North Carolina has earned the distinction of being ALEC’s playground so it is not surprising to learn that the General Assembly has voted to put armed guards in the schools, with the right to arrest students. .
Jacob Langberg asks these questions:
“Would you want armed former cops and soldiers patrolling your office? Your supermarket? Your place of worship? I wouldn’t. So why are policymakers putting them in schools? Can’t we all agree that schools should be supportive, loving, peaceful environments, and not violent, hostile, and intimidating places? Apparently not.”
Other districts worried about protecting students from outside intruders after the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. North Carolina decided the students were threatening.
Langberg writes:
“This is not an abstract fringe issue. It’s about how we want our public schools to look and feel – child-friendly and caring or hostile and punitive. It’s about refusing to sort youth into potential perpetrators and potential victims. It’s about terrorism against young people. Sadly, school resource officers, who hardly existed two decades ago, already seem normal to most young people. We must refuse to start down a path that will soon make armed militias in schools feel like commonplace.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So there’s no money for MA degrees, but bottomless coffers for armed security?
Those are Education MAs aren’t they? Do they actually count? Thoreau only had a BA. Of course, he only undertook his program of frugal living after the Unitarian father of the Unitarian girl he loved turned him down as too radical a Unitarian thinker.
Not everyone ends up being a Thoreau. Gates did not finish college. What are the odds of someone with less education having a sustainable, dignified, if not wealth building life?
Are such people the rule, or are they outliers?
You are right, of course. Education worked for me, BA(learned how to read good books carefully), MA(learned how to write essays of analysis on good books read carefully), EdD(learned how to research previous work, to have a sense of its theoretical incompleteness, and then to formulate new knowledge and write a full book about it). Barely comfortable, but not destitute. I learned a whole lot with each degree, but I learned the most in my first job in a small college teaching a variety of courses. The climb up the mountain of degrees prepared me for that real learning, sort of like Dante on the top of purgatory, but by then READY to ascend to the heavens. I suspect an Education MA is not a mountain side degree, but still walking further on the same plateau of the Education BA. In English one MUST read all of Shakespeare and much of Milton. Anything less is not a real major. There’s Shakespeare and Milton, and then everyone else. How many English-Education majors have that? Not many any more I’d opine.
CCSS is being more and more controverted because it narrows the curriculum by emphasizing reading skills instead of content.
The classics you cherish and revere are under seige and threat in the public system more than ever.
American and foreign classics shape our critical thinking and reflect past and current psychologies. They reflect and report out on the human condition. All of that stands to be lost or be retained nominally if Obama et al have their way.
The aim in education right now is to produce great workers who can add value and profits to the (mostly) corporations they will work for one day. The melange of liberal arts in literature and technical, non fictional knowledge always produces a better citizen and professional.
The Tea Party, ALEC, and Obama and so many other don’t believe that to be the case at all. I am saying this because the arts are being cut left and right in part due to the push coming from these people. Many join their list. Cut, cut, cut, defund, defund, defund. Dumb down, dumb down, dumb down.
Your generation will become extinct in terms of the kind of knowledge you hold.
Being a truly superb scholar in literature will be a major only for rich kids or those who want to be off the grid and are willing to lead less than a middle class life.
This is the very mindset the current climate is fostering and foisting upon the masses. . . .
I liken the indifference toward classic literature as posed by RttT and NCLB to this quote from Macbeth:
“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it; he died as one that had been studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owed, as ‘t were a careless trifle”. – (Act I, Scene IV).
I imagine that quite a few of them have MAs and 6th years in their academic subjects, as I and several of my colleagues do. Some might even have Ph.Ds.
I would not be so quick to dismiss MAs in education across the board. I have an MA in cross categorical Special Education and my program included considerably more courses than the usual 4 courses that my state typically requires for Special Ed entitlement (three of which I had already completed as an undergrad.) As a result, I feel that I am much better prepared to work with children who have disabilities and gifted and talented students, in general ed classrooms and a wide variety of other placements.
Correction: Sorry, I meant to say that my state requires 4 courses for endorsement (on top of an existing certificate), not entitlement.
Some good suggestions for improvement here: http://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/4-steps-to-upgrade-teacher-administrator-prep-programs-by-sandra-stotsky/
I’ve been thinking that its too bad I spent all that time, money, and effort on academic degrees in the humanities. Is it too late to become a gunsmith?
