"There is no such thing as a bad student," said the teacher as she dodged the knife thrown at her by Johnny...

"All students are special in their own way," said Mrs. Conway, as she tried to explain to Johnny's parents that their son was a vicious hooligan who belonged three grades lower than where he actually was - without actually saying this.

Ah, the joys of American education...

Great article. It is clear that placing restrictions on white students simply because they are white is a bad idea. Dave Nalle gives the only reasonable analysis of the Supreme Court decision, which I could find in the news.

The solution would be to allow for free choice in schools within the district instead of restricting where students will attend based on their address.

You're quite right, Zedd. But that creates administrative problems for school districts which they're not willing to figure out a way to deal with, administrators being what they are. Such a system would force them to make all schools close to equal to remove the motivation for everyone to try to go to the best school. Educational administrators being what they are, the way they'd achieve that is by making the good schools worse.

However, if the school choice options included private, parochial and charter schools, then that would broaden the selection of appealing schools and add more schools with curricula tailored to special needs, and such a system might work.
Dave

Dave,

"However, if the school choice options included private, parochial and charter schools,..."

That idea (vouchers) would also give the government schools some serious competition, something they haven't had in far too long, and seriously need.

ALL schools would improve then.

Clavos/Dave

These Charter schools sound like a good idea but many of them under educate children. They have been in existence for nearly 20yrs and we are not getting any remarkable results out of them that we thought we would get. Actually many are scoring under the public schools and are terribly mismanaged.

Improving public schools improves America. We as a society cant duck the responsibility of insuring that our children are educated. That calls for all of us banding together to do so. Not tossing kids all over the place to whatever kook who may or may not be trained to teach kids.

We need good scientists and other professionals to usher us into the next phase of excellence. Its in our interest to make sure that we know what we are teaching kids and that they do learn. Charter schools are like some hippie experiment of a daisy filled world and everything somehow working out.

We need concrete, established standards, real consequences and patterns that all of our children recognize, in order for our future to be secure.

I give a large portion of my time going into these communities to change the kids so that they can have the mindset to learn. That is the real problem. Because of historical factors, these kids don't have the tools that you and I have.

Zedd, charter schools are still public schools, and over all they are rated as doing a better job than the failing public schools in the same region. They only show badly when compared with the best schools in an area.

Because of historical factors, these kids don't have the tools that you and I have.

Which is exactly why they need to be educated in and with their community in schools specifically designed to address their special needs.

Dave

Dave

You have no idea what those schools are like. If you can imagine chaos. Kids screaming, erratic behavior and making smart alec comments and physical threats to the teacher the entire time. Its nearly impossible to come out of many of those schools being truly educated.

You have no idea the level of devastation that is in those communities.

Zedd, I have a very good idea what those schools are like. My uncle taught English in the DC school system, at Woodson of all places (which means something if you know DC schools), for 30 years. I've heard every horror story you can imagine. I live and do charity work in one of the poorest and lowest performing school districts in Texas. I'm intimately familiar with the problems.

I've also done my reading and I know that there are creative programs out there which have solved many of these problems with extreme discipline and radical alternative methods specifically suited to the troubled communities and populations we're talking about.

Dave

Dave

If you really know about what goes on in those schools than you would know that they are not equipped to deal with the kids who really want to learn.

Well of course they aren't, Zedd. But they could be. You take the troublemakers out. Put them in a separate facility with a bootcamp like atmosphere, teach the kids who can learn, and discipline the rest and teach them structure and responsibility until they are ready to learn.

Dave

Dave,
What do you do with the troublemakers' parents who show up in the principal's office with their lawyer and demand their rights, i.e. special accomodations within the school and individual classroom for their kids--knowing the federal government and courts will back them up?

Don't think for a minute its far-fetched;it actually happens all the time. Behavior disorder is a learning disability, according to the federal government.

