Flatow reports: "A recent Department of Justice lawsuit that called the criminalization of school disciplinary offenses as minor as dress code violations so arbitrary and severe as to 'shock the conscience.'"
In Mississippi, staff at one school regularly handcuffed students to metal railings in the school gymnasium and left them there for hours if they were caught not wearing a belt, among other minor infractions. (photo: source unknown)
Mississippi Children Handcuffed in School for Not Wearing a Belt
19 January 13
recent Department of Justice lawsuit that called the criminalization of school disciplinary offenses as minor as dress code violations so arbitrary and severe as to "shock the conscience" publicized some of the most egregious punishment at Meridian, Mississippi's schools. But perpetuation of what is known as the school-to-prison pipeline is not limited to that one city or county, and it's nothing new, according to a new report by several civil rights organizations. Stories highlighted by the report reveal that school punishment in other Mississippi counties is as bad, if not worse, and exemplify the severity and scope of the problem:
In 2000, what began with a few students playfully throwing peanuts at one another on a school bus ended in five Black male high school students being arrested for felony assault, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. When one of the peanuts accidentally hit the white female bus driver, the bus driver immediately pulled over to call the police, who diverted the bus to the courthouse where the students were questioned.
The Sheriff commented to one newspaper, "[T]his time it was peanuts, but if we don't get a handle on it, the next time it could be bodies."
More recently, in 2009 in Southaven, DeSoto County, armed police officers responded to an argument between three students on a school bus by reportedly arresting a half dozen Black students, choking and tackling one Black female student, and threatening to shoot the other students on the bus between their eyes.
In 2010, in Jackson Public School District, until a lawsuit was filed, staff at one school regularly handcuffed students to metal railings in the school gymnasium and left them there for hours if they were caught not wearing a belt, among other minor infractions. For example, one 14-year-old boy was reportedly handcuffed to the railing when he wore a stocking cap to class, threw his papers on the ground, and refused to do his school work.
Mississippi is among 19 states that still permit paddling in school, and has the highest percentage of students beaten by educators. Severe over-punishment is imposed in a discriminatory and arbitrary manner, with three times as many black students receiving out-of-school suspensions as white students.
In Meridian, Miss., the problem of criminalizing school infractions is perpetuated by a policy of school officials calling police to discipline students. This raises serious concerns about the push to place more officers in schools in the wake of the Newtown, Ct. mass shooting, as putting more armed guards in schools has already been linked to an uptick in arrests.
A juvenile judge in Georgia testified about this phenomenon during a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:
When I took the bench in 1999, I was shocked to find that approximately one-third of the cases in my courtroom were school-related, of which most were low risk misdemeanor offenses. Upon reviewing our data, the increase in school arrests did not begin until after police were placed on our middle and high school campuses in 1996—well before the horrific shootings at Columbine High School. The year before campus police, my court received only 49 school referrals. By 2004, the referrals increased over 1,000 percent to 1,400 referrals, of which 92% were misdemeanors mostly involving school fights, disorderly conduct, and disrupting public school.
Despite the many arrests, school safety did not improve. The number of serious weapons brought to campus increased during this period of police arrests including guns, knives, box cutter knives, and straight edge razors. Of equal concern was the decrease in the graduation rates during this same period—it reached an all-time low in 2003 of 58%. It should come to no one’s surprise that the more students we arrested, suspended, and expelled from our school system, the juvenile crime rate in the community significantly increased. These kids lost one of the greatest protective buffers against delinquency—school connectedness.
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Comments
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In the early seventies two thousand white teachers were assigned to teach in all black schools in the Miami Florida public schools. I was one of them. I was given the toughest class in the school, a sixth grade class with 38 students. I had to paddle two boys the second day.Yes, Miami once had paddling too. The third day I told the kids that I hated having to do that, and I would like to try something they had never seen, rewards for excellent work and excellent behavior.
I put them into groups and we had a competition each week. The winners got a "party" outside the room under a tree (so I could watch them) with games and candy for the last hour on Friday. It worked so well that the black principal thought that I was beating the hell out of them every day.(I told her I wasn't, but she didn't believe me.)
I am finishing a book about my techniques and anyone, teacher or parent or college professor, in Mississippi, or anywhere else can get it for free by emailing me at bt0813@att.net. (over forty pages on behavior management, with a simple way to bring kids to literacy in ten hours.)If you are a beginning teacher, this is what the methods teachers don't know! No ivory tower stuff here lads and lassies. Just stuff that works like a charm with really rough kids, and good ones too. If you want it, better do it fast. I am on my way outahere!(Origi nally from Brooklyn New york.)
