I must have led my school in referrals last year writing about fifty but I could have written a thousand. Of the fifty referrals I wrote and like I said I wrote a lot more than most teachers, I would guess at least a third were ignored by the administration as I never received a copy of them back and of the rest for the most part their punishment was to finish the period in ISSP. I know teachers who have stopped writing referrals whose only defence is to accept or hope kids sleep in their class or are absent. There is a whole segment of students where for them doing work, being respectful or paying attention is optional.
I don’t know how schools fix families or neighborhoods. I don’t know how schools are supposed to make children who weren’t raised with a sense of whats right and wrong develop one but at the same time with all my heart I believe that schools must give children a snap shot of how life should work. They must say if you work hard you will be rewarded but if you act up there will be consequences and remember for a consequence to work it must be meaningful, it must make sure the child does not want to repeat the behavior. If it doesn’t do that it’s just an inconvenience and I believe an inconvenience that can lead to worse behavior, and in some extreme instances maybe even murder.
Education arguably plays a role in every facet of our city and when I read the headlines form above I become very concerned for Jacksonville. These kids should be trying out for football or preparing for prom but instead they are out committing murders. I am not calling for extreme measures. I am not saying lets blow up the system. All I am saying if we want things to improve lets do at least the minimum of what we are supposed to.
Could we have saved one of those kids above? Could we have saved one of their victims had we done just what we’re supposed to be doing? Worse however is how many more kids are we going to loose and how many others are going to loose their lives if we continue to do things the way we are? You don’t need to answer that last question, I am sure if nothing changes the headlines of the future will let us know.
Another teen 16 was part of a gang that murdered a man over a drug deal and stuffed his body in the trunk of a car.
Three teens, ages 15, 16 and 17 recently killed a man for three dollars.
This on the heels of last springs killing of pizza delivery woman Sarah Hotham being murdered by three teens age 18, 17 and 15.
When I read these tragic headlines about teenage murderers I can’t help but think, after I stop shaking my head in disgust, how were these kids in school? My guess is they weren’t the best and some undoubtedly were the worse. That and after a moment of reflection, that I also wouldn’t be surprised if their school experience led at least one of them if not more down the tragic and disastrous paths they took.
Schools are often a place where you meet your best friends at, the ones you go to the movies with, to the mall with and sadly these days where some children decide to kill with.
When schools don’t give children consequences for their behavior they learn however they act is acceptable and believe you me this is a lesson they will keep a lot longer than how to break down a sentence or how to do a quadratic equation. When other children see those students receiving no real consequences they learn that bad behavior is acceptable as well. This causes many to start, repeat or imitate bad behavior. Schools in effect are teaching numerous kids, even kids from decent homes with involved parents that bad behavior is okay. It’s an unfortunate fact but when schools ignore bad behavior they accept and teach it.
Many kids no longer look up to their teachers. We’re not the role models we were a generation ago. Now they look up to the kid who is always in trouble and I use the word trouble loosely. They are the cool ones to followed and revered and teachers are green or worse for not understanding why. It’s the norm to talk back, question and argue with adults, to curse in class or to dress however they want.
Students look up to those kids who always seem to get away with whatever they do or are unfazed by punishments. I have had kids come back from jail and captivate their peers with their stories. Jail sounds fun, are actual words I have heard from some students.
Teachers at many schools now days either accept a lot of bad behavior or just look the other way and hope for the best. There are so many battles we choose not to fight because there is usually a bigger battle coming or because we don’t get any back up when we decide to make a stand. What have you done we are asked or quizzed to prevent the bad behavior, almost as if kids aren’t supposed to know cursing, threatening, arguing, yelling, not doing their work or sleeping in class is okay to do.
Did you stop class and call the parents? What are you doing wrong? The student said this, what do you have to say about that? Are things I and others have heard from administrators. Though what I have heard from students is worse.
Besides expletive riddled tirades I have also heard, you’re the one who’s going to get in trouble if you write me up or nothings going to happen me or good I don’t want to be here anyways. These are all common responses from students to warnings that if their behavior doesn’t improve their presence will no longer be allowed. The inmates are practically running the asylum
I think I must have led my school in referrals last year writing about fifty but I could have written a thousand. Of the fifty referrals I wrote and like I said I wrote a lot more than most teachers, I would guess at least a third were ignored by the administration as I never received a copy of them back and of the rest for the most part their punishment was to finish the period in ISSP. I know teachers who have stopped writing referrals whose only defence is to accept or hope kids sleep in their class or are absent. There is a whole segment of students where for them doing work, being respectful or paying attention is optional.
I don’t know how schools fix families or neighborhoods. I don’t know how schools are supposed to make children who weren’t raised with a sense of whats right and wrong develop one but at the same time with all my heart I believe that schools must give children a snap shot of how life should work. They must say if you work hard you will be rewarded but if you act up there will be consequences and remember for a consequence to work it must be meaningful, it must make sure the child does not want to repeat the behavior. If it doesn’t do that it’s just an inconvenience and I believe an inconvenience that can lead to worse behavior, and in some extreme instances maybe even murder.
Education arguably plays a role in every facet of our city and when I read the headlines form above I become very concerned for Jacksonville. These kids should be trying out for football or preparing for prom but instead they are out committing murders. I am not calling for extreme measures. I am not saying lets blow up the system. All I am saying if we want things to improve lets do at least the minimum of what we are supposed to.
Could we have saved one of those kids above? Could we have saved one of their victims had we done just what we’re supposed to be doing? Worse however is how many more kids are we going to loose and how many others are going to loose their lives if we continue to do things the way we are? You don’t need to answer that last question, I am sure if nothing changes the headlines of the future will let us know.
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