"What do you do with the troublemakers' parents who show up in the principal's office with their lawyer and demand their rights, i.e. special accomodations within the school and individual classroom for their kids--knowing the federal government and courts will back them up?"

Yet another reason why the damn government should not be involved in the education process.

Clav

Think this out. If we don't have public run schools then the kids who are trouble makers don't get an education at all because private schools would just boot them out.

We end up with a society of illiterates.

I think the idea of having boot camp like schools is a good one. But we have to commit to our public education. Being ambivalent prevents us from doing something meaningful.

Lee, obviously we would need to have state laws which would allow educators to compel students over the objections of their parents. Some states have already taken measures along those lines with some pretty draconian school attendance rules. But if we do that then we MUST have a full and open voucher system. The parents should have the option to put the kid in an alternative school of their choice if it will take the him or her.

Dave

Dave,
I'm for trying any and all innovations that might improve education--both learning and discipline--in our schools.

However, state laws aren't ever going to buck up against federal "guidelines" and regulations, because the states and local districts will lose federal funding if they do.

"We end up with a society of illiterates."

We already have that; my mother in law made her living teaching college freshmen how to read, all during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, in four different states.

And I'm not exaggerating-they needed to be taught HOW TO READ. COLLEGE FRESHMEN.

Private schools will take kids for the money; prep schools won't.

We need a voucher system that in which schools compete for the students.

"However, state laws aren't ever going to buck up against federal "guidelines" and regulations, because the states and local districts will lose federal funding if they do."

True.

Which is why we need the vouchers to be spent at the parents sole discretion (but ONLY on education), with the vouchers funded by tax dollars with no other strings attached, and schools competing with each other for students.

Lee, on average federal funding only accounts for 6% of a school district's budget. And while it does come with some stipulations, they don't generally include things like 'you must coddle disruptive kids'.

dave

Clavos, with sagging jaw, squawked disbelievingly: they needed to be taught HOW TO READ. COLLEGE FRESHMEN.

I've commented before about how my community college offers Mathematics 101 (Elementary Algebra), covering such Nobel-wrangling topics as addition, long division and fractions. And that isn't even the most basic math course on offer.

Since you usually have to be at least 18 to get into a junior college course, one has to wonder what the kids who need Math 101 were doing through 12 years of public school education.

Repeated for emphasis by a graduate of the New York City public school system when it was still worth attending, and a proud graduate of the City University of New York.

"There is no such thing as a bad student," said the teacher as she dodged the knife thrown at her by Johnny...

"All students are special in their own way," said Mrs. Conway, as she tried to explain to Johnny's parents that their son was a vicious hooligan who belonged three grades lower than where he actually was - without actually saying this.

Ah, the joys of American education...

Home schooling (by a well educated parent, not a stupid red-neck, obviously) is far superior to anything obtainable at ANY school in the United States. I wish that I had been in the position to home school my sons when we lived in St. Paul.

When I realized that kids had to be taught how to read in order to attend college, something I saw happening in America, I knew the country was going down the toilet. When a high school kid had to figure out on a computer 9x3 (how fuckin' stupid can you get?) to give me a discount on a gas coupon, I could hear the flush.

I have to tell you - kids in Israel ALL know how to figure change. They may not know any history (this is likely on purpose - if I was the minister of education for this pack of thieves, I wouldn't want kids to know history here either), but any kid can figure change here...

OK, Dave, let's talk averages.

The U.S. Dept. of Education is spending over $67 billion a year. That's a state average of $1.34 billion--hardly small change that a state would easily give up because of federal "stipulations" that come with the money.

As to coddling disruptive kids:

Many LD students must, by law, be disciplined differently than the general school population (federal stipulation.)

Students facing suspension for more than a minimum number of days are entitled to a hearing first, with legal representation ( federal stipulation.)

And, not infrequently, kids taken to court for disruptive behavior in school that breaks the law, are sent right back to school with a warning, advisement, or probation.

