Paul Sperry has this article in the New York Post:
New York public-school students caught stealing, doing drugs or even attacking someone can avoid suspension under new "progressive" discipline rules adopted this month.
Most likely, they will be sent to a talking circle instead, where they can discuss their feelings.
Convinced traditional discipline is racist because blacks are suspended at higher rates than whites, New York City's Department of Education has in all but the most serious and dangerous offenses replaced out-of-school suspensions with a touchy-feely alternative punishment called "restorative justice," which isn't really punishment at all. It's therapy.
"Every reasonable effort must be made to correct student behavior through...restorative practices," advises the city's new 32-page discipline code.
Except everywhere it's been tried, this softer approach has backfired.
Good kids have a right to safe schools. In California, it's even in the state constitution. (Art. I ยง28(f)(1)). Certainly it is correct to get rid of "zero tolerance" policies that expel kids for minor infractions. Certainly many schools overuse suspension and need a more proportional response to misconduct. When it comes to violence, though, protecting the well-behaved kids must be the first priority.* * *"I was terrified and bullied by a fourth-grade student," a teacher at a Los Angeles Unified School District school recently noted on the Los Angeles Times website. "The black student told me to 'Back off, b--h.' I told him to go to the office and he said, 'No, b--h, and no one can make me.' "* * *A former Philly middle-school teacher complains minority students act out and then dare teachers to kick them out of class, knowing full well their hands are now tied.
"I'm going to torture you," Allen Zollman says one student told him. "I'm doing this because I can't be removed."
Knowing there won't be consequences, bullies control the classroom and disrupt lessons for all kids who want to learn.
"The less we are willing or able to respond, the more they will control the classroom, the hallways and the school," Zollman added in testimony before the US Commission on Civil Rights.* * *Just weeks after "empowering teenagers," San Diego public schools witnessed a surge in violent assaults.
At Lincoln High School, for example, students reported frequent campus fighting. In just one recent month, there were several arrests, including one involving a butcher knife, according to local TV news reports. School officials confirm at least 16 batteries in just the first few months of the school year.
We knew how to deal with the badly misbehaving ones back when schools were run by persons of sense. We had reform schools that were places of hard work and strict discipline where no one wanted to go. The possibility of a transfer there was a strong deterrent. Today, the "touchy-feely" crowd is sacrificing the well-behaving kids in a futile, misguided, and ineffective effort to help the violent ones.
The fact that disparate impact theory has gained currency may stand as one of the most insidious and harmful legacies of the Obama administration.