Arthur Goldstein is a 32-year veteran of the New York City public s hools. He teaches ESL classes in a large, comprehensive high school, one of the few that was not broken into small schools by the Bloomberg administrations.
In this article, he explains why he opposes the city’s new discipline policies. Teachers are not allowed to suspend students no matter what they have done without permission from central. That permission, he expects, will never come.
Goldstein explains that in his 32 years of teaching, he has only once suspended a student. But he needs to know that this last-resort tool is available to him. He hopes he will never use it, but he believes his authority is undermined when this last resort is removed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
LOL… getting permission to deal with disruptive students…Hee, hee, hahahahah.
I remember trying to do that… the principal used th e parents to hurt me.
LikeLike
As usual, the bigwigs target the symptoms (high suspension rate) and ignore the actual problem (concentrated poverty, large class size, etc.).
LikeLike
Principals are no longer backup for teachers. They are enlisted as overseers of professional development aimed at eliminating disparities in discipline. Principals and teachers are increasingly rated on measures of school climate, safety, and indications of student “social emotional wellbeing.” But support systems to address these matters have been weakened.
School counselors, school social workers and school psychologists are in short supply. The American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor for every 250 students. In 2103-2014, only New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming met this standard for staffing. You can see the staff ratios here, https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/home/Ratios13-14.pdf New York State is among the worst.
The School Social Workers Association of America completed a survey of members in 2014. The most frequently cited impediment to their work: High student-staff ratios. The survey results are available here, by state, with a comparison to the national response http://www.sswaa.org/?page=37
The National Center for Education Statistics information is not recent, but national and state ratios of students to school counselors, school psychologists, and school counselors can be found here https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/Sass1112-481_s1n.asp
Professional associations of school counselors and school social workers have endorsed school-wide social-emotional learning (SEL) standards, along with the idea that formal instruction to enhance SEL should be in place, either as a stand-alone curriculum or fully integrated into the instruction by every teacher.
The push for SEL and measures of “school climate” has come from a relatively few number of scholars, some major foundations, USDE, and survey companies intent on gathering data on “improvements” in school climate and SEL measures. Even the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is offering an international test (via McGraw Hill) that includes some indicators of student engagement, interactions with teachers, attitudes toward learning and so-called “soft skills.” https://www.nwea.org/assessments/oecd-test-for-schools/
Among the measures increasingly used to evaluate schools, principals and all staff are rates of suspensions, expulsions, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal acts, complaints about bullying and cyber bullying.
USDE has just released four on-line surveys to produce school— district— and state-level scores on various indicators of school climate (EDSCLS), grades 5-12, from the perspectives of students, instructional staff, non-instructional staff, and parents/guardians.
By 2017 EDSCLS will have benchmarks —national scale scores–for comparisons among schools and school systems and “the national school climate.”
I have looked at the survey questions. In my judgment they are not ready for prime time. Many of them assume that students, teachers and parents/guardians have a panoptic view of school policies and events. Here are some questions for students: How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements about this school? Mark One Response: Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
6. All students are treated the same, regardless of whether their parents are rich or poor.
7. Boys and girls are treated equally well.
8. This school provides instructional materials (e.g., textbooks, handouts) that reflect my cultural background, ethnicity, and identity.
9. Adults working at this school treat all students respectfully.
Click to access EDSCLS%20Questionnaires.pdf
This survey was subjected to token public comment on a timetable and with prior budget constraints that prevented improvements. It does no take into account the current laws and regulations of states relative to school discipline as of March 2015. https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/School-Discipline-Compendium
Sorry to be longwinded. I am doing some mind-work on this whole issue and with some of the same concerns that Arthur Goldstein has…really hard cases, proliferating, while policy makers ignore the urgency and desperation of teachers working in environments depleted of needed supports.
LikeLike
Thank you for all the time you invest in being “long winded”!
