
California public schools can’t suspend students for disobeying teachers - yasp
https://www.kron4.com/news/california/california-public-schools-cant-suspend-students-for-disobeying-teachers-new-law-says/
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remarkEon
Suspensions are dumb, in general. My high-school got rid of them in favor of
an "in-school suspension" policy, wherein the student still had to go to class
but was banned from after school activities and had to essentially work for
the school doing e.g. grounds keeping and other tasks. The policy was
effective, and got at the problem: students hanging out with the wrong crowds
with too much idle time. I'm sympathetic to the argument that problem-students
can be disruptive to the learning environment (though my sister is a teacher
and disagrees, and is flatly in favor of outright suspensions) but I'm of the
opinion that there's better ways to deal with that than telling them to sit at
home and do nothing, creating more idle time and more chances to start
trouble.

~~~
mc32
I kind of agree with you. I went to school with latchkey kids and some were
disruptive and distracted the class (some threatened pupils as well as got
into fights off-campus). Some kids would get suspended and some expelled.

I think suspensions and expulsions should remain options but last resort and
before we get there opt for other kinds of activities which could change their
behavior. It'd be interesting to see if those tactics work or if they become
"badges of honor" rather than disincentives.

~~~
remarkEon
I think most of high school is a case study in self selection. If you select
yourself into a high performing group early on you’re golden, and the social
pressures become such that you want to do well at academics, sports etc. If
you don’t you’re basically screwed, and it’s _extremely_ hard to select out of
those bad groups because of the same types of social pressure. Policies should
be aimed at interrupting and directing these selection mechanisms toward
positive ends. I don’t have kids yet but this is something I’m paying a lot of
attention to for eventually selecting a school for my kids - and all of this
is, again, just an extension of the same selection pressures.

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crooked-v
For context, since the article glosses over the actual data: Black students
made up 5.6% of California school enrollments in the last school year, but got
hit with 15.6% of all 'willful defiance' suspensions for the school year.
Also, a previous initiative to ban the practice in LA school districts
actually increased graduation rates [1].

[1]: [https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
aler...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-
alert/article234448652.html)

~~~
rdtsc
> Teachers would retain the ability, under the proposed law, to suspend
> students from their classroom for disruptive behavior

That clears it up. At first reading it seems that teachers couldn't suspend a
student if they are being disruptive, but that's not the case.

Thinking about some more I am not sure if this changes the equation much as I
can imagine the teacher can reinterpret the "they disobeyed me" into a "they
were being disruptive" situation in most cases.

Having chaperoned a few field trips for my kids' school and having dealt with
students who are disruptive, I can sympathize with teachers trying to get a
handle on one or two kids who just refuse to listen. It can ruin the
environment for the rest of the class and take away precious learning time.
Having said that I don't really have a solution. Not sure if assigning extra
work or isolating them to a separate class would work.

> Black students made up 5.6% of California school enrollments in the last
> school year, but got hit with 15.6% of all 'willful defiance' suspensions

Interesting. Is it inherent systemic racism coming from teachers? Is that
worth investigating more rather than just making the statistic go away by
banning those types of suspensions. Something about that doesn't seem right.

~~~
bruceb
How does this show "systemic racism coming from teachers?"

This subtle (or not so subtle) attack on teachers is sad.

This stat alone doesn't tell us anything, let alone who to blame.

~~~
rdtsc
> How does this show "systemic racism coming from teachers?" This subtle (or
> not so subtle) attack on teachers is sad.

Someone pointed out that black students were disproportionately affected by
these suspensions. Suspensions are handed out by the teachers. So what is your
explanation then? Racism can be manifested both institutionally a well as
personally, unconsciously even. Are you implying someone or something else is
telling the teacher to assign these punishments?

> This stat alone doesn't tell us anything, let alone who to blame.

So why bother publish it if it doesn't tell us anything? They seem to have
changed the rules for the whole state of California based on such statistics.
Do you think they are inaccurately gathered?

