Archives for category: Guns in Schools

Betsy DeVos has been put in charge of a task force to make recommendations on school safety. The only members are Cabinet members. No students, teachers, principals, or Superintendents will be on the task force or commission. Anyone who has worked in the federal government will tell you that Cabinet members are very busy people, and they are surrounded by yes-men and -women and assistants and speech writers. In their own domains, they are sovereign. They will give very little time or attention to this sham assignment. This is a farce. Chances are that the report has already been drafted by an NRA member of Betsy’s staff.

WHY TRUMP’S SCHOOL SAFETY COMMISSION OMITS STUDENTS, TEACHERS: The new White House commission on school safety will consist of just four Cabinet secretaries – prompting concerns from parents, students, teachers and school administrators who feel they should play a bigger role. But the Trump administration says it’s about getting to work quickly.

– Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday testified during a hearing of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees education funding. While she was there to discuss the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal, she offered new details about the commission’s makeup. DeVos will chair the commission, which was recently unveiled by the White House in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month that left 17 people dead. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will join her, she told lawmakers.

– “Is that it? Just four Cabinet secretaries? No experts? No Democrats?” asked Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). DeVos replied, “This is an urgent matter and we want to ensure that we’re able to move and operate as quickly as possible and without getting bogged down by a lot of bureaucracy.”

– What does DeVos mean by “bureaucracy”? Keeping the commission to just four federal officials who have jurisdiction over school safety issues means the group can “get up and running as quickly as possible,” said Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill.

– “Advisory commissions with non-Federal employees have to follow Federal Advisory Committee Act rules, which adds significant bureaucratic bloat,” Hill said in a statement. “FACA imposes many bureaucratic hurdles, such as requiring a charter that must be approved by the General Services Administration and the appointment of an Agency Committee Management Officer and a Designated Federal Officer, as well as other requirements that would delay the start of this important effort.”

– Input from students, parents and teachers “will be critical,” Hill added. “The Commission will receive input from and hold meetings over the coming weeks and months with students, parents, teachers, schools safety personnel, administrators, law enforcement officials, mental health professionals, school counselors and others holding a wide variety of views.”

– Still, education groups want to ensure they’re heard. “It is critical that parents have a seat at the table whenever decisions are made that impact their children, and particularly on the critical issue of school safety,” said Jim Accomando, president of National PTA, which represents parent-teacher associations nationwide.

– “As school building leaders, principals must be heard on school safety and student well-being issues,” said L. Earl Franks, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for policy and advocacy at AASA, The School Superintendents Association, said that “by keeping it only to Cabinet members, it’s necessarily political … I would venture a guess that the commission described by Secretary DeVos today isn’t set it up to be super productive.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Fraud, Guns in Schools, Safety

Trump Administration Trying to Blame School Discipline for Parkland Massacre

By dianeravitch

March 20, 2018 //

Daniel Losen of the UCLA Civil Rights Project warns that the Trump administration is trying to pin the blame for the Parkland massacre on the Obama era school discipline policies, which sought to reduce disparities between white and black students who were punished for misbehavior. Betsy DeVos is supposed to head a commission on school safety, and the Obama era guidelines are sure to be scapegoated, although it is difficult to see any connection between Nikolas Cruz and the controversial guidelines. This maneuver is a distraction, an effort to change the subject from gun control to school discipline.

Losen posted this comment last night:

“Tomorrow the House Judiciary committee will hear from Max Eden who recently joined his pal Michael Knowles in this podcast. https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/27958/ep-117-guns-dont-kill-people-schools-kill-people