LikeLike
I always believed that it was my job to teach and not to suspend students (How many districts allow a teacher to suspend students?), although I’m not sure if Goldstein had that power because of the ambiguity of “I only had a student suspended once” statement. I understand his concern with adminimals following through with consistent, fair, and appropriate discipline but I preferred that the ones that are getting paid to suspend students, the adminimals should be the ones to do the actual suspending. I never considered the suspension of a student as part of my teaching repertoire.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course it’s not my job to suspend students. And of course it was not solely my decision to do so. But at that time it was the appropriate response, so I pushed for it and it happened.
LikeLike
Thanks for the clarification. I thought you meant you could do the actual suspending which didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I have no problem with suspensions as part of a disciplinary code. There has to be some responsibility somewhere, eh!
LikeLike
Goldstein says the principal did the suspension. I think Goldstein meant that he counted on that administrative action backup as part of his tool-kit.
In any case, among the measures increasingly used to evaluate schools, their principals and all staff are rates of suspensions, expulsions, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal acts, complaints about bullying and cyber bullying—measures of school climate, safety, and indications of student “social emotional wellbeing.”
School counselors, school social workers and psychologists are in short supply. The American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor for every 250 students. In 2103-2014, only New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming met this standard for staffing. You can see the staff ratios here, https://www.schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/home/Ratios13-14.pdf New York State is among the worst.
The School Social Workers Association of America completed a survey of members in 2014. High student-staff ratios were among the most frequently cited impediments to their work. The survey results are available by state with a comparison to the national results here http://www.sswaa.org/?page=37
The National Center for Education Statistics information is not recent, but national and state ratios of students to school counselors, school psychologists, and school counselors are here https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/Sass1112-481_s1n.asp
Professional associations of school counselors, and school social workers have endorsed school-wide social-emotional learning (SEL) standards, along with the idea that formal instruction to enhance SEL/school climate should be in place, either as a stand-alone curriculum or fully integrated into the instruction by every teacher. CORE Districts in California, one million students, are in line for testing on SEL/school climate measures with those school “improvement” scores counting for 40% of the evaluation and posted at greatschools.org. Pandora is the contractor for the surveys.
The push for SEL and measures of school climate, especially in the last decade, has come from some major foundations, USDE, and survey companies intent on gathering data on school climate and SEL measures. Even the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is offering an international test (via McGraw Hill) that includes some indicators of student engagement, interactions with teachers, attitudes toward learning and so-called “soft skills.” https://www.nwea.org/assessments/oecd-test-for-schools/
USDE has just released four on-line surveys intended to produce school-, district-, and state-level scores on various indicators of school climate (EDSCLS), grades 5-12. Data will reflect the perceptions of students, instructional staff, non-instructional staff, and parents/guardians. Some questions bearing on SEL are in the survey. By 2017 EDSCLS will have benchmarks —national scale cores for comparisons among schools and school systems and “the national school climate.” The scores will be another farce, maing schools and educators scapegoats for problems well beyond their resources to address and ability to influence.
I have looked at the EDSCLS survey questions. They are not ready for prime time. Many of them assume that students have a panoptic view of school policies and events. Here are a few examples: (Responses: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree).
6. All students are treated the same, regardless of whether their parents are rich or poor.
7. Boys and girls are treated equally well.
8. This school provides instructional materials (e.g., textbooks, handouts) that reflect my cultural background, ethnicity, and identity.
9. Adults working at this school treat all students respectfully.
54. The bathrooms in this school are clean.
55. The temperature in this school is comfortable all year round.
There are 73 student questions, with parallels for instructional personnel, noninstructional personnel, and parents/guadians.
ESSA now allows “alternative measures” for teacher and school evaluations and EDSCLS is being marketed as a “free” solution ( until you look at the technical requirements for administration).