~~~
bruceb
It shows this group of students is suspended at a higher rate than other, not
whether that is justified or not.

There maybe different reasons for that. Maybe some kids are more disruptive
than others. This could be for a myriad of reasons, that have nothing to do
with the teacher.

Racism exists but blaming everything on racism, especially on teachers, who on
average are probably more social aware than the avg person doesnt solve any
problems, and might actually make them worse.

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Simulacra
Maintaining order is essential to stopping bullying, and infringing on the
rights of students who want to be there and want to learn. IMHO this is going
to lead to chaos.

~~~
rosybox
I'm pretty sure bullying could still lead to suspensions. The new law doesn't
ban suspensions for rules the school creates, just for disobeying a teacher.
Also why are we suspending 1st through 5th graders? Children in those grades
are 11 years old and younger. What kind of system is that? These are small
children.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Also why are we suspending 1st through 5th graders?

Not saying I agree with it but in practice it's a backhanded way of punishing
parents for having disruptive kids.

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artfulhippo
Suspensions are not a punishment for most of the kids who get suspended
(troublemakers).

Troublemakers, mostly boys, are kids who will not silently sit still. It's
easy to blame the parents of these children for their lack of discipline, but
casting blame doesn't solve problems.

The problem with troublemakers is that they are disruptive to the rest of the
class. Further, they encourage other students, who ordinarily have no problem
silently sitting still, to act like troublemakers as well.

Removing troublemakers from the class makes helps teachers teach, helps non-
troublemakers learn, and relieves troublemakers from the boredom of silently
sitting still. Win-win-win, right?

Unfortunately, troublemakers often feel out-of-school suspensions as a reward,
not a punishment. In-school-suspension (ISS) is somewhat better, because the
troublemaker can't just play video games while they are supposedly being
disciplined. But ISS still reinforces the notion that there is an alternative
to education.

As someone who had trouble silently sitting still as an adolescent -- and I
still struggle with lectures that discourage audience interruptions -- I hope
to see education evolve into more polymorphic system where creativity and
spontaneity are valued along with discipline and time management.

~~~
catalogia
> _" Troublemakers, mostly boys, are kids who will not silently sit still."_

The best remedy in this sort of situation, where a boy's got ants in his pants
and can't sit still, is sports. Sports give kids a productive way to burn off
their energy. I know some people here and in other STEM-associated communities
think sports is a four letter word (ackshully it's six) because of the pop
culture meme that athleticism and intelligence are mutually exclusive and you
can either be a jock or a nerd but not both. But that's nothing more than a
dumb pigeon-holing stereotype perpetuated by lazy hollywood and television
writers (and sometimes internalized and aped by impressionable children.)

Extramural sports help unruly kids in other ways too. By providing a
structured environment for a greater portion of the day, the strain placed on
parents is reduced and kids are kept from getting into trouble unsupervised at
home.

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spo81rty
Add this to the list of reasons I don't live in California. My 3rd grader has
been suspended from school before and it needed to happen to teach him a
lesson.

~~~
learc83
You couldn't have come up with a sufficient punishment to teach him the same
lesson? You could even voluntarily pull him out and home school him for a week
if you wanted.

~~~
frankharv
Think of school as part of your childrens early socialization tests. You can
only instill the best into your child. When they leave the nest they need to
be guided into the correct social path. Otherwise you end up with a society of
sociopaths. That is what school suspension does. It is a small coarse
correction for teaching children right from wrong.

~~~
saagarjha
How exactly does suspension teach children that what they did was wrong?

~~~
catalogia
I'd wager adults suddenly deviating from their normal routine because of
something you did tends to induce a sense of severity for most kids. Perhaps
not for the shittiest kids, but most kids understand when adults are no longer
laughing at their 'shenanigans'.

There are, of course, other ways to accomplish this. I was "scared straight"
as a young teen when my mother cancelled her plans for the evening so she
could go talk with my teachers after school about my behavior, which wasn't
severe enough to warrant suspension but was nevertheless bad enough to disturb
my parents and teachers.