"The U.S. Dept. of Education is spending over $67 billion a year."

Two points:

Isn't most of that $67 billion going to "higher" education? If it is, what we've been discussing here is primarily K-12 education.

If it's not, then the gummint, as it always does, is obviously throwing the money down a rathole, because the kids, as noted above, are NOT getting educated.

I still say, decision making in the education business HAS to be taken away from the government; it's ONLY role should be giving us back our taxes to pay for education.

Ruvy

I have to tell you - kids in Israel ALL know how to figure change. They may not know any history (this is likely on purpose - if I was the minister of education for this pack of thieves, I wouldn't want kids to know history here either), but any kid can figure change here...


Uhhhmm, this could be misconstrued as a racist stereotypical comment. :o)

Uhhhmm, this could be misconstrued as a racist stereotypical comment. :o)

Yeah, the kikes are always good with the cash - I know. Truth of the matter is Zedd, that any kid from a third world country - and I hired quite a few of them as a Burger King manager - could count change in his head; just like I can. Their American born counterparts couldn't. In fact, almost any kid born outside the United States or Canada could count change in his head. They didn't need the old Jewboy from Brooklyn to teach them. ;o>

The U.S. Dept. of Education is spending over $67 billion a year. That's a state average of $1.34 billion--hardly small change that a state would easily give up because of federal "stipulations" that come with the money.

As someone else pointed out, very little of that money goes to elementary and high schools. The largest source of federal funds for those schools is the federally subsidized school lunch program which costs $6.9 billion. Most of the rest goes to colleges.

As to coddling disruptive kids:

Many LD students must, by law, be disciplined differently than the general school population (federal stipulation.)

I'm not talking about beating them or anything here. Just take them out of the general population and give them specialized attention.

Students facing suspension for more than a minimum number of days are entitled to a hearing first, with legal representation ( federal stipulation.)

Suspension is stupid anyway. It's not a punishment to kick a kid who doesn't like school out of school.

And, not infrequently, kids taken to court for disruptive behavior in school that breaks the law, are sent right back to school with a warning, advisement, or probation.

Schools take the kids to court because they have no other way to deal with them. Give them another option and this problem goes away.

Dave

Dave,

I really don't know why I bother, since you already have all the answers. I will point out that I have addressed the way things really are, while you can only talk about the way they oughta be.

In my comments I specifically talked about kids in court because they had broken the law in school. Your answer: give them (schools) another option and this problem goes away.

The problems of assault, weapons, drugs, theft in school will just...go away? Again, you're dreaming up a rosy scenario if the "Nalle Rules", whatever they are, were followed.

Well, it's your turn to be specific. In the real world, what other option will make crime in schools go away?

You say suspension is stupid. What is your alternative (that the law permits) to temporarily removing a student who disrupts everyone else's right to an education? Remember, it must be practical as to cost, number of people involved, physical facilities available, time to devote, etc. Also, remember there are parents and student's rights to consider--IN THE REAL WORLD.

Disciplining LD students: who said anything about beatings? (Only you, to avoid the real issue.) Your answer: give them specialized attention. From whom? At what cost? Where? For how long? Can you defend it in court? (No minor can be deprived of an equal opportunity for an education.) What programs exist that would be appropriate? What are the criteria for placing a kid in such a program? Sure, it would be wonderful if--as you dream--it were possible. In the real world, it just isn't. So what do we do in the meantime?

Not so easy, is it, when you have to be practical and realistic instead of just glibbly and carelessly typing away.

And, the first figures I came to in a quick search:
In Texas in FY 2003, federal funding accounted for 9% of educational monies.

Fed. funding for school lunch program was $859.4 million.

Fed funding for Title I Disadvantaged Programs, such as special ed. was $1.863 billion.

And that was K-12 in Texas in 2003, BTW.

I really don't know why I bother, since you already have all the answers.

So when you ask questions I'm NOT supposed to come up with answers?

