Schools need to be free to get rid of chronically bad kids

[bluestateguy]

Too many schools (i'm mostly talking about high schools here) are burdened by a few chronically bad kids who ruin school for everybody else. They need to be removed. Permanently. I'm not talking about the kid who skips class for Senior Ditch Day, or the kid who was caught passing notes in English class, or the kid who gets into a scrape with some other kid. I'm talking about the people who just do nothing but cause problems for other students, administrators, and hard-working teachers. These people drive teachers away from the profession as well. It's not very rewarding to come to work every day as a teacher if your safety is at risk and a few thugs are making it impossible for the kids to learn anything. For the good students' safety and to preserve quality education, the chronic troublemakers should be removed. They are bullies, drug pushers (on school grounds), thugs, goons, truants, and class disruptors. They have no respect for anyone. And it's day after day. Routine school discipline does not seem to phase them. Hence, they should be removed. They can go get a job, grow up and maybe get their GED someday. Or they can just march themselves off to the nearest prison, which is where they will end up someday anyway, at least on the current path they are on.

I'm all for second chances, and intervention for at risk kids. But second chances have to be earned, and they should not be endless. When a few troublemakers and violent thugs are damaging the educations of the many, then I have no problem saying that the few should be sacrificed for the welfare of the many.

Like that scene in the movie "Lean on Me", where principal Joe Clark gets all of the worst troublemakers up on stage at a school assembly and promptly expels them all. Some of these "kids" were 20 years old and in their 6th year of high school.

[BlooInBloo]

1. hahahaha!

EDIT: It's funny that schools have already started getting rid of low-grades kids, just to make their numbers look better.

Why don't you just fucking kick EVERYBODY out of school, and then tell us how teachers are getting PERFECT graduation rates?


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[ulysses]

8. know what's funny?

The folks who are most likely (in my experience) to agree with you that this (NCLB-related expulsion) is a problem are teachers.

You know, those damned idiot teachers you have such a wad in your panties about.

[BlooInBloo]

12. Do you know for a fact that the OP isn't a teacher?

[ulysses]

13. nope. never wondered.

I'm not surprised that you made the automatic assumption that he/she is, though.

[BlooInBloo]

16. I missed where I said I made that assumption.

[ulysses]

19. I missed the point to suggesting that bluestateguy might be a teacher.

[BlooInBloo]

30. Um.... I responded to you talking about teachers and their view on this matter.

EDIT: It might still not be clear to an education major: Had the OP been a teacher, it would have furnished an immediate and amusing counterexample to your claim. It turned out not to be the case, but neither you know I knew that going into it.

[ulysses]

33. the "education major" thing is so precious!

Talk to me. Where'd you do your undergrad?

[BlooInBloo]

36. None of your business. Anonymity isn't something I feel any need to give up.

[ulysses]

38. of course it isn't.

I did mine here. Santa Fe campus, 1991. Liberal Arts degree at St. John's works out to the equivalent of a double major in philosophy and mathematics.

But wherever you did your bachelor's in "mindless beliefs based on SAT scores of entering freshmen", I'm sure it was a great school

[BlooInBloo]

39. Congratulations.

[ulysses]

41. thanks!

Still wish you'd come join us in the classroom. Hate to see all that talent put to waste.

[BlooInBloo]

43. Nah. Taught for 7 years. That's enough.

[ulysses]

45. and deny kids access to that superior intellect?

Damn, that's sad.

[BlooInBloo]

48. All the more reason to implement a plan of the sort I advocate.

EDIT: Or not, as the case may be. :rofl:

[ulysses]

50. do tell.

What would bring you back into the company of such fools?

[BlooInBloo]

57. ....

Sick of typing it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5069467&mesg_id=5070356

It wouldn't bring me back - I like what I do now too much. But there are plenty of non-idiots who would be attracted by something along these lines.

[ulysses]

26. yes, I now know that he's not a teacher.

That's if he can be trusted. He might *be* a teacher, and god knows you can't trust them...

[BlooInBloo]

28. Good 'nuff for me.

[Deja Q]

2. Best of luck to that. Our system doesn't exactly reward intellect.

[sandnsea]

3. Most high schools do

They have alternative schools where expelled kids are sent.

The reason some schools refuse to expel kids has to do with the money they get. The administrator would rather put up with the disruption than lose the money. OTOH, there are schools who would rather let kids drop out than deal with the lower SAT percentages, etc.

But once again, if we never measure anything, then we'll never know which schools are doing what and why they're succeeding or failing.