Ideally the kid is set back on a good path before their behavior becomes
severe enough to warrant suspension, but sometimes (probably most often
because of poor parenting) this doesn't happen.

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lawnchair_larry
Only applies to grades 1 through 5. Still a bad idea.

~~~
kick
What unholy reason does a fifth grader or _God forbid_ a first grader have to
be suspended for?

~~~
lightedman
Well, when I was younger and in 1st grade, I had someone chasing me and
throwing rocks at me. I ran up the nearest slide and stayed at the top and
around the side wall where the rocks couldn't reach me. They came up with
rocks in hand. I kicked them in the face and sent them back down. I got
expelled, nothing happened to the other student, at all, except the bruise on
their ass from when they hit the ground and a welt across their chin from
where my foot impacted.

Sometimes we can do some rotten shit as children.

~~~
lutorm
That's not "disobeying a teacher", though.

~~~
catalogia
Kick asked for reasons a student that young might be suspended. They seemed
incredulous to the very concept of suspending a child that young, not to
suspensions specifically relating to disobeying a teacher.

~~~
lutorm
Ok, that's fair.

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duelingjello
While removing blatantly-disruptive students from classrooms is vital,
suspending them doesn’t solve anything. In fact, I’d say officially “banning”
them from school just puts them on a path towards mischief / criminality.
These are the kids who need positive male/female adult role-models at school
to intervene and correct problematic behaviors. There are adults who can and
do specialize in this sort of mentoring and behavioral “attitude adjustment.”

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mailslot
As someone that would be disciplined for doing work correctly and getting
correct answers, I support this.

A handful of teachers would give really bad instructions. Like, commanding
everyone how to round numbers incorrectly kind of bad. I can’t even wrap my
head around it still.

I’d do the work as it’s supposed to be done. When my answers matched the book
and nobody else’s did: I was accused of cheating & stealing the answer keys or
disobedience & not following instruction.

~~~
nathanaldensr
My third-grade son's teacher insists it's spelled and pronounced
"communitative" (as in "commutative"), to the point where we had to have a
parent-teacher conference about my son correcting her.

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thrwaway69
Maybe a bit off topic but can we criminalize giving advice encouraging
violence towards kid in the disguise of 'parental wisdom'? As someone who is
still a kid and now non functional one at that, I don't get it why people have
so much freedom in raising their kid but not in other places. Why do we not
treat parents as someone with higher authority to abuse?

It's not really fun being abused like a punchbag and emotionally drained by
narcissists without a resort. I haven't bullied anyone in school, I haven't
been violent towards other kids even close to just broing, I don't get
triggered by whatever people tell me. And not much parenting was done here
since I mostly lived in my own chamber. (single mentally ill parent with no
care taker or anything). A lot of the behaviors I have seen that are
disruptive in school or in kids are result of their parents outright. They are
violent because their parents train them to be or not care. They are dumbed
down by parents because they don't want to work they don't want to take the
time to patiently explain why if you beat someone else or be disruptive, it
will be bad for you not because someone will punish you, not because the rules
said so but the society you live in will have worse environment later on when
you grow up.

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wiseleo
Schools are too boring. There are exceptional teachers, but they are not in
one school.

There are countless bad teachers. Teachers need to be educated to make their
subject actually interesting. Too many are trained in classroom management
rather than storytelling.

I will give an example. My business law professor was so good that I still
have tapes of that class from 20+ years ago. I remember every single lecture!
My electronics high school teacher was equally excellent.

No one disrupts a truly interesting class. History can be as boring as a
recital of dates or as vivid as creating a play. English can be made
interesting by incorporating writing prompts and etymology vs pointless book
reports about uninteresting books. I can’t write about poems that are
meaningless to me. No one actually taught me how to write term papers and what
were the acceptance criteria.

Suspensions are pointless. I was threatened with suspension and was confused
how it was supposed to be a punishment. If anything, it felt like a good
outcome.