High stakes “improvement “ measures from flawed surveys of school climate, student engagement, perceptions of fairness, social-emotional “skill sets” (and so on) are not going to help teachers who have students in urgent need of far more counseling and one-to-one attention than teachers alone can muster, including appropriate disciplinary measures,
Click to access EDSCLS%20Questionnaires.pdf
LikeLike
One wonders what the outcome would have been had the student directed Carmen Fariña to commit to perform “a vulgar act that may or may not be possible”. Why must the pendulum always swing so wildly? Removing suspension from the principal’s discretion undermines the principal’s authority (doesn’t look like it’s in the teacher’s purview, Duane). That’s a bad idea.
It’s likely some principals suspended way too many students, so from on high they issue a fiat. It’s lazy to manage folks that way. Confront the outliers and lean on them to change their ways. Why should effective principals be hamstrung? I worked for a guy who never confronted teachers that shirked their responsibilities. He once opened a professional development meeting by ranted against “all of you who have taken the day off today” so they wouldn’t have to go the meeting!
LikeLike
I was at the same school for eight years. In my 7th year, I had my 4th principal. He was brought in to clean house. In the spring, he asked me what I thought of NCLB. I replied that I thought it was impossible to get everyone including special ed students to 100%. He tried to convince me otherwise. In the the 3rd week of the fall, I was wondering how I had ended up with so many children with emotional/behavioral problems. The school secretary told me that he had stacked my class with as many problems as he could. I had a girl who became very upset with any changes at all and would run out the door. Luckily, the school was completely fenced in. I called the school psychologist, who came to observe. She told me she suspected autism. She called a meeting with mom and that is what was diagnosed. After this, I was never allowed to take a child up for child study. It hadn’t been instituted until now. Then I wasn’t allowed to use the time-out room or call the psychologist. It was the toughest year I had. I was determined to do my best. At the end of the year, I had a meeting with the Principal, the president of my local education association (right to work state). It didn’t go very well, as the president didn’t speak up for me, but brought up many other problems. She didn’t know how to negotiate. I spoke up for myself. I was sent to another school beginning in the fall. Every time I spoke for myself or for my students, I was shot down. I lasted five more years. As I see it, discipline was used against my students and I. I am still angry, because many children who needed testing or counseling never received it. I believe the children were used to force me to retire. I found this blog the month I retired–June 2012. It helped keep me from beating myself up. Dr. Ravitch and all of you have kept me from feeling worthless.
LikeLike
Sending kids out of the classroom was viewed as a joke at the high school where I last taught. Students were repeatedly sent back to classrooms after being sent out. Teachers were usually told that they had poor class management skills. You can imagine how useful teachers found their administrators.
LikeLike
I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Goldstein. In the debate over school discipline and restorative practices, too little attention (read: almost none) has been paid to the teachers and students who have instructional time literally stolen from them by disruptive students who are acutely aware of the lack of consequences for their actions. We need to re-center the conversation to address not only what’s best for the disruptive child, but for his or her classmates, too.
What’s particularly interesting is that Mr. Goldstein is running for the UFT’s executive board as a member of the MORE Caucus, whose platform has a distinct social justice/restorative practices bent. I wonder if there is any intra-caucus tension around this issue, or if the piece was meant to appeal to rank-and-file teachers who might be skeptical of MORE’s stance on disciplinary issues.
LikeLike
If you have small class sizes, you would not have this problem.
Here are the choices:
1. Suspend those kids and send them to kid jail or somewhere else where you seem to believe that huge numbers of low-income minority 5 and 6 year olds should be warehoused as long as we don’t spend any money. Use the profits from putting those kids on the street to pay private individuals who are unethical enough to do this when most ethical people would find that to be reprehensible.
2. Have a school with experienced teachers and small class sizes where — surprise! — the kids that your favorite unethical “educator” claim belong in kiddie jail are actually able to be taught!
3. There are ways to remove a child from the classroom and NOT the school. But that is true if your primary motive is not profit and PR. So that’s probably why that never occurred to you, Tim.
LikeLike