[ananda]

11. PEIMS Snapshot

In Texas the PEIMS Snapshot got moved back and
the window for expelling kids or sending them
to alternative schools got narrower. Teachers'
lives would be hell for three or four months,
but second semester was usually better.

It was a matter of numbers and money... not
education.

[Odin2005]

4. The problem is that schools back down when pissed off parents chew them out for...

"punishing their perfect little angel" that in reality is a complete asshole.

[Fire1]

56. They ALL shit ice cream!

[Double T]

5. Agreed. Three strikes and your out for good.

Prison stocks are looking brighter.

[polichick]

6. A lot of the bullies are members of the football team - they're celebrated...

...same way bullies are celebrated in business and politics.

[Donnachaidh]

34. oh most definitely -- the jocks get away with murder, because of the amount of money brought in

THEY get away with murder, because their parents are on the PTA, or are closerthanthis with selective teachers in the school.

But let's get rid of the kids who have problems, who don't contribute to the sports program, or aren't fortunate enough to have parents close to the principal in the school.


Just another way to play the class warfare game. It's shameful that this is even being posted on this board.

[Naturyl]

35. How right you are.

The abusers whose psychological and emotional terrorism helped consign me to a life of disability were in many cases the heroes and celebrities of the school, beloved by teachers and principals alike.

Many schools are cesspools of rampant Social Darwinism, and very few people are interested in looking at the real foundations of the problem (which lie in our whole culture).

[distantearlywarning]

46. Yeah, exactly. n/t

[Starry Messenger]

7. (facepalm)

[Mike 03]

9. Boy, I know I wouldn't be so dysfunctional if my school had gotten rid of the asshole jerkoffs

who tormented me day in and day out.

And one of my teachers (math, jr. high) even seemed amused by the trouble-makers, laughing along with him as he tortured some of us.

I am positive I would be a psychologically healthier person.

It's amazing how being humiliated when you are twelve years old can change your life forever.

Get rid of these bullies.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ex Lurker]

17. I don't know when you went to school

but it's gone way beyond bullies now. In a lot of cases these are out and out criminals.

[Mike 03]

21. Yes, it sounds like it's much worse now. It has to be stopped. NT

[47of74]

40. My school expereience would've been better too

[Hello_Kitty]

10. Okay, but also get rid of stupid Zero Tolerance policies

Kids have gotten kicked out for giving a Tylenol to another student. It's ridiculous. Meanwhile, bullies and junior sociopaths continue to have free reign over schools.

[Maru Kitteh]

49. Sounds completely logical to me - Get rid of the REAL problem kids and don't sweat the Advil

All of this would benefit the kids who actually want to do well.

[Mike 03]

54. I couldn't agree more. This "no advil" policy or carrying a keychain with a sharp

edge stuff is disgraceful, a waste of time beyond belief.

I would join any campaign to get rid of this crap.

Great post.

[bbinacan]

14. I agree with you. n/t

[Warpy]

18. Violent students and drug dealers are already kicked out around here

but low level bullies still persist. Kids who are bullies generally grow into adults who are bullies and the cycle just goes on and on.

The time to start treating bullies is in kindergarten, IMO. If they're not being shown boundaries at home, they need to be shown them in school.

As for the violent and drug dealing kids, if they get smart they have two options: a last chance high school with strictly enforced structure or home schooling. A few teachers have set up one room schoolhouses with homeschooling materials and I know a couple of high school rejects who have blossomed in a small classroom.

Most of them will probably just keep dealing drugs and getting into bar fights until they're in prison or dead. Sometimes the purpose of a life is to be an example of what not to do. It's sad but there's not much the rest of us can do about them without their cooperation.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

52. I agree with you on bullies

I taught in the 70s and 80s, and even back then had a zero tolerance policy towards teasing and bullying. I explained to the person or persons doing the bullying the harm they are doing to another, and asked them to put themselves in the other person's shoes. Not everyone learned empathy, but I had some in tears who did change their ways--and the others knew not to do anything when I was around.

[ulysses]

20. are you a teacher?

Bloo wants to know.

[bluestateguy]

23. No I am not

So if that diminishes the value of my opinion, then so be it. But I have numerous friends who are, and I shape my opinion around their observations as well.

[ulysses]

24. has nothing to do with the value of your opinion to me.

Like I say, Bloo wanted to know. Thanks. :)

[Davis_X_Machina]

22. It's not necessarily bullies...

...just kids.


A hundred, or a hundred and fifty years ago, around here at least, these boys -- and they're boys -- could run away to sea. A third of them would become sailors -- and a few rise to captains, a third would get it out of their system, and come back and follow a plow or work in the mill, and a third would get knocked on the head.