That profession may be more lucrative and have more job stability. Not a bad way to reinvent . . .
This sort of atmosphere is what makes some kids feel alienated and alone. And those kids are the ones who come back with guns. If we want schools to be safe, we need to make them feel safe. For everyone.
No, not just “feel safe,” but actually BE safe.
We already have armed police here in NC schools.. They build strong rapport with the students and are there to help in a crisis. Love having them in my school.
Great!
Then why don’t you as a citizen lobby for them to be in your supermarket, your movie theaters, your libraries, your Starbucks and Bed, Bath, and Beyonds, your JC Pennies, and why not, like in Mexico, put them in catering halls in case someone decides to attack a family during a reception?
The local rabbi and ministers and priests should have one up on the alters just in case. . . . .
I’m glad you love them. I hope every single one of those guards is emotionally stable and has been vetted. In case they are not and something twisted happens, you can always blame and sue the individual or the district and just leave the guns out of the analysis out of your very informed belief system. . . . .
Such an awful, paranoid race to the bottom. We don’t have guards, but Newtown led my kids’ school to adopt several useless, knee jerk security policies that singlehandedly destroyed most of what we loved about the school — the openness, warmth, accessibility. I can truthfully say, no exaggeration, I haven’t liked the school much ever since. Makes me very sad to say so.
Sometimes the paranoid is the realist.
Not nearly often enough. I have more important things to worry about than getting hit by lightning.
You yourself, perhaps, but I don’t suppose you go out walking on a golf course during a storm.
I’ve played my share of rounds under adverse conditions.
Is this different than the usual school resource officers that have always been in secondary schools in many areas?
That is what I was wondering. Our school resource officer is/was a sheriff’s deputy. No students were arrested, not even for fights. However, I am taling about 12, 13, and 14 year-olds.
Yes, he was armed, but had an excellent rapport with the students.
yes – it expands those who will be qualified to carry guns as long as they participate in some kind of training. he is a cut and paste from the bill.
“To Provide a Safe School Environment. – Local boards of education are
18 encouraged to provide at all elementary, middle, and high schools an armed
19 security guard who meets the selection and training requirements set for
20 State law enforcement officers by the North Carolina Criminal Justice
21 Education and Training Standards Commission. In the discretion of the
22 board, an armed security guard may be a school resource officer, school
23 volunteer, school employee, or a person otherwise qualified under this
24 subdivision. The board may establish application procedures for any person
25 interested in serving as an armed security guard. Before providing coverage
26 to a school, all applicants, other than certified law enforcement officers,
27 must successfully complete an approved firearms safety and training course
28 developed by the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Education and Training Standards
29 Commission and administered by the county sheriff’s office in the county 0 where the school is located.”
What’s the big deal?
Upper middle class and very pricey suburbs with very educated parents will bottle neck and prevent this directive locally at their schools because they will have the clout, articulation, voice, and advocacy skills to do so.
For any other district where the populations are very blue collar, lower middle class, or poor, there’ll be guns and guards galore every so many linear feet in the hallways of schools. They’ll be more frequently distributed along the walls than electrical outlets.
Freedom and democracy are not for the weak, vulnerable, and lesser or differently abled. Putting and not putting armed guards into the schools is one of myriad ways the system will continue become two tiered and polarized.
I just hope the brilliant officials in NC have really built in a superb vetting process into the hiring of these guards. It takes just one nutty, off-their-medication guard to come to work one day and have his/her way with those lovely and lethal guns.
Dont’ ya just love this country?
I’m worried that our civility and justice, as exemplified by the armed guard decision in NC, will attract millions of Western and Northern Europeans who will flock here to escape their own very oppressive governments. Then they’ll open up obnoxious coffee bars and espresso-ize our townships to death, putting Starbucks out of business. Worse, they’ll start pushing for nationalized healthcare.
Oh, wait, I forgot that Europe is a much saner place then the Red, White, and Blue. They’ll probably stay put and come to live here, like, never.
The Europeans were the ones who, aside from their dark past with colonialism, have evolved millions of light years ahead of us silly, frothy Americans when it comes to the rights of its citizenry . . . .
I am figuring that if I ever lose my job from the injustices of APPR here in NY, I can always move to affordable low tax NC and get a job as an armed security guard in a public school. Maybe I’ll be able to put down the gun once in a while, store it, and teach a few guided reading groups . . . . . Kids love Readers’ Workshop when its adapted correctly.
