you may be onto something there.
I’m probably just being mean! 
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[quote=“PsiPhiGrrrl, post:23, topic:103950”]
IMO, the real issues are 1) that the kids causing the problem can no longer be removed, and 2) the resources that used to go into putting them into another environment have been applied to something else.[/quote]
You’ve got it backwards. It’s an easy mistake to make.
Removing children - specifically, the most advantaged children - from the comprehensive schools and putting them into private, magnet and charter schools where they will receive a fundamentally better chance at having a happy and productive life is what is causing the breakdown of the public school system.
We call it “skimming the cream from the top” although when people like me say it, it’s with a bitter irony.
Don’t let yourself get drafted into collusion. Most Americans are, these days…
I was child in the 1960s and 70s in the US public school system. I remember several occasions when a kid brought his father’s gun to school. In none of those cases was the child expelled; instead they were sent home to their parents, typically with a brief suspension. The parents, justifiably annoyed at having the kid homebound for a week, taught them a lesson by physically punishing them… and sending them back to school.
As I remember it, in those days, you had to hurt somebody without provocation - really hurt them, as in, break their bones on purpose level of hurt, since children beating on each other was an accepted part of growing up back then, and you were supposed to be able to fight without maiming someone - before you’d get sent to reform school. Now, you can get expelled for having advil in your pocket, or for carving a gun out of a bar of soap, or for “talking back” to a “resource officer”.
But we don’t call it reform school any more. We call it the special school because we understand that it isn’t going to reform anyone, it’s just going to harden them and make them less capable of interacting with society in optimal ways.
I agree, but I think we sharply disagree on what that system was. Finding better ways to kick the people who need education most out of school is counter-productive.
Yes! I’m glad the experience you related didn’t blind you to this. The goal has to be educating and socializing children, not simply figuring out which ones we want to harm or discard.
If you look at a big enough data set, you will find that the economic and educational opportunities available to the parents determines the level of problems found at the school. Private, charter and magnet schools pre-select for educated and informed parents, always. Ill-informed, uncaring and uneducated parents aren’t even aware of the options available for their children’s education, so it doesn’t matter if the better schools are expensive or not, or have entrance exams or not. And those parents’ kids are both the ones who need the most help and are the biggest discipline problem.
No more than 11 children per class, ever, no exceptions, no less than two teachers per classroom, ever, no exceptions. Pay whatever it takes - use half the Federal tax money we waste on killing brown people far away and you’ll have more than enough.
100% publicly funded schools with mandatory attendance. If you want your kid to go to Catholic school, they can do it on their own time (just like Jewish kids go to Hebrew School, and Chinese kids go to Chinese School) and at the parent’s cost. But no more schools that proudly exist to skim the cream off the top, driving behavioral and educational standards down throughout the rest of the system.
No busing except as required to reach the 11/2 student/teacher ratio, and then only as a temporary measure. All schools should be in walking distance of the home if the population density can possibly support it. It’s the only way that poor parents can be involved in the school system, they don’t all have cars or gas money to spare.
No grades. Tests, yes, in fact some kind of standardized tests, because the aggregate numbers are meaningful and useful - but instead of grades, each parents should receive a personalized assessment of their child’s intellectual and social development. This is completely doable when the class sizes are small (speaking from experience here).
No cops and locked doors. If the student/teacher ratio is right, you won’t need them, because there will be enough adults to lead the children in dealing with any problems - including whatever movie-plot psychopathy any of us can dream up - without turning schools into guarded prisons like they are today.
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Nevertheless, you persisted.
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Woo! Lots to address here, as I agree with some of what you said, but not all of it…
I completely agree here.