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/trust_betrayed/index.html/
Of course the argument itself is based in apologetics for RC priests - I know, I also spent some time also looking at the places that quoted the supposed study (which doesn't have anywhere near the guaranteed accuracy it should have to be treated as a study). Newsmax? lifesite? Lots of other Right wing and extremist fundamentalist and conservative Catholic sites.... I think maybe your facts are lacking factsfirst.
There are two ways to approach kids, the first should always be with respect and support followed by expectations of decent behavior. The two method system of rewards and discipline works - even with the toughest kids who rarely get respect.
I witnessed the evolution of all types of kids from various neighborhoods going from great to spoiled or abused, over the years, and it was often impossible to tell the difference between the two because the spoiled were crying out for assistance as much as the abused - for different reasons.
Guess what; it works, and creates an atmosphere where students STRIVE in everything they do. Teachers get positive results AND positive feedback from students.
The citizens of Mississippi may not learn from this, but the rest of us should.
The Christian Taliban seeks to serve, folks. Take a look at your future. Do you like it?
Any takers?
In this State which is dead last in per capita income, healing will happen only after all concerned focus and direct their energy toward understanding and accepting the fact that "humanity" trumps "race" - that this is no longer 1953.
What a piece of news this is!
When I was in the 3rd grade, the parents of my class got a teacher fired because she would not let us leave our classroom to go to the bathroom, forcing several of us to wet our pants right where we sat.
In the third grade, our parents had a teacher fired who picked on one boy every day, including bashing him on the knuckles with a ruler repeatedly -- every day.
Where are the parents of these children? What on earth do their boards of education intend to accomplish?
How disgusting. How disappointing.
I repeat, please don't say in my presence that children are our most important resource. We NEVER act like it!
On behalf of Scandinavians, THANK YOU.
Also, I agree. We knew that we were part of a family and were expected to do our part, according to our age. And we knew we were loved
We need to start an organization that will help parents learn how to advocate and teach them how important that is. For disabled kids under IDEA we have a Parent Mentor for our county, but it is the regular ed kids and especially those that are struggling, that need our help. The schools do well with the overachievers and the handicapped, but fail to address the needs of the kids that will not go to college. Most of their parents are clueless and disinterested in their children's education and those that may be interested lack the skill sets to advocate effectively.
A grassroots organization to help these parents is sorely needed.
The oranization is the PTA.
It was the parents of the PTA of Fort Campbell, Kentucky -- that's right, servicemen and their wives -- who got those unacceptble teachers fired. They actually listened to us when we told them at home what had happened during our school days. When they met at PTA meeings, they realized that all of us were telling the same stories at hom and they began an investigtion, and, eventually, insisted on the firing of those two teachers.
That's how it's done, folks. Just like that.
It's not about prmoting your own ego by insisting on promoting your child's so-called self-esteem at the cost of insistig that he learn to write in good English grammar, spell correctly, and learn to add and subtract. It's about setting standards, for students AND for teachers, and insisting that both children and teachers meet those standards.
As with government, we are in charge of the ppublic schools, or should be -- but nowadays think we have better things to do.
When did you last attendo a PTA meeting? Does your child's school HAVE a PTA?
No?
What are you going to do about it?
This was true at Columbine, too. Read "No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine" by Brooks Brown. It started with abuse.
This fascist mistreatment of school children makes it painfully obvious that not only could "it" happen here; if decent people remain silent and docile, it most certainly will.
For life, liberty and peace,
David Macko
www.mackoforliberty.com
For some reason I keep thinking of Abraham Maslow's axion: "if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail". In this case hammers are beating people into hammers.
Someday there will be a shooting in one of these schools and the shooter will be acting in self-defense. Think about that.
Bobby T--you have an excellent point and I thank you for sharing. Are you familiar with the work of John Taylor Gatto? His writings have much to offer about the difference between "schooling" and "education", and it's all from his direct experience, in some cases from some of the toughest schools in New York.
When there were 48 states it ranked 48th in poverty.
Then Alaska received statehood and Mississippi dropped to 49th.
After Hawaii became our 50th state Mississippi fell to the bottom again.
Sadly, some good folks in Mississippi get outvoted by lowlifes, and racists like Trent Lott and Haley Barbour are elected. The end result is that the rich in Mississippi get richer while the working class remains impoverished.
And kids get abused.
Mississippi is the GOP’s test tube. Republicans found that their brand of governance worked there and now they want to take it nationwide.
I would love to see a study of the school-to-priso n pipeline in states with privatised prison systems versus states with not-for-profit, governmental prison systems. Something tells me there is more than a correlation there.
The least among us, the elderly, the truly infirm, helpless children are entitled to consideration by our citizenry because there for the grace of God go us all.