I will point out that I have addressed the way things really are, while you can only talk about the way they oughta be.

Well yes. I'm looking for solutions to problems, not just stating the problems and whining about it pointlessly.

In my comments I specifically talked about kids in court because they had broken the law in school. Your answer: give them (schools) another option and this problem goes away.

The problems of assault, weapons, drugs, theft in school will just...go away? Again, you're dreaming up a rosy scenario if the "Nalle Rules", whatever they are, were followed.

No, I'm making a specific suggestion. Perhaps I was too subtle. Districts need to have special schools for problem kids. Rather than taking them to court, you put them in a special high-security, high-discipline school with programs tailored to their needs with the intention of eventually moving them back to the main population, however long that takes. If a kid commits a crime, take him to court if it's truly serious, but no matter what, move him into the special school until he proves he can behave. How complicated is that?

Take the troublemakers out of the schools and you make the schools safer and likely more effective at educating the rest of the kids.

You say suspension is stupid. What is your alternative (that the law permits) to temporarily removing a student who disrupts everyone else's right to an education? Remember, it must be practical as to cost, number of people involved, physical facilities available, time to devote, etc. Also, remember there are parents and student's rights to consider--IN THE REAL WORLD.

What are the student's rights? Give the parents the right to take the kid out of school if they don't like the solution offered by the school system. Give them a choice - a special disciplinary school or the parents can use a voucher to send the kid to a private or parochial school. There are private boarding schools which specialize in dealing with problem kids.

Disciplining LD students: who said anything about beatings? (Only you, to avoid the real issue.)

I was being sarcastic. You're the one who suggested discipline as the solution to learning disabilities, which in most cases it is not.

Your answer: give them specialized attention. From whom? At what cost? Where? For how long? Can you defend it in court? (No minor can be deprived of an equal opportunity for an education.) What programs exist that would be appropriate? What are the criteria for placing a kid in such a program? Sure, it would be wonderful if--as you dream--it were possible. In the real world, it just isn't. So what do we do in the meantime?

I guess you're not all that familiar with how things are done in schools these days. They already have programs for those with Learning Disabilities. There's state, federal and local money available for these programs. They already have criteria for determining what kids need the programs. All I'd ask is that they always offer parents the option to either take advantage of these programs as recommended by the school, or take a voucher for the value of their tuition and take the kid elsewhere.

Not so easy, is it, when you have to be practical and realistic instead of just glibbly and carelessly typing away.

I didn't say it was easy. Nothing about educating kids in a state-run system is easy, but that's how we've decided to do it. But the fact that it's not easy doesn't mean we should just give up and not discuss it as you seem to suggest.

Dave

Cost-prohibitive, laughably impractical, educationally questionable, foolishly naive, legally nightmarish.

Dream on...

Well.

There's a conversation killer!

Well Lee, good thing I'm not running the public education system then. Back to plan A. Dissolve the public school system, auction off the buildings and facilities and give everyone a voucher.

I mean, god forbid I should suggest some possible alternatives for discussion. We certainly don't want to think outside the box or anything. After all, the current system works so perfectly.

Dave

Hear! Hear!

Well wuddaya know...Clavos agrees with Nalle. Now that's novel.

One thing's for sure, emmy.

That asshole Kerry is responsible for everything that's gone wrong in this country since 1776.

And it's all because of that speech he gave in 1971.

Somebody oughta dump him in a vat of ketchup with all his medals on, so the weight drags him under...oh, wait, he threw them away...oh, wait, no...those were someone else's medals.

Doesn't matter, I'm sure he can find someone to give him some more medals.

Emmy, how about donating some of your Purple Hearts? Not your CMH, of course.

What does Kerry have to do with your brown-nosing of Nalle, DS?

- MCH

It's obvious, MF. Kerry's speech made me do it...

Sheesh. Don't you know anything???

Hi,
What a great post! This is my first time here, and the comments (from both sides of the issue) seem pretty lucid to me, too.