“Folks need to realize that some masquerading as researchers are using every opportunity to mischaracterize the joint civil rights guidance on school discipline. The latest salvo distorts and lies about what actually happened in Broward County Florida to suggest is was leniency in school discipline, and a program intentionally trying to reduce the unnecessary arrests of Black youth for misdemeanors that lead to the murder of 17 children. Eden and his friend claim that the policy was for schools not to report such behaviors to the police. In fact the Promise Program never involved the shooter, but does require cooperation with the police and attorney general’s office so that when a non-violent misdemeanor is committed, there are alternatives beside locking up the children. Further, this program came on the heals of Broward county being the second highest in the state for school based arrests. In this interview Eden says he is trying to change the framework from being about guns to being about what he considers to be top down discipline policy. That is also a lie and is obvious to anyone who actually reads the guidance. Part of Eden’s argument is informed by his pro-charter position. He wants no part of civil rights protections for children if it means sacrificing charter autonomy. In this interview he also embraces “no excuses” approaches arguing that their communities “might not be able to give them values…” Eden’s agenda is deeper than the guidance. He is a staunch opponent of the civil rights regulations dating back to the 1960s that made unjust or unjustifiable policies and practices with a disparate impact potentially unlawful because they harmed protected subgroups of children more than others.

“I recently debated Eden before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv_GgG-igBE&t=10624s

“and more recently, debated Michael Petrilli on Education Next journal. Folks should weigh in against stripping children of the civil rights. http://educationnext.org/dont-walk-back-needed-discipline-reform-forum-losen/

“Tomorrow Kristen Harper will be on the panel with Max Eden. It will be life streamed at 10 a.m.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Discipline, Guns in Schools

The Headmaster of Barron Trump’s School Opposes Arming Teachers

By dianeravitch

March 17, 2018 //

Education Week reports that the headmaster of Barron Trump’s private school issued a statement opposing the arming of teachers.

“The head of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School—where President Donald Trump’s son Barron attends—joined dozens of other Maryland private schools in urging the president, Congress, and state policymakers to improve background checks, especially for automatic weapons and strengthen mental health measures.

“And they don’t want to see the schools arm teachers with guns. The heads of school called that move—which has been embraced by Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—”antithetical to our profession as educators,” wrote St. Andrew’s head, Robert Kosasky and more than 100 other heads of school in an open letter published as an advertisement in the Baltimore Sun this week. The letter is also slated to be published in the Washington Post this weekend.”

Categories Guns in Schools

New Poll: Most Teachers Do Not Want Guns in Schools, Do Not Want to be Armed

By dianeravitch

March 16, 2018 //

Politico Morning Education reports on a new poll:

POLL: MOST TEACHERS DON’T WANT GUNS IN CLASS: Polling out this morning by Gallup found that teachers overwhelmingly say they do not want to pack heat in the classroom, even with special training – a proposal the Trump administration has made a central focus of its response to the school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

– Nearly three quarters – 73 percent – of teachers said they oppose school staff carrying guns, and nearly 60 percent said arming staff would make schools less safe, according to the first nationally representative survey of teachers on the topic since the Feb. 14 shooting.

– Despite that, 20 percent of teachers strongly or somewhat favor the proposal, and 18 percent said they would be willing to go through special training to carry a gun in school buildings – indicating President Donald Trump may be on to something with his repeated estimate that as many as 20 percent of teachers could be “gun adept” enough to be armed in class.

– The new poll comes as the Trump administration pushes a school safety plan that includes the potential of armed school staff – something the president has repeatedly called for in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead and another 14 injured. The White House is backing a new Justice Department program that would aid states that seek to train teachers and other school personnel to carry firearms, as part of a package of steps to curb school violence.

– Most teachers don’t want the option, though. Eighty-two percent said they would not be willing to undergo the training. Gallup noted that it remains to be seen whether the majority of teachers who oppose the idea would agree to teach in a school where teachers are armed.

– Of the 18 percent of teachers who said they would undergo training to carry, two-thirds are very confident that they would be able to effectively handle the gun in a live shooting situation and one-quarter are somewhat confident, according to the Gallup poll. Gallup also found that a quarter of teachers said they currently own a gun and those who do are four times as likely to say they’re willing to undergo training to carry in school.

– Voters, however, have been more split on the idea. A Gallup poll this week found 42 percent of Americans support the idea and 56 percent oppose it. A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll last month that found 50 percent of voters supported the idea and just 42 percent opposed it. Benjamin Wermund has more.

Categories Guns in Schools

Alabama: Students Ponder How to Respond to Parkland After a Senior Is Shot Dead by a Junior in Their School

By dianeravitch

March 16, 2018 //

Students at the largest high school in Alabama conferred with their principal about how best to honor the 17 deaths of students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. They had their own mourning to do. A student shot and killed another student in their school last week.

