This article in Education Week by two researchers—Joanne Golann and Mira Debs—ask why leaders of “no-excuses” charter schools think that children of color need harsh discipline. They interview parents and discover what they really want:
As researchers who have taught in and studied these schools, we found that parents’ attitudes were not that simple. The Black and Latino parents we interviewed in a no-excuses middle school valued discipline, but viewed it as more than rule following. They wanted demanding academic expectations alongside a caring and structured environment that would help their children develop the self-discipline to make good choices.
Recognizing the peer pressures their children faced, these parents told us that they did not want their children to become “robots” or “little mindless minion[s], just going by what somebody says.” Their concerns echo an earlier study that one of us (Joanne Golann) published in 2015, questioning whether the no-excuses model’s emphasis on obedience adequately prepares students for the self-directed learning skills they need to be successful in college.
What their children actually get is boot-camp discipline, where parents are called for the smallest infraction, like laughing during a fire drill.
No-excuses students are typically required to wear uniforms, sit straight, with their hands folded on the table, and their eyes continuously on the teacher. At breaks, they walk silently through the halls in single-file lines. Students who follow these stringent expectations are rewarded with privileges, while violators are punished with demerits, detentions, and suspensions.
The researchers say that Montessori schools get good results without harsh discipline in a climate that encourages creativity and collaboration.
I have always wondered where the no-excuses charters found bright young college graduates willing to enforce their harsh rules. Many of them presumably studied in progressive schools and colleges. How did they learn to enforce harsh rules? This “special” and harsh treatment of children of color smacks of colonialism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Where do the “no-excuses” charters get the young college graduates willing to enforce harsh rules? TFA, of course!
First of all, not all children of color are the same. Like white children they vary in their willingness to accept rules. I taught mostly poor children of color, but they were from other countries. My Latino students were generally cooperative and accepting of rules of conduct. My Haitian students varied a great deal. I had a few that were compliant and had a decent education from Haiti, but I had many that were rural. These students often were not socialized according to our definition, and they required more attention. We always had rules and consequences that were always enforced. This approach worked for the vast majority of students. Once we got into academics, harsh discipline was not necessary. Most students of any color respond to teachers that take their job seriously, come prepared and are encouraging and respectful to the students. It also helps if the teacher genuinely enjoys working with these students. Students can sense who is real, and they can sniff out a phony.
I have had many conferences with mostly Haitian parents about discipline. Overall, many parents thought we were too permissive because we didn’t beat the students. I’ve have even had parents offer to come in and beat their child in front of the other students to “teach them a lesson.” We ran workshops for parents in which we explained the child abuse laws to parents. We also tried to teach them alternatives to beatings. Most parents were receptive, but others thought we were “too soft.” Views on discipline like many other things are cultural.
This reminds me of a large meeting of psychologists in Columbus Ohio, where a black leader told of another professional criticizing the use of harsh physical punishment on their children by black parents. “It’s just part of our culture,” she vehemently maintained. Throughout the audience were reactions of disapproval that one’s culture be criticized. I looked around and spied no dissenters. It seemed like I was the only one in the entire audience who still felt that harsh treatment of children leads to aggression in those children as thry grow up, , culture or not.
The thing about culture is that it can change over time. Cultures evolve with the times, and they respond to change, often slowly, and with resistance. I made sure I called my students by their traditional first name. Most times it was the student that would say, “I don’t want to be called Enrique. Just called me Henry.”
Where do bright young college graduate learn techniques of intimidation?
If these are TFA recruits then it is probable they were trained as teachers at the Relay Graduate School of Education. They are asked to master Doug Lemov’s forty-nine no-nonsense teaching tips and use these boot camp tactics with charter school students who are, in the main, African-American and Latinix.
Now add the new alliance of Relay’s TFA teacher trainers with Angela Duckworth’s CHARACTER LAB. Character LAB identifies seven “character strengths”—Zest, Grit, Optimism, Self-Control, Gratitude, Social Intelligence, Curiosity. These strengths–so-called–are treated as “skills” (skill sets) that can be learned through proper training.
Now there is a third part to this research and teacher training alliance: Qualtrics. Qualtrics offers a software platform that unobtrusively captures personally identifiable information (PII) from students, allowing Duckworth and her researchers to try various “interventions” and determine which does the best job of managing students and making them “effective learners.”
In my opinion, this alliance of Duckworth with Lemov and the “experience manager” Qualtrics is an example of BF Skinner scientism fused with an autocratic mindset. The teacher training methods and research ignore the ethical implications of “targeting” students who are, in the main, African-American and Latinix, and often very young.
Duckworth’s research agenda, in alliance with Lemov, is a clear case of framing character as a matter of compliance with rules set by others, rather than learning to think about rules, why they are made, when they are needed, who gets to decide, whether rules are fair. Note also that Duckworth’s “character strengths” do not include truthfulness and kindness.