I don’t think I agree here, not entirely. I think that bullying is a real problem that needs to be addressed. Especially since Columbine, however, the primary victims of bullying often end up being punished, while the bullies tend to be protected. While I do agree that kids need latitude to fuck up and make mistakes, they also need structure in which to find ways to work out problems without adult intervention. At my daughter’s school, kids are indeed expected to work out disagreements, but physical violence isn’t tolerated, nor should it be. Nor should kids be allowed to emotionally hound someone without some sort of intervention (which SHOULD be student led, but guided by teachers and parents, hopefully) on behalf of the victim. I would be a much more secure and happy person had I not been bullied to the extent that I was. This doesn’t mean we can’t allow students to disagree, make mistakes, etc, but there is much we should do in making sure that students are being bullied to suicide because they are queer, a racial minority, or just a weirdo like me.
Yes. All this. Upper middle class kids already have the benefit of a variety of advantages. Making public schools work for those growing up with the least resources should be our primary goal in crafting a public education system that works for all of our kids.
I think this might be helpful, but I also think that a Montessori environment has a little bit more give on class size, since older students in the class are expected to help with reinforcing lessons with their younger classmates. Also, students get a lesson when they are ready, as opposed to when it’s “time” for them all to get it. When a kid is struggling with some math, the teacher can spend more time on that prior to moving onto the next lesson, but the kid who is excelling can get the next lesson already. But smaller class sizes do help.
works for me, actually. Before that happens, we need to figure out a structure that works the best for the most students (I’m inclined to Montessori, but that’s just me).
Again… Montessori works for that! At the end of her HS, my daughter will likely end up with a portfolio that she can use in applying for college (along with her SAT scores).
Hm. Maybe that would work.
Yes. And again, going back to Montessori, make students responsible for their own environment. It’s their class, not the teachers.
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Since Walker pushed through Act 10, teachers have fled Wisconsin and those who have stayed have good reason to lack motivation.
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The more belligerent idiots we can make, the more Republican voters we’ll have!
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My kids had Montessori pre-school, public elementary school until that became completely intolerable, then NCCL (which is informed very much by Maria Montessori’s research and practice) and then went to public comprehensive High School.
I think we are in complete agreement. Remember, when I describe the way school was in the 1960s and 70s, I am not condoning every single thing I relate. I can remember getting thrashed by older children until I was bloody and crying, every single day for weeks at a time, and I don’t think that had a positive influence on me (although I guess it had a good outcome for some random other people, decades later, since I am exceedingly intolerant of physical bullying).
One of the many reasons not to take the economically advantaged kids out of the comprehensive public school environment is that they are typically also socially advantaged. They may have seen and experienced non-violent, non-coercive means of resolving disputes, or at least they are more likely to have done so than any of their peers who were raised by TV and uneducated single working parents. Taking them out is guaranteed to degrade the school learning environment as a whole.
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Ditto here. Both of my kids, in different schools, were subject to assault by problem kids in middle school. In my daughter’s case, it was a kid who had a long history of fairly serious crimes. He was finally expelled for selling drugs. But after assaulting my daughter, which required medical treatment for her and arrest for the offender, he was right back in class after a couple of weeks. The school was most focused on “mainstreaming” dangerously violent kids, and offered little protection for the well behaved kids who are consistently the victims.
I am pretty hands on about protecting my kids. But it is not right or appropriate for me to have to defend them from violence in the school. When the school administration will not keep the kids or teachers safe from unprovoked violence in the classroom, they are failing their job.
One of the worst things for a parent is to know your kids are being threatened, and not being able to do anything about it.
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That will never fly, and rightly so IMO.
One of the things that has always struck me about various education debates is that there is simply unresolvable tension between the sanctity of the family unit and parents having the right to educate their children as they see fit, and the idea of a top-down community-wide design of a system. I could never approve of a system in which parents aren’t allowed to opt out.
I agree completely, it makes me smh when I pass by the local schools and they look like jails rather than community centers. But this will require substantial liability reform. When people are talking about funding and budgets for school districts, I’ve always been curious what the difference in legal budget is between the 50s/60s/70s and now. I don’t have kids but I read the news, and sometimes I get the impression school districts aren’t in the education business, they are in the what can we do to avoid getting sued business.
