GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The suspension rates may have declined, but student behavior has not improved. It has deteriorated to such an extent that mere words fail to describe the lack of common decency displayed by many students to other students and staff. If you do not hold students to any consistent disciplinary code, especially for the “minor” infractions, you are dooming the educational efficacy of the school. This, in my opinion, is the #1 issue. Everything depends on this. Why do so many politicians and educational administrators 
continue to fail the diligent and well behaved students of NYC by allowing other disrespectful students to continuously disrupt the school. Drastic action is needed! What is it saying when you have armed NYC policemen in the hallway and even they feel helpless in instigating any real change in the behavior of the students? Less suspensions may sound nice at the news conferences, but in the classrooms and hallways of the schools many students and teachers are paying the price for such misguided policies.

 Sadly, there is much to agree with here, though I think the reasons for it and the solutions are complicated. In principle, disruptive behavior should have timely consequences, but unless the student is potentially violent to him/herself or others and can be removed from the classroom immediately (contract Circular B), the “timely” part of the consequence tends to break down at many schools especially if  it involves not isolated individual instances, but is part of the student peer culture itself.

In principle, Chancellor’s Regulation A-443 allows a student to be removed from a classroom by the teacher for seriously disruptive behavior and assigned to a “Save Room” until a determination of the case can be resolved.  However, in practice many principals do not acknowledge this Regulation, and instead mandate teachers follow their interpretation of the Disciplinary Code, which involves 6-7 steps starting with talking to the student, then the counselor, then the parent, then the coordinator, then the AP, then setting up meeting with the parent, and then observing if repeated instances occur, before consequences for the behavior is taken. Strictly interpreted (all in writing and many telephone calls), this can take several weeks, and if groups of students are involved, the procedure quickly breaks down from overload, and as other students watching the disruptive behavior continue realize there are no real consequences, they begin to act out also. I have had many immigrant students who point out that most of this
behavior is not tolerated even for one day in the public schools of their home countries.

There is a tendency for Principals to avoid disciplinary actions as above especially suspensions which both lower their own rating and the rating of the school which deters better students from applying there, which is of course, the reason for the protracted procedures above. This short sighted goal of course, only brings long term increases in the disciplinary problems. A teacher who too frequently uses the disciplinary code also becomes a target for the administration, ostensibly because they are unable to control “classroom management”, so they stay quiet.

Incidentally, the lack of a “grade” for student behavior on progress reports, is a very serious flaw in the statistical “value added” models since an important control variable is missing in the equation which is known to result in the spuriousness of these model, but this oversight is conveniently ignored. All teachers know that even one or two disruptive students lower lesson effectiveness by a large percentage.

The DOE, itself subject to misguided civil rights legal suits for disparities of suspensions by racial group-ethnicity, largely run by leaders with their heads in the sand or trying to manipulate positive press coverage, or just ignorant of what to do anyway because it’s not in the reformer’s press kit other than close the school, is unlikely to change any of this. So the cycle continues.

To date, the charter schools have been able to mostly avoid this problem, both because of the subtle manipulation of their student selections (e.g. avoidance of special ed students), and if they receive a bad choice, but their large use of “safety transfers” to public schools or heavy pressure on parents to transfer their student. If charter schools ever do replace public schools, they will of course have to face the same problems (with no where to transfer the students to), and no doubt, the press will wonder why so many charter schools cannot make the grade. And we will be back to square one again.

Sadly, the best personal advice is just to transfer out of the school as quickly as possible
if you are still young enough to do so, for if you remain, you will be
tagged as an “inefficient” teacher unsuitable for better schools and forever remain where you are or until they close the school.
.