It's a heck of a nut to crack, though, isn't it? There are so many facets. It seems to me that whatever the answer is it will involve a more human and less "let's-demonize-the-victims" solution.

If it's ok to mention my own blog post (click on my name or URL) on one of the facets of the issue, I'd like to invite you to read my take. It's too long to reproduce here.

I will be back to your blog. You have a good concept going.
Hotcha!


Brian

Dave, in my ruthless quest for fairness and informed opinions, I must point out one weakness in your appraisal:

although well-intentioned, Brown vs. the Board of Education did not impose the right solution to the problem of educational inequality.

Brown v. Board did not really impose ANY solution to the problem of educational inequality. The history-making aspect of its decision is that it (correctly) declared segregation unconstitutional. Its order to integrate schools "with all deliberate speed," without time or apportionment criteria, in fact proved to be so ambiguous and meager that the Supreme Court was still taking on segregation 20 years later.

I think what you're looking for is Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the 1971 integration decision that sanctioned mandatory racial apportionment in the schools (saying that each school should have roughly the same percentage of white and black students as the entire school district). That was the one that you could say was correctly intentioned, but opened the door to problematic racial quotas.

Perhaps not such a big issue, but I worry about setting a new precedent for demonizing the Brown decision. That decision was correct. It was the subsequent decisions that posed problems; let's not inadvertently advocate the reversal of Brown, because that would be a horrible disaster.

Point taken, Michael. But Brown is the decision which led to the subsequent decisions, and it's the one which most of the analysts are saying is invalidated by this decision. And at the most basic level, it is certainly ALL of the court's efforts to mandate solutions here which are at fault.

Dave

Something is very wrong with Nalle's thinking.

His idea that taking "troublemakers" out of the classroom and putting them in bootcamp facilities would lead to the students who really want to learn being able to do so is simply false.

Nalle is not an educator, and it really shows. In every classroom the distribution of learning styles is the following (approximately):

65% VISUAL LEARNERS

25% KINESTHETIC/TACTILE LEARNERS

10% AUDITORY LEARNERS

Traditional teaching--which is basically droning on in front of the classroom and which, unfortunately is still about 90% of the instruction in every country that I have visited and observed classes--is aimed at the group with the lowest incidence in the classroom--the 10% which is that of auditory learners.

A slightly more aware teacher may notice that there is a whiteboard in the classroom and that some students are reading their books while he or she drones on--and that person may begin to provide something for the 65% of the group which is visual to do.

What about that 25% of kinesthetic folks that is left unattended?

THOSE ARE THE SO-CALLED "TROUBLEMAKERS"--the folks who act up and act out in class because their learning needs are not being met!

Teachers, in the great majority, are too scared of losing control of the group to provide interactive and hands-on modalities.

That fear insures that their worst nightmares will come true: the "troublemakers" will raise hell.

I was one of those "troublemakers"--I threw fruit, deposited stink bombs in the wastebaskets, attacked other students with protractors--you name it. I wanted to learn, but my hands-on learning style was not addressed--so the best case scenario was that I simply was allowed to leave class and practice sports or do art projects or go downtown shopping.

Yes, I eventually ended up earning a PhD and becoming an educator--but not thanks to the US educational "system".

And you can bet your fat redneck butts that in MY classroom ALL learning styles are addressed, and everybody learns.

And I do NOT, EVER, have discipline problems.

Are you still actively teaching, moonraven?

And I do NOT, EVER, have discipline problems.

I'll say, seeing that you've disposed entirely of the discipline of critical thinking. Awful hard to have problems with a discipline that you're not even trying to promote (or adhere to).

Brown is the decision which led to the subsequent decisions, and it's the one which most of the analysts are saying is invalidated by this decision.