Categories Alabama, Guns in Schools

This is a Wonderful Video from Brooklyn, Where the Little Ones Inspire the Big Ones

By dianeravitch

March 16, 2018 //

Michael Elliott, videographer, caught this scene on the streets of Brooklyn, where high school and middle school students demonstrating against gun violence on March 14 erupted in cheers when they saw a group of elementary school children marching across the street. Must watch! One minute!

Categories Guns in Schools, New York City, Students

This Is Your Chance to Speak Out Against Gun Violence!

By dianeravitch

March 12, 2018 //

Get involved!

Support the March 14 action of the Women’s March, which calls for a 17-minute walkout at 10 am..

Support the March 24 “March for Our Lives,” organized by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, which will occur in DC and across the nation.

Support the Day of Action on April 20 in every school and school district sponsored by the Network for Public Education, the NEA, the AFT, the BATS, the AASA, LULAC, the National Superintendents Roundtable, the Center for American Progress, and Gabby Giffords, with many more sponsors. Every school and district is encouraged to choose its own way to speak out against gun violence in schools. Activities include wearing orange armbands, assemblies to discuss the issues, sit-ins, teach-ins, before school, after school, or during school, a March on your legislators’ offices, candlelight vigil, linking arms around the school. Use your creativity. Collaborate.

Support the National Student Walkout on April 20, which calls on high school students to walk out at 10 am and not return.

April 20 was chosen for the last two protests because it is the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

Anti-gun violence actions should continue until state legislatures and Congress act, or until NRA puppets are thrown out of office by irate voters.

Congress should ban the sale of assault weapons to civilians, as it was did from 1994-2004. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter endorsed the ban. These weapons, meant for military use, are the guns of choice for mass murderers.

Enough is enough!

Categories Guns, Guns in Schools, Resistance

Schneider and Karrer on the Absurdity of Arming Teachers

By dianeravitch

March 10, 2018 //

Mercedes Schneider asks about the cost of arming teachers and about the liability assumed by teachers who are armed.

In the Florida program, teachers will be expected to have 132 hours of training, unpaid.

Who will pay for the guns? Where will they be kept during school? After school?

She wonders:

Is an armed teacher liable for failing to shoot an armed intruder? Is this a dereliction of duty, or will a teacher be excused, for example, for not having the heart to shoot one of her or his own students?

What if a student reaches for that gun, even if only out of curiosity?

What if a student gets possession of that gun? Don’t tell me it cannot happen.

Armed teachers become entangled in liability.

Who will insure them? Their school? Their district?

Paul Karrer, a retired teacher in California, asks about the ethical and practical questions of having guns in a school.

Kids want attention – some kid somewhere will bring a fake gun to school and a teacher will have to decide whether or not to shoot the kid. Ever seen any of the limitless phone videos of kids attacking teachers or substitute teachers? Giving the teacher a gun ups that ante a bit. Somewhere a teacher will forget her gun, (Like one of my cop friends does. Once he left it in a coffee shop. Another time he left it unlocked in his car. And at the shooting range he ricocheted a 9mm from his Glock into cement because he forgot it was loaded. This is a highly motivated trained cop. A bright guy, in his prime.)

Arming teachers is bad in every way. The solution is to limit gun access, not provide the gun manufacturing business with a new revenue stream – (Discussing School budget today -LINE ITEM 4- financial appropriation for weapon allotments – NO WAY!)

Should a teacher have to decide at some point to shoot a student? Should a teacher have to decide to shoot a parent? When the police arrive will they shoot the teacher holding the weapon? The variables are limitless, unforeseen, and all ugly. Teachers and teaching are in many ways sacred. Sacred in a similar vein as with a priest, rabbi, cleric, or pastor. Teachers also have a legal relationship to their students akin to attorney-client privilege — sworn to protect the child’s privacy at almost all costs. We can’t shoot them.

Not many teachers are likely to take up the offer of a gun. They know the risks.

Secure the campus. Let teachers teach.

Categories Guns in Schools, Teachers