The frontier provided a similar outlet.

But in a world of pod farms and office parks, there's nothing like that any more. And there's going to be a certain fraction of the school population where sitting still, following directions, and the like, aren't going to be flavor of the month. Schools as they are presently conceived are ill-suited to perhaps 25% of the inmates.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

53. Also kids had to start working and supporting themselves

and their families at a much younger age than they do today. My grandmother told of the kids doing chores from age 7 or 8 and starting work full time on the farm at age 13. From what she told me, her brothers were rather wild--riding a horseless buggy down a hill towards a narrow bridge late at night after their parents were asleep--and at least one of them ran away from home for a while. (We're talking 100 years ago). My stepfather worked on his family's farm from the time he was 12, dropping out of high school at age 16 because he had a chance to get a job to help bring in more money. These fellows worked because they had to to bring food to the table. Now kids don't have that obligation--or that chance--by and large. Interestingly enough, in this rural area of Arkansas, I've noticed that the young men who are home schooled and work farms or in shops alongside their parents are more mature and don't have time for bullying and the like.

[handmade34]

25. simple ineffective solution to a complex problem...

having been a student, parent, teacher, correctional officer and business owner; there are no easy answers... and it costs more to house a prisoner than to exert extra effort to work with the trouble maker in high school.

[Naturyl]

27. Agreed.

I don't oppose setting up special programs for such "problem" students, but removing them from the mainstream population of public schools would be beneficial to everyone.

I speak as someone permanently affected (negatively) by peer abuse which occured in school.

[Runcible Spoon]

29. Last night it was the teachers, now it's the kids.

Who's up on the chopping block next? :eyes:

[bluestateguy]

31. Administrators

I'm working on a post that holds them accountable too.

(You asked)

[Runcible Spoon]

32. Well that will be the first worthwhile post from this little series of yours. nt

[Lost in CT]

37. You mean these kids?

or this kid



Peanuts, June 22, 1952

[lib2DaBone]

42. Kids do what they want .....when they want......

..there is no accountability for bad behavior in school.

At the risk of sounding like a right winger... (when I was in school), gym teachers were allowed to give "Swats". Today, you dare not touch a student.. even if they have a gun or knife.

A Swat goes a long way to get a students attention, but that alternative has been gone for years. Kids today know that they can pretty much do anything they want without reprisal. (I had one 10 year old boy use the word 'M-F-er on a regular basis. His parents said that it was impossible. Even after the parents were shown the video of their Little darling starting fights and calling people 'M-F-er's... they refused to correct the child. They know that schools get paid for the number of bodies carried on the school bus. Thus, school administrators WILL NOT suspend any student if it means losing revenue. The kids basically run the system and the parents could care less.

Schools today are very dangerous places as we are fostering little "Charles Manson's" and groups like the "Trench Coat Mafia". A good ass-whooping would have solved those problems long before they got out of control. (JMHO).

God, I hate to feel this way and I hate to advocate corporal punishment.. but these kids (not all, just some) are off the charts. I also read where the budget for drugs for ADD and BiPolar have been cut. This can't be good.

[ulysses]

44. erm, no.

Today, you dare not touch a student.. even if they have a gun or knife.

Flat untrue.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

47. I've taught chronically bad kids

and I think their problems are mainly psychological--in one case, the mother constantly told her child he was worthless; in another, the child was angry because of the breakup of his parents. I've taught kids who I also think were genetically predisposed to depression and even skitzophenia and bi-polar disorder. I know now that some behaviors can be exacerbated by poor diet, too. Unfortunately, when I taught school there were no psychiatric services available and we just sort of muddled through it. Sadly, I know that the angry kid never got the help he needed--and committed suicide when he was 21.

[ulysses]

51. been there, much agreed.

:thumbsup:

[tangent90]

55. How DARE you acknowledge the actual world!

:spray:

[LiberalFighter]

58. Don't they offer alternative schools for troublemakers?

[Davis_X_Machina]

59. They're expensive...

...usually small, and have no political constituency -- for which, read 'football team'. First to be cut in any recession, too. Vy. interesting people come out of them -- some of my favorite colleagues in a 'normal' school.

[Arugula Latte]

60. It's amazing how one kid can affect an entire class.

My daughter was in 2nd grade last year and a girl came to the class late in the year. The rest of the school year was non-stop interruptions from this one girl. I volunteered in the class and saw it first hand. It blew me away how that one child just basically poisoned the classroom atmosphere.