For more on the data “partnership” see: https://thejournal.com/articles/2018/03/12/character-lab-expands-school-research-capacity-with-qualtrics-partnership.aspx
See also
THE CHARACTER LAB: https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/education/developing-many-more-effective-learners/profile-character-lab-sel
CRITICISM OF RELAY/DEMOV VALUES: https://citiessuburbsschoolchoice.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/the-power-of-pedagogy-why-we-shouldnt-teach-like-champions/
SCHOOL COUNSELOR CUTS: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/15/school-safety-cuts-trump-administration-348968
“Qualtrics is an example of BF Skinner scientism fused with an autocratic mindset.” This sounds like using technology to discriminate against children that don’t fit the “mold,” many of whom are poor minority students. As with VAM who’s to say that the programming does not reflect bias against culturally different students.
The irony of these “characteristics of character” is that several of them (such as zest and curiousity) will NEVER appear in students in these “no excuses” schools. Kids don’t form these characteristics when “discipline” is the only focus in a school and not the love of learning. Kids can’t learn the love of learning when their entire bodies are regimented to the nth degree.
I always thought “no excuses” was always just a farce in which students who are unwanted could be drummed out of charter schools who only value the students who give them bragging rights and despise those children if they do not.
The fact is that it is entirely possible for any teacher to target any young child and cause them to either act out or act inward. No excuses allows teachers to act as bullies, targeting certain students for humiliation and punishment and making them the object of derision by all the other students. It is worse than bullying, because the bullies are in charge! It is not surprising that charters that are no-excuses make the absurd claim that huge numbers of kindergarten children act out violently. Of course a child who is targeted and humiliated and internalizes the school’s belief that they are the most awful, terrible child may act out. If a suburban or private school had huge numbers of affluent white 5 year olds supposedly acting out violently in their kindergarten class, everyone would question the school and understand how awful the school must be. But since it is poor, non-white children, racism allows people to tell themselves that it must be true that those children are all violent because of their inherent natures.
There can be teachers who target children they don’t like in any school, including progressive ones. But “no excuses” actually professionalizes teacher bullying and rewards it because the more you can bully a low-performing student so that they leave the school, the more the school rewards the teacher. It is not a coincidence that the teacher caught on video demonstrating how she treats low-income African-American children if she doesn’t think they are good enough academically was designated a “model” teacher who follows exactly the rules of teaching she was taught to do. A MODEL teacher demonstrating exactly how “no excuses” bullying works for the public to see.
No excuses isn’t really directed toward top performing students or middle class white students. The most clear evidence of that is when affluent middle class parents at Success Academy Hudson Yards had their children experiencing some of the “no excuses” discipline when they got to a middle school run by a principal trained in one of the Harlem schools with virtually no white students. Those parents immediately complained about their children being treated that way and explained how they were “experiencing meltdowns”.
“Experiencing meltdowns” is what affluent middle class children do when they are treated with “no excuses” discipline. “Acting out violently” is what charter CEOs say that poor, non-white students do to justify why they keep suspending so many 5 year olds.
By the way, this no excuses charter chain catered to those middle class parents and made sure the principal was removed and replaced with a new one who understood that affluent children’s “no excuses” discipline looks very different than that meted out to poor, non-white students.
Failing schools aren’t about discipline, they are about having to teach ALL students without having the ability to drum out all the ones they don’t want to teach.
To me, “no excuses” is like having a Little League where one team’s coach bullies and humiliates non-stop all the least athletic players so that they leave his team and then the reprehensible coach claims that his “coaching” is what makes his athletes so superb. He compares his team’s success to a team that has both good athletes and all the least athletic players who he bullied off his team and announces that if the other teams’ coaches were as superior as he was, all of their athletes would be good players like his are.
Few, very few parents want prison-like treatment of their children. That would make no sense. Some parents want prison-like treatment of other students in their children’s classes. I don’t recall a parent ever asking me to punish his or her child more harshly or to enforce stricter rules on them, but parents occasionally ask me to punish their children’s classmates when there’s been a disagreement. (Better to discuss the problem than rule over it, though.) No-excuses charter companies take advantage of parental instinct to keep their children away from other children when they, for whatever reasons, misbehave. Neoliberal corporatists take advantage.
Just as private sector labor is encouraged to accept the degradation of the lives of public sector labor instead of building the labor movement together to help everyone, parents are encouraged to accept the degradation of the lives of other parents’ children instead of building the civil rights and social justice movement together. People are encouraged to think of rights as excuses; and therefore to accept fewer rights, accept inexperienced charter teachers with no labor protections to give the teachers voices against harmful policies, accept segregation, accept poverty, accept public service cuts, and fight among themselves; to scrap and scrape in an illusionary “race to the top”, divided and conquered while the executive class runs away with tax reductions and backpacks full of cash.
I am done calling them no-excuses charters. From now on, no-rights charters.
That’s a good one!
Quite an interesting topic. It is possible that some students need strong discipline. It is important not to interfere with the integrity and dignity of any individual, young or old. Marva Collins, spoke to her students with thoughtfulness and respected their humanity. It seemed it got her far.
If the discipline is too strict it then allows some teachers to abuse it and even pick on one or the other student. When I taught I used to also work out with students after school, running with them and training them in running. That built a relationship between us.
Whatever discipline exists it should not allow for a teacher to cause too much emotional hurt to any student. When i disciplined student I kept them after school and stayed with them until the time was complete. I suffered along with them in detention.