Again, I must disagree:

it's not analysts who say that Brown is invalidated by this decision. It's pundits. I've not yet heard a serious legal/constitutional scholar make the claim that Brown is invalidated. Some may have suggested that it's assaulted, or weakened, but "invalidated," which is equivalent to "overturned," is a horse of a different color and a bloody big leap from "assaulted."

Ok, I've got nothing at all to say to MR on this subject. She's so out of touch with the reality of secondary education in the US that her comments are beyond irrelevant. We're not talking about kids whose main problem is learning disabilities, we're talking about kids who are basically criminals. They aren't just desperate egomaniacs trying to get attention as she describes herself as in school.

Now, on to Michael's point. Maybe we draw the line differently between pundits and analysts. Maybe 'invalidated' is a bit alarmist. I think it certainly challenges everything which has flowed from the Brown decision. I'll see if I can dig up the opinions of some gen-u-wine legal scholars. So far all I've really seen are comments by experts in the media for what they're worth.

Dave

Not all lawyers are objective, of course, but here's a comment on the ruling from Ted Shaw who's the head lawyer at the NAACP:

"What these school districts were trying to do was overlay on all that choice the imperative to maintain some diversity or some degree of integration. You know, all that's left of Brown v. Board of Education, for the most part, is voluntary integration, and days of mandatory busing are all but over. So, tragically yesterday, five justices on the Supreme Court voted to strike down those plans."

Sounds like his qualified legal analysis is that the decision is a final death-blow to Brown.

Dave

Sounds to me like he's being alarmist and overgeneralizing. Overgeneralizing, that is, in the sense that he, too, lumps all decisions involving any form of integration with Brown.

As I said before, Brown (a) did not have anything to do with mandatory busing, and (b) was only flawed in that it didn't go far ENOUGH. In its fundamental principle--that mandatory segregation of the public schools based on race was unconstitutional--Brown was absolutely correct, probably the single best decision that the Supreme Court has handed down in at least 100 years, if not in its entire existence.

You seem to imply, Dave, that the subsequent decisions "flowed from Brown" in the sense that they were inevitable. Correct only in the sense that Brown's regrettable sidestepping of a real solution opened the door to things like 20 years of southern states ignoring the decision, or the Virginia county (forgive me; I forget which) that simply closed down its entire public school system rather than allow black and white children to go to school together. If Brown had actually given a firm desegregation order in the first place, things would have been colossally better.

Truth is, I believe what you're seeing with a lot of these people who are tying the current Parents v. Seattle decision back to Brown show a colossal misunderstanding of both cases. Christ, even Robert fucking Bork says that the Brown decision was correct. But I think it's evolved so far into symbolism that even attorneys idealize it without actually parsing it.

That goes for the Parents decision, as well. The decision does NOT preclude race as a factor in diversifying schools. It precludes race as the SOLE factor in diversifying schools. And, in fact, Roberts cited Brown as a precedent that justified, not contradicted, the court's majority opinion in Parents.

Interesting thoughts, Michael. I may have jumped on the bandwagon too soon, I must admit.

I certainly agree that forced segregation is a bad thing, but forced desegregation has proven to be equally undesirable in practice.

It seems like this decision attacks the negatives without necessarily invalidating the positives, so it's a step in the right direction, even if some on both ends of the political spectrum have overreacted.

Dave

Nalle,

Don't try to run away from the fact that you are 100% clueless about anything related to education by saying that I am "out of touch". I am not. Nor did I mention one word about learning disabilities--which is another issue entirely from what I did mention, which is that there are 3 clearly definible styles of learners in any classroom and that at least 25% of them are not being addressed because teachers are too scared, too stupid or too professionally uninformed to do so.

It is also not up to YOU to decide who is a criminal. [Edited]

You have zero evidence to indicate that a student who acts out because his or her educational needs are being ignored is a criminal.

[Edited]

Michael: I TEACH critical thinking.

Learning to read is useful when trying to think critically. You might give it a try.

Chris,

Yes, I am still actively teaching, training teachers and designing curricula and programs.