Would you want a designer uniform?
I’ll take what the school will supply me.
My significant other picks out my clothes. She claims that if it were up to me, I’d stay in a jogging suit all the time.
Comfort before style, except for when you go out into the real world.
Bulletin from the enclave: It was actually simple for the Super in my pricey suburb a couple of months ago, despite roars of protest from educated citizens. She simply re-instated the armed resource officer position originally put in as a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, which was allowed to lapse after 7 yrs. BOE is her rubber stamp, & public resentment is tempered by that 7-yr experience, which was uneventful & even somewhat positive. Practically speaking it’s a bone for our conservative faction in response to Newtown, with no preventive value (per the police), whose only effect is to rob some $ from ed budget, which townfolk will pony up.
Quite a different matter for poor schools in city & rural outposts. But looks like NC gov hasn’t left them with a pot to p*** in, let alone the $ to hire armed guards.
Oh my! I don’t think I would like going to school. Schools are safe zones for kids. GUNS? EGADS…THE HUNGER GAMES reign.
“the state budget also provides grants for more paid law enforcement officers to patrol public schools on a full-time basis (misleadingly called “school resource officers”).”
But I thought the government was broke?
(snark off)
As I have said many times, there is always money for items on the agenda of those in power.
Endless money for expensive testing, data bases, consultants, and now armed guards, etc. But don’t even bother to ask about lower class size, pay increases, class room supplies or anything that might benefit students or teachers (or both!).
Sigh
It’s time to tell any legislator who uses Alec as a resource to replace their ability to think on their own and represent their constituency, hasta la vista!
Volunteers???? If someone wants to volunteer, come sit and read with a child or help them with their math.
Yes!
I think that this proposal is geared more towards the “volunteer” who wants to strut around with his shiny heater on his hip. (See Zimmerman, George).
George Zimmerman as an armed security guard in a NC school . . .
Now that’s come full circle, American style.
I’m sure dress code issues would clear right up. “Uh-oh, here comes Mr. Zimmerman – quick! Take your hoodie off?”
Last I heard he was in Texas with a gun. Perhaps he took a wrong turn off I-95 on his way to apply for a position.
Harlan is correct in both points.
1. Fake, educational MAs are not worth extra money. There is a huge industry built around these quickie MAs for teachers. Teachers should get an MA in their subject area- period. I always thought this was scandalous.
2. Of course we need either an armed guard(s) or a police officer in every school. We don’t live in Canada or Sweden. There is ALOT of gun violence in America and pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t help anyone. I don’t want my kids sitting ducks when some maniac bursts in. Do you? Many of you have to get over your irrational fear of guns. You need to stop being afraid and think about how you could protect yourself (and your students) in a similar situation. This is reality in the America of today.
“1. Fake, educational MAs are not worth extra money. . . . I always thought this was scandalous.”
So my masters in education administration isn’t worth it, eh? I had thought about becoming an administrator and in Missouri at the time one had to have a masters and coursework by an approved institution.
2. Of course we need either an armed guard(s) or a police officer in every school. . . . This is reality in the America of today.
Horse manure on the first sentence. Schools have historically been the safest place for anyone to be (as the stats show). And that was before the current round of SROs, metal detectors, etc. . . . And NO, it’s not the “reality” in the America of today! Maybe in your version of “reality” but certainly not mine and the vast majority of others.
I assume he means online, diploma mill McMasters degrees, not all MAs in Ed. I do agree that degrees in academic subjects are important for secondary teaching.
Is gun violence more prevalent today, or is our information saturation so high that learning about such things so easily gives that impression?
I am quite comfortable and reasonably competent with guns, but they should not be in schools. Right after Newtown (about two or three towns over from where I work), I was leaning towards the notion of discreetly armed and trained adults in school. After the shock and fear subsided, I returned to the opinion that guns in school are a bad idea.
Alan,
I would say that the problem lies more in the realm of “information saturation” than gun violence being more prevalent today (that doesn’t mean that I believe that there is not too much violence in America (sic) but then our country and national government are based upon unmitigated violence against many others, and “violence saturation” is a constant for this country.
Guns in schools is a horrendous idea (and I currently own four hunting guns). What is the unspoken message that is given???
