Debate over ticketing heated up in January after a 200-page report from Texas Appleseed, a public interest law center, documented 275,000 juvenile tickets in fiscal 2009, including 120,000 for truancy. The statewide data did not separate school tickets from those issued in other settings.
A new study, linking the school disciplinary records of nearly one million Texas students with their individual juvenile justice records, is focusing national attention on the "school-to-prison pipeline" – and Texas Appleseed and other advocates are calling for swift implementation of reforms.
Note: Today is Back to School Day for thousands of Central Texas elementary and secondary school students. We wish them all good luck and a productive and peaceful school year. This story from the Washington Post examines how discipline, in many cases, is applied in Texas public schools. It raises many questions. Is this the best approach, can it be improved, is it a harsh response to misbehavior that is pushing students to future lives inside the criminal justice system?
Send your comments and questions to your local school administration office and school boards or click on the "comments" at the bottom of the story
Reprinted from the Washington Post
Published Aug. 21, 2011
By Donna St. George
Read the complete story
SPRING, TEX. — In a small courtroom north of Houston, a fourth-grader walked up to the bench with his mother.
Too short to see the judge, he stood on a stool. He was dressed in a polo shirt and dark slacks on a sweltering summer morning.
“Guilty,” the boy’s mother heard him say. He had been part of a scuffle on a school bus.
In another generation, he might have received only a scolding from the principal or a period of detention. But an array of get-tough policies in U.S. schools in the past two decades has brought many students into contact with police and courts — part of a trend some experts call the criminalization of student discipline.
Now, such practices are under scrutiny nationally. Federal officials want to limit punishments that push students from the classroom to courtroom, and a growing number of state and local leaders are raising similar concerns.
In Texas, the specter of harsh discipline has been especially clear. Here, police issue tickets: Class C misdemeanor citations for offensive language, class disruption, schoolyard fights. Thousands of students land in court, with fines of up to $500. Students with outstanding tickets may be arrested after age 17.
Texas also stands out for opening up millions of student records to a landmark study of discipline, released in July. The study shows that 6 in 10 students were suspended or expelled at least once from seventh grade on. After their first suspension, they were nearly three times more likely to be involved in the juvenile justice system the next year, compared with students with no such disciplinary referrals.
8 comments:
Courts and jail time should be a last resort for children, after everything else has been tried.
I say this for many reasons. There is no reason for a young child to get into the system unless it really warrants it.
Another primary reason NOT to get the system involved is because the courts are already backlogged with criminal activities. There is no need to overburdent judges and the courts.
I was a Director and initially a teacher re: inner city youth educational programs. What we did was to set up a student court, where students tried other students and the process was very successful and it taught students about the judicial system, courts, the process and helped them all stay on-track with their lives.
It would be a good idea if schools set up such a process instead of getting the judicial system involved and forcing young children in the criminal arena. It also would be more cost-effective for taxpayers.
Peter says:
"Courts and jail time should be a last resort for children, after everything else has been tried."
Very true.
But the problem as I see it is that parents, educators, and the "system" doesn't know what to do with kids who are acting out.
As aware and smart as young people are these days, I would be pissed off as well if I saw the world I see - one with no opportunity for our young adults and a public school system that treats them like problem children before they even do anything (or private religious schools that try to educate the "sin" out of them."
But others have said it better than me, like John Lennon:
"As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
They lie to you at home and they hurt you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so (damn) crazy you can't follow their rules,
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
Keep you doped with religion and money and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But they still treat you like a peasant as far as I can see,
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me."
And if you think our discipline problem children don't feel exactly this way (even though they can't verbalize it), well, then that may be the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.
Btw Peter, this is a great idea.
"....set up a student court, where students tried other students and the process was very successful and it taught students about the judicial system, courts, the process and helped them all stay on-track with their lives."
Yet another reason why more and more parents are homeschooling.
The education system here is not doing any favors for the taxpayers, parents, teachers, or students.
Homeschooling has its ineffective parent problems as well. Often kids who come from homeschooling environments are way behind academically because the parents are not effective "teachers".
And homeschooling - when it is mostly used as a rebellion mechanism against tax funded public education - is foolish. In that case, the kids end up being used as pawns by their angry or socially dinenfranchised parents. Although it seems most homeschooling parents are not that way.
Yet public schools should not be run like detention facilities, disguised ROTC training centers, religious indocrination institutes, or a consumer/debt education center.
We need public schools to be run by highly dedicated and forward thinking educators who treat the children like respected individuals, not as as cogs in a group control machine.
On the other hand, the young adults I meet are generally a hell of a lot smarter and aware of the world than the adults I meet.
So something good is coming out of public education.
Rocky, you KNOW I'm going to argue with you on the merits of home schooling and the affects on children and learning outcomes.
If done properly, as you know I am doing, it overshadows by far a basic public education.
I agree with you that home schooling is not for everyone and everyone cannot do it properly; however, parents who have educational backgrounds often perform a superior job over public education.
So, home schooling is as successful as the background, knowledge and teaching capabilities of the parents and how they relate with their children.
In addition, safety is assured for the child and as we all know, successful education depends primarily on Maslow's pyramid of needs and the major one is to create a safe learning environment. These days we just don't get that safe environment in public education facilities.
This is so wrong.
Peter, if you are taking issue with my use of the word "often" to describe poorly prepared homeschooled children, it surely was too strong a word.
"Sometimes" would be much more accurate, and even that may be too strong.
I know my son would have preferred homeschooling over public school, had we not had good private and charter school options.
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