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Another thing that has to change: blind, zero-tolerance rules. Many schools have adopted one-strike-and-you’re-out, one-size-fits-all discipline rules that remove the human element from discipline and allow for no lenience. Yes, for the kid who sticks a gun in his pants and comes to school, I understand why immediately kicking him out with no tolerance is important. But without teachers and administrators actually interacting with students as human beings, rules become things to challenge and break for the sake of doing so.
Quick personal story: my sister was a valedictorian, straight-A student. On the last day of 12th grade, they had a sort of skit / talent show in one class, and as part of the skit, she brought a clear yellow plastic squirt gun. She didn’t even hide it, because it was a dorky little squirt gun. An administrator saw it and instantly expelled her for ‘bringing a gun to school’ – zero tolerance for any gun-shaped item, no matter what. She took it to the school board, but nope, the valedictorian was expelled two days before graduation for a squirt gun. They mailed her her diploma.
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But nothing ignites BB outrage faster than a teacher or school district trying to clamp down on disciplinary problems.
Teachers are human beings, and when we insist that they are only permitted to find perfect solutions to difficult solutions, and then reward their effort with shit pay and constant criticism, it is a wonder we can find anyone willing to take the job.
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I’m going back to the mid-70s, but even then middle school was a zoo - there were big fights on a daily basis. By 11th grade the hormones had settled down and it became much calmer. There really is something wrong with the 9-10th grade age groups.
Or maybe it isn’t a binary problem.
Just like the rest of real life.
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Similar story here. Daughter just finished eighth grade, and it was by and large drama free. I’ve always heard horror stories about middle school, and I have my own junior high school experience that I don’t like to think about. But we did indeed have it good, and I am acutely aware of it, indeed, thankful.
I like that idea, but at the same time, you would have to double school sizes, because aren’t most class rooms around 20-25? You would have to add more class rooms or knock down walls and restructure the interior (which can can’t easily do for those built like a bunker like my old schools and my kids school.
I get your point, I just don’t see that flying. People will pull the religious freedom card if they had to. But it seems to me if you increased resources to allow 2 teachers for 11 kids, that would cut down SOME of the BD issues for the milder cases, and allow more special classes for those kids as needed.
I kind of disagree with your statement that private schools are removing the cream… it seems too much if you’re poor you’re more likely to be trash and cause trouble. But I am sure you didn’t mean it that way and I guess objectively, the poor are more likely to have ill educated parents with little interest in schooling, and more troubles at home.
FWIW - I was public school my whole life and got free lunches through elementary school. My kid is blessed to be in private school mostly because her mom makes good money (I contribute as I can). You could convince me to send her to a public school, but not her mom.
Part of this makes sense. Though forgive me, I don’t think anyone buses anyone anywhere around here, nor where I used to live (too small), so I don’t know a lot about it. But I thought some of the reasons behind busing was desegregation, and resource management. That is poorer areas property taxes cant support the schools well. IIRC NYC has some horribly segregated schools, and the resources are day and night differences. They even do a student share where they trade some students for a week.
Hold on - let me find the video I am thinking of.
Eh - why not both? A more nuanced report card would be welcomed. Also, too much emphasis is on the standardized tests. I agree we need them but it seems to suck up too much learning time to prepare for them.
I don’t think we had a cop at my high school. I think now they have one resource officer. But yeah, I grew up in a smaller town, so, different problems.
I get the joke, but I still agree. If such a thing was unimaginable, it would work as absurdism. But it’s not. Here in the States, it is a horror we see almost weekly. I suppose the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of martyrs, but why the most vulnerable and innocent martyrs?
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I guess it depends on the state, but parents who complained about their children being removed and sent to a different school were informed that they were still being given an education - just in a different location. Their rights were not being violated, and it stopped them from interfering in the other students’ right to an education. I suspect that the reversal of that policy, followed by the increasing popularity of home schooling and private schools was by design. Now we are all expected to pay for solutions to a problem that should have never been allowed to happen.
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In some cases, this works well. There are even one-room schoolhouse models that function in smaller communities. The downside of this is when monitoring is lax, the younger kids might be victimized by the older ones. I’ve seen some rather sickening reports of assaults committed by pre-teens.
Secrets sometimes have a habit of staying secret.
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