Bad teachers trigger negative emotions. I was 38 when I took a class in
choreography from an incompetent teacher in college. She actually banned me
from watching our class’s last public performance for which you could buy
tickets. I had an ambitious project involving mixing two dance styles in 3
tempos to a Japanese song.

Well, I am not 18 and so I endured her nonsense but at the same time resisted
it. She made me cry, which takes a lot. That person hated me with a passion. I
must have reminded her of an ex boyfriend because I can’t explain it any other
way.

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jdkee
Here is an interesting perspective from a former teacher on classroom
discipline.

[https://quillette.com/2019/02/10/public-educations-dirty-
sec...](https://quillette.com/2019/02/10/public-educations-dirty-secret/)

------
ur-whale
One more tool taken away from teachers to maintain order and respect from
their students at school will lead to:

    
    
        - good teachers leaving (because they can't do their jobs)
        - quality of teaching going down (because of the above and because disruptive elements will not be dealt with properly)
    

Long term impact on society from this kind of decisions is terrible.

~~~
dhdywh2jEU
Good quality teachers already leave, public school is the bottom rung for
teachers in the USA and I'm not saying that's okay but it's the least pay and
the most work. Look into the turnover rate for new teachers, especially
highschools. Violence and sexual harassment against teachers is far from
uncommon and the administration probably won't have your back because then
everyone just accuses the school of being some kind of racist or sexist
conspiracy to protect evil teachers. Professionally minded teachers move on to
charter and private schools once they've done their time in the pits long
enough to transition into a role where they're not just daycare workers.

~~~
ineedasername
No, professionally minded teachers do no such thing. The pay at private and
charter schools is roughly 50% to 70% of publics' pay. Charter schools and
privates are also no picnic. I'm not sure what makes you think they don't also
have the same problems, but they do. I work in higher ed analytics in a role
congruous to teacher education and the charter schools we partner with for
teacher's in-classroom training are no better in this respect than the public
schools we work with.

~~~
dhdywh2jEU
>No, professionally minded teachers do no such thing. The pay at private and
charter schools is roughly 50% to 70% of publics' pay.

Is that the average or median figure for pay? Because I can tell you right now
that in LA and San Diego the most common starting place for teachers earning
or who have just earned their credentials will either be juvie or low income
neighborhoods albeit this is from a highschool perspective so maybe I'm simply
wrong with respect to the article. Maybe if you account for public schools in
higher income neighborhoods then teaching publically remains competitive and I
failed to acknowledge that in my earlier post but the overall picture for a
starting teacher is none the less that they will work to either escape public
school or ascend out of bad/high-turnover schools.

~~~
ineedasername
Actually the urban areas pay higher. Starting salary where I'm at is roughly
15% higher in "difficult" school districts. I'll stipulate that this applies
to my state and a half dozen or so nearby states; States further away may
differ, but I know of only 2 or 3 states where teacher pay is actually quite
bad. In those places, privates and charters probably are just as good in pay.

------
frankharv
Kind of ironic that we now have School Resource Officers permanently stationed
in schools but we are taking away the ability of teachers to police their
classroom.

I think the good old days when a teacher could hit you with a ruler were the
best form of discipline. Nothing gets a kids attention better than
humiliation.

~~~
learc83
In what objective way was society better off when teachers could hit kids with
a ruler. Lower crime rates? Longer life span? More productive workers? Less
income inequality?

~~~
frankharv
Respecting your elders was much more prevalent.

~~~
kick
If the only way for the old to gain "respect" (read: fear) is by hitting
children barely old enough to be in school, maybe they don't deserve it.

~~~
frankharv
We certainly did not need to have Police permanently stationed in the school.
That alone makes the point. Our society is much more violent than in the past.
It starts at childhood age. Lack of discipline leads to anarchy.

~~~
learc83
>Our society is much more violent than in the past.

No it's not. Look up the statistics.

>We certainly did not need to have Police permanently stationed in the school.

Most other developed countries don't either. There's no correlation with
corporal punishment in schools and school shootings.

