EduShyster commends President Obama and Secretary Duncan for their new initiative to lower the practice of suspending students, especially minority students, from school. But she wonders whether the new policy will apply to the “no excuses” charter schools that have sky-high suspension rates and win commendations from the Obama administration for having high expectations.
In New Orleans, two celebrated charter schools have high suspension rates:
“According to Louisiana state data a full 69 percent of Carver Collegiate’s student body was sent home at least once during the 2012-2013 school year. Carver Prep suspended 61 percent of its student body, while Sci Academy sent home 58 percent, a 9-point increase from the year before. That’s a lot of college readiness.”
Massachusetts also has charters that teach self-discipline by suspending students:
“It isn’t just New Orleans where there seems to be something of an, ahem, double standard when it comes to suspending minority students. In Massachusetts, for example, charter schools out-suspend their public counterparts at staggering rates. Tops on the list: Roxbury Preparatory Charter, a college prep academy for 5th-8th graders that is part of the Uncommon Schools network and sent home an Uncommonly high 56% of its students in 2012. In Boston, by contrast, which has overhauled its discipline policies to allow *restorative justice* in place of out-of-school suspensions, the suspension rate has dropped to just 4%.”
Why do charters get away with it?
“You see, there’s something else unique about urban charter schools in addition to their unique view that suspending students prepares them for college. They are also incredibly segregated. In other words, they can’t be said to be disproportionately punishing minority students because only minority students attend them. Segregation, like out-of-school suspensions, is just fine when its done in the name of college prep.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These charter schools would be better off using my model of educational reform, where the emphasis becomes less on college-readiness and more on the bottom rung of the Hierarchy of Needs.
The curriculum is a hybrid of an ROTC program, the AVID program, and fundamentals of reading, writing, and math.
Not appropriately suspending kids for their behavior sends the wrong message when they get out in the real world. You don’t get a free pass to break the law just because you’re a minority. Wake up, folks.
Charter schools should become the new “alternative” school and trade schools. Leave public schools and private schools for the academically invested kids.
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What school are you with?
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A mid-size suburban school in a wealthy area. However, I’ve taught and coached in seven high schools of various demographic make up, public and private, over the years.
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And here is one area where I disagree with those in the anti-reform movement (I agree in most other areas). I am just wondering what your suggestion is for these kids who continually disrupt everyone else’s education? Educators already have their hands tied in disciplining kids, and the kids know it. The new policies will only make it worse. How in the world does not disciplining set these kids up for success???? How are we helping kids succeed in life if they cannot learn to behave? If they disrupt classes to the point that no one is learning?
And it is these types of (lack of) discipline policies that make certain parents support charter schools. And as adamant as I am against charter schools, I am also against liberal politicians who allow a few kids to disrupt everyone else’s education. And this has already been happening in the public education system, and it is a major one that many parents have pulled their kids. Certain special education laws have allowed abuse of a similar “no-suspension” policy. And these kids know it. These are the kids who will taunt and bully others and look at the adults and say, “you can’t suspend me.” And the new discipline policies will only add to the list of kids who know they can’t be suspended and will openly flaunt all discipline policies.
We are the first to criticize top-down reform when we don’t like it. I say the same is true here. There should NOT be a top-down discipline policy handed out to schools. This type of thing also serves to break down public education, as parents of the behaved ones will pull their kids out!
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I have to agree. School is not daycare and teachers are not babysitters. Come to school prepared to learn or stay home.
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“. . . against liberal politicians who allow a few kids to disrupt everyone else’s education.”
And just who are those folks you are against?
Liberal politicians are the ones doing the disciplining in schools?
” Certain special education laws have allowed abuse of a similar “no-suspension” policy.”
Name those laws specifically for us please?
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Suspension remains an option for both public schools and charter schools, this blog post is not arguing against suspension.
When public schools are criticized by Obama and Arne Duncan for excessive suspensions, while charter schools suspend students at a much higher rate and are praised by Obama and Duncan for having innovative methods, something fishy is going on.
Fishiness = campaign contributions from pro-charter school privatizers including Wall Street, Gulen, etc.
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Diane Ravitch: I think you need to fix the reference link in this article. It points to results of a google search when instead it should point to this:
http://edushyster.com/?p=4013
Thanks as always for the info that you offer.
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What about Brown v. Board of Education? Seems like it is time for another lawsuit on the Constitutionality of segregated schools.
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In the absence of Alternate Learning Programs for chronically dysfunctional and disruptive students, suspension is the only viable option in most schools.
People who oppose suspension clearly have no experience with the types of behaviors that truly warrant removal. All student have a right to an education and no student has a right to continually interfere with the educational opportunities of others.
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I don’t think the argument should be suspension/no suspension. The debate is about how to create an effective discipline policy. The biggest complaint I heard from teachers was about administrators returning disruptive and abusive students to the classroom within a few minutes after they were sent out. Teachers were admonished that their class management skills were not effective. Teachers were also required to fill out these elaborate incident reports that were basically just put in the student’s file and forgotten or “lost.” The “hoops” seemed to be designed to discourage reporting. Lack of reporting could also get you in trouble since then no behavior that hadn’t been officially documented could be used to consider disciplinary actions. However wrong, a strict policy that sends you home for everything from the wrong shoelaces to fist fights leaves no doubt about what is going to happen. I was totally blown away by the pettiness of the discipline policy of my last school (it didn’t even approach what I have heard about some charters), but it was even more disturbing to see the lack of support teachers were given when they tried to use even the more reasonable parts of the code. I handled everything possible within my classroom; it wasn’t worth the grief to get the administration involved.
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I remember a friend of mine was on his planning period walking down the hall when he heard commotion coming from a room that had a sub in it, so he poked his head in to see if everything was okay. A student told him, literally, to go f*ck himself. He took the student down to the AP in charge of discipline (Dean of students) and they sent the kid back because “if he’s not in class, he’s not learning.” Imagine the message it sent to the other students when he walked back into class a few minutes later. Spoiler alert: it means we can now tell a teacher to f*ck off and nothing happens. I told him I would have handed in my 30 days notice that afternoon. Now, in my vision for school reform, that student would be at an alternative school for a minimum of one semester, and have to earn his way out. And not the current method that traditionally takes place in a couple districts I’ve worked in. The kid shows up, puts his name on a piece of paper everyday, gets sent back to his home school a month later with an “A” in the “equivalent” course, but now he’s missed 30 days of your content, and his attitude and demeanor hasn’t changed a bit. Seen it and lived it too many times, thus, helping me create my own vision of reform, and that is to take the kids that want to be disruptive and put them in an effective alternative setting. Vocational or behavioral, basically. School choice, unless your (the student’s) behavior determines it for them (alternative school) which would now consiste of a modified curriculum with a focus on ROTC (discipline/respect), AVID (self-determination/organization), and remedial curriculum in reading, writing, and arithmetic. If the charter movement adopted my model, I’d be in full support. There are no such things as a bad school. Schools are brick and mortar. And there are far less “bad” teachers then what mainstream media would let on. I’d guess around 5 percent, which is probably the average in many professions. So what we have now are average to great teachers in buildings teaching and working hard every day. Have an effective outlet for the disruptive kids, suddenly your “80/20” rule starts moving to “90/10” once the kids understand the consequences of their actions. Alternative school setting, pay teachers more to work there, smaller class sizes, more security, more autonomy, no standardized testing, etc…Anybody got a better plan?
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