I heard a teacher, in referring to some black students, say that she separated them in class and did not allow them to sit together. I felt that was inconsiderate for it would allow them to be at the mercy of their white peers, and they are watching the teacher..
Loving the people you teach, or caring for them does make a difference, when disciplining.
Public schools all have “codes of conduct” that provide mostly vague guidelines for ordinary (non-criminal) misbehaviors. They are non-specific because that is the way administrators and BOEs prefer. What they all lack are concrete limits for chronically disruptive behaviors. With a system that sets no limits, it is not surprising at all that we see limitless negative behaviors that drive concerned parents to seek charter schools that guarantee a safe and orderly learning environment. The only value of no-excuses is to drive out the non-compliant or less capable test takers. If public schools set concrete limits using a fair and reasonable demerit system they would find that the vast majority of students would not cross the limits set.
On a semi-related topic, Arthur Goldstein has a thoughtful piece in the Daily News on a subject that a lot of NYC public school parents have been thinking about. I don’t agree with everything he says — beginning with the statement that he likes Richard Carranza — but, as I said, it’s a thoughtful piece.
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-what-the-school-discipline-fix-gets-right-and-what-it-gets-wr-20190624-vxrtl5bgbnaizonyrcqiokul54-story.html
What the school discipline fix gets right, and what it gets wrong
I like Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza. I like that he’s firing people at Tweed. In fact, I wish he’d fire them all. I’ve seen people from Tweed announce the most inane initiatives at meetings, and I ask them why. They say, “Well, something had to be done, so we’re doing this.” I always think if you’re going to do something, you might as well make it something worthwhile. I’m concerned when people like that are in charge of our discipline system.
I was once teaching a class when a strange kid walked in. I told him to get out. He offered to blow my head off with a .45. I made it my business to find out who the kid was. When I finally identified him, a dean told me they had called his parents. He said the kid was brain-damaged, and there was nothing more he could do. I told him I didn’t think that kid belonged in the same building with my students. I still don’t. Last I looked, it’s a crime to threaten to kill people. If that kid talks that way to me, who knows how he talks to other students?
Nonetheless, I understand the push for restorative justice, and I support it absolutely. If we can find a way to place kids on a better path without suspending them, there’s no question that’s what we should do. Suspension, of course, entails removing students from classes. A whole lot of students find that cause for celebration, and it’s not difficult to understand why. Every teacher I know, no matter how much she may love her job, has a skip in her step on Friday afternoons.
I don’t want to see students arrested for crimes like graffiti. Restorative justice could work (though I’d respect it more if the students also cleaned the graffiti). I don’t want kids going to jail for marijuana either, but I certainly don’t want them using it in school. I’ve had students who were chronic marijuana users. They didn’t really cause major problems, but it was a challenge. I could’ve been a more productive teacher if I didn’t have to spend so much time waking them up, only to have them fall asleep again.
For disorderly conduct, if it means making a scene or something, I’d agree that it ought not to result in a criminal record. Maybe our education system would be better if more kids made a scene. Sometimes when I prep kids for the English Regents, I wonder why they don’t just rise up and toss me out the door, or at least force me to do something interesting. I’d have nothing but respect for students who spoke out or organized against outrages like caging children.
Nonetheless, if you do things that can potentially hurt people, that’s another thing entirely.
If you throw a chair at my student, or my kid, I won’t be content with your apology. I don’t want to hear that the kid who did that is in some restorative justice session talking out his issues. I want that kid somewhere he won’t be able to hurt anyone again. I’m also not entirely sure that the new 20-day limit on suspensions, with precious few exceptions, works for me.
A lot of people say and write that students who are suspended more than 20 days tend not to do as well, and might not graduate on time or at all. I’m certain they’re correct. I question, though, whether the suspensions are the cause. I’d argue that if your interests lie in throwing chairs, whether or not we suspend you, or for how long, is of little consequence. Sadly, if you’re 16 years old and sleeping in class every day, whether or not we suspend you isn’t the issue either.
But I absolutely want the chair-thrower far away from my kids. I don’t care if his chances for graduation are diminished. I further do not trust Tweed to differentiate between what is dangerous and merely inconvenient. They’re perhaps the most incompetent group of bureaucrats I’ve ever encountered, and it’s they who need to be suspended 365 days a year, at a minimum, if we really want to help the children of New York City.
Goldstein is an ESL teacher and UFT chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School.
Good grief, no excuses charter schools are racist, classist, and schools like these are just sick.
I was at a faculty meeting at a general school grades 9-12) in Holland. At this meeting were new teachers who were first and second year teachers. This weekly meeting for new teachers is required.
One new teacher talked about a student who she found to be a discipline challenge. The school head asked the experienced teachers who taught this student to explain how they each handled this student. The school head also taught this student chemistry. The school head explained how he handled this student.
The new teacher became a bit frustrated and said, “You each handled this student differently. I want to know THE RIGHT WAY.”
Then the school head told this young, new teacher something close to this, “We are all different. There is no one right way. We are here to help you find your own way with each student.”
I thought, “How enlightened.” Scorning and shaming kids doesn’t help them learn.