To critics of armed police being assigned to schools. Consider the state of public education today.
I challenge any teacher in the public school system to tell me students today respect them more than they themselves respect their teachers.
Take a look at the inner city schools, there entrances look more like entries to prisons than schools. How often have students told their teachers to F-oof?
Schools today in major cities are in turmoil yet ask yourself, what is the US DOE doing about discipline? Check its website, do you see ANY program that addresses behavior.
Meanwhile, while the DOE is pushing Common Core, it has ignored the most essential element for children to learn, a conducive environment for teachers to teach..
So ridicule NC,or any other state which is deciding for itself what measures to take to better protect students AND teachers. If you don’t like this policy, you can teach elsewhere.
Perhaps Detroit….I’m sure there are many openings. ajbruno14 gmail
Toxic positively toxic.
Thank you, Duane.
You’re welcome!
Ed Schultz…public schools facing systematic destruction…MSNBC:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755822/ns/msnbc-the_ed_show/vp/52665628
In my state of South Dakota, the administration and the GOP drastically slashed ed funding in 2011 and despite 20+ million budget surplus, continue to hold back education funding. We had to go to a ballot referendum in 2012 to overturn an ALEC plan of merit pay and last year they passed a Sentinel bill. It seems like no school is willing to risk it yet. Not sure if it is because the law was so poorly written or if it is worry about school insurance rates.
There have been armed police officers assigned to public high schools in my district for over 50 years –since I attended in the 60s. This legislation allows for people who are not on-duty police officers and adds elementary schools and middle schools to the mix. I understand the concerns, since the Newtown massacre, but inviting armed Zimmerman vigilante wannabes to the schools with our youngest children sounds like a rather volatile formula to me,
No big deal, a perfectly natural part of the school to prison pipeline.
This is another quick fix. We need to instead expand our alternative ed programs.
Too many students are expected to sit still for long periods of time, behave themselves in unsupervised or little-supervised situations such as gym, the bus, the hallway, or the cafeteria. They need more care and direction than most of their peers. Some of them are dealing with nightmare situations at home or have psychological issues that are not being properly treated. Or who knows. Yet we expect them to mingle with a thousand other kids and do work that they can’t do and then we bring them up to the main office and ask “Why can’t you behave yourself.” And the solution to this problem is to hire people with dubious qualifications to patrol the hallways and carry a gun?
Is their role to prevent a school shooting or to maintain order in the school?
I worked in a school in PA where we had police in the hallways, and they did a good job of clearing the hallways of stragglers before class, but I saw firsthand that if you do nothing else to try to alleviate some of the core problems that contribute to disorder in a school, having police doesn’t do much. It kind of just makes your school feel that much more like a prison.
The founding idea of SRO’s is for the officer to build relationships with parents and students. Ideally, they become a trusted member of the school staff who can assist all parties when problems outside the school’s expertise arise. I have worked with an officer who never used his gun but was armed with a great personality and heart. He was successful because of his dedication to children, not his firearm. When schools have this friendly face of the local police force whom kids gravitate towards it adds another positive dimension to our schools. Most of us object to “armed guards.” Trained SRO”s should not be placed in this category as they are much more.
These wonderful posts by intelligent PS teachers continue to finely map the topography of a Master Plan. It contains variations but is essentially the same. Shop it around from state to state and where you can find malevolent zombies to implement, it most certainly becomes a race to the bottom, a school to prison pipeline and a brainwashed citizenry socialized to accept a militarized presence where none is called for. There is a name for this.
School Resource Officers have been around (in suburban schools) for years. Those with whom I and seems others posting above have worked are wonderful – they have a great rapport with students – they are a presence – they get a heads up something may be going down – and they advise and stay out of typical school problems but are there to deal with the big ones.
Kids are responsible and great – l but kids are kids and problems are real. Drugs. Domestic issues. The Saturday night problem that spills into the Monday cafeteria. The tip that something really bad might happen. And, those days every administrator worries about annually. And, in practically every school violence issue since the ’80s, someone knew it was going to happen or should have had major suspicion and didn’t report it. And, there are SROs out there in situations where someone DID tell them and they prevented the blow up.
Many schools / campuses are small cities – up to 3,000 students – a few hundred adults – fifty buses and hundreds of cars and deliveries in and out all day… and “stuff” happens once in a while.
SROs are well trained and supported by a national organization. http://www.nasro.org/
As for armed guards of any variety – ask a police officer what she or he thinks about anyone other than a police officer being armed?
When Fordham (and Education Next) write about pension benefits, they use headlines for the reader to believe there is some payoff (payola) going on. Today in the Sunday news there is more about Detroit. As with most of us through the Great Recession, we lost 1/2 of everything; so did the pension funds of Detroit.
quote from Sunday headlines:
“Detroit’s pensions are not particularly generous compared with other large cities, and the shortfall owes to a combination of demographics, bad management, and financial industry manipulation rather than extravagant promises to workers. The financial crisis also wiped out nearly a billion dollars in pension fund holdings.” This is what he financial industry manipulation did to Greece; but in Europe they just gather the countries together as PIGS. Greece, Spain, etc. Headlines often do that; confuse the reader so they skip the article and read only the headline like UPI takes “pricey teachers” as the headline of E.N. articles and this article is headed Payoff so someone can say “schools cost too much” close them all. There was a time when Fordham didn’t do this kind of propaganda. Education Next is sent out of Harvard but most a lot of the articles are drawn from Fordham Institute. I wrote to the author of the pension article and he said the draft of his paper did not use the term payoff (which i believe is true) and that E.N. and Fordham purposely headline this way as propaganda. This gives more ammunition for states like N.C. to copy…
John, Josh, and Jere are correct here. We’ve had SROs for many years here in NC. The problem is, we don’t have enough. For example, the SRO at the high school my wife works is responsible for the high school, the neighboring middle school and elementary school, as well as two other elementary schools miles away. If something were to happen, it would take several minutes to respond, and as Columbine and Newtown has shown us, minutes count.
A few months ago, my wife and I were at a local sports bar having dinner and a guy sitting next to us struck up a conversation and found out we were educators. He wanted to know my take on allowing armed teachers in schools (he was a big gun supporter, member of the NRA, etc…). I told him it was one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in a long time, and I’m in a profession filled with stupid ideas (read: reform movement). He was surprised at my response and wanted to know why. In so many words, I explained to him that a teachers biggest weapon is “trust” and that it was the first step in building relationships with students, which may be the most important ingredient in a classroom. If the students knew or thought I was armed with a gun, the dynamics of our relationship changes. It is counterproductive. We don’t need teachers with guns. We need more SROs in the schools. I don’t know if I changed his mind, but I could see in his eyes he was thinking about what I said.
Wait, slow down, halt…Trust and building relationships you say?
Is this the same Zak from another thread (the MOOCs one):
And here: “I remember one girl called me over to ask me a science question (my background is Business Ed) and I told her I had no idea, to just read the material and do your best. She looked at me in disgust and said, “Then why are you here?” I looked at her and said, “To provide you with resources and an environment where you can earn back your credit. If you want to ask questions, you should have asked them when you were in the class with the teacher.”
Yes, Linda. It’s me. I’ll await your apology.
I am sorry your two posts reflect different philosophies on how best to interact with struggling students.
I would not want to be in a school where teachers and administrators were armed. That seems to beg for trouble. If someone who was armed were placed in my school I would hope that they have been carefully screened and only allowed to act in instances such as what happened in Newtown or Columbine. I also do not think that guns should be the only device the armed person has available; Tasers might be more reasonable in some situations. Last fall, a college student in my city lost his life because the only device security guards on his campus are allowed to carry is a gun. Granted, the student was high on drugs and was acting in a threatening manner (although he had no weapon). But I bet his life could have been spared and he could have been rehabilitated and become a productive member of society if the security guard had been able to tase rather than shoot him. It turned out that this kid, a freshman, had been a very successful high school student and this was the first time he’d done something like try drugs.
You raise an important question, whether our “rights” are intrinsic to each person or are granted by the government. I would argue, as in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalieable right, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The purpose our government is to protect our rights. It doesn’t give them. If the government gave us our rights, then it could take them away, legitimately. But if, on the other hand, we have “inalienable” right, any attempt by the government to diminish those rights would be illegitimate. If you think among our inalienable rights is the right to an education, you’d want to see the protected by the government. If, on the other hand, the government is the originator and giver of our rights, then the government can morally and ethically take away those rights.
It’s not a case of security being intimidating, if security are doing their job properly, they will interact with people well. Over time, people will see them as your every day Joe and those barriers should be broken down.