The milk of human kindness is not communism. It is not socialism, it is the Christian spirit. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
I have no patience for those who yell "Keep government hands off my Medicare," displaying self-evident ignorance about the program, while condemning others who receive Social Security and Medicare.
When confronted about their hypocrisy, these paragons of rectitude say, "Well, I paid into it." I am entitled to it having no apparent appreciation for the fact that others are making those same remarks about them
Id' hate to be in jail, or convicted there -I've seen it up close- and remember Troy Anthony Davis' lynching in Georgia?
Wonder when they'll bring back the workhouse and/or treadmill -and not the exercise type either.
So as per your quote, we need to change the paradim. Or the "framing," of the entire society, as per another great, Eric Fromm, to a Sane Society.
The fact that homo sapians are yin yang, rational and irrational at the same time, as one person described David Brooks in another RSN today, means that we may need to evolve to a higher order of our species to achieve this. I do not believe we will reach that goal.
Anniston was a nightmare, with a horrible, witch like looking principal, Laverne Thronton, of whom loved to paddle, not talk, to find out what the root of the problems were. St John elementary did not paddle, but the teacher did have a regular habit of hitting me on the head with books! Lanny Acosta, at St John High, well, he was a lover of the paddle, and even paddled me a few times, stating that since I was not Catholic, I needed extra licks. Then I moved in with my grandmother and went to Central Jr High, where the abuse was worse than any other school, by the students, as well as Paul Pounds, the principal, of whom also was a deacon @ 1st Baptist Church, where I was also abused by his son, Pepper Pounds. Paul would beat me til I was screaming, and not stop, even when I reported to a teacher that a, now in federal prison for murder, student had taken his finger to my topsiders, twisted the fixed leather string on the side, and I was sent to the office for licks!
You ARE a PTA member, aren't you?
With that mindset it’s good that you’re no longer a teacher.
Kids mimic. They are copycats. They see, observe, and do.
They see crooked politicians up and down the food chain. They hear how criminal CEOs steal our money, and then watch TV pundits alibi for them.
They listen to platitudes about children “being our most important resource”, then watch as school bonds get voted down, while fortunes are squandered on drones, wars, and tax subsidies for the uber-rich. And they understand! They understand it is all a shell game. The prize really doesn’t go to the honest and true, it is awarded to connivers and rats and liars.
“Ah ha”, they exclaim, “So that’s the way things work, ‘eh?” And off they go on their tangents, and worse.
Mom and Dad? Both are busy working to put food on the table. They arrive home exhausted and find their latchkey kids watching TV, or out in the street, instead of studying.
It’s the economy! Multi-millionai res and billionaires control America and we’re letting them get away with it, to the detriment of this and future generations. Rather than peaceful protest and general strikes against corporate control of “our” government, some find it a whole lot easier to blame our youth for being copycats.
It’s time to skin the fat cats.
The first step is convicting and sentencing Wall Street banksters to the old gray bar hotel for the crimes against humanity they commit minute.
We've had poor economies before, but they never have and never will excuse parents -- and other, non-parent taxpayers -- who take no interest in either our children or our public schools.
Folks, there is only one operative word here: RESPONSIBILITY. It is our RESPONSIBILITY as adults to raise, educate, and train each generation of our children to become competent, RESPONSIBLE citizens in their turn, which means reasonably well-educated, self-respecting adults of decent character.
We should each ask ourselves, What have I done today to help grow a child into a good citizen? Neither the economy nor the office-holders at any level can do a zillionth of the good -- or evil -- that we can, first-hand, in person.
We criminalize too much. Wouldn't you rather be hit by a driver who had three hits of weed vs. 3 drinks. The former goes slow; the latter goes fast.
We profitize too much.
Who on earth thinks education should be profitized so that it is only available to the "resourced?" Why has the most sacrosanct element of human existence, one's health, become a center of profit for third parties who keep records on us and give them to others without our consent (Medical Information Bureau.)
We criticize too much.
Bush and Cheney were criticized for what they actually did wrong, which is appropriate. Obama and his wife are criticized for their color although the complaints are stated in other ways to provide plausible deniability to bigots.
Michelle's butt is too big. Obama, the Black man, is the racist not the virulent racists who make the claim.
I stumbled over the Shine from Yahoo website and was stunned by the seething hatred aimed at the first lady.
We have lost our moorings as a society and I wonder if there is a way back from the edge we are on.
We all have more important things to do than pay attention and send our advice, suggestions, and instructions: The elected and appointed WORK FOR US!!
The fact that The Civil War is alive in the psychology of old time southerners is the perfect argument for the U.S. to temper its attacks on countries and its hate campaign against Muslims in general. Witness Europe. Those countries worked very hard to end wars between them due to the devastating trauma. The Civil War was unbelievably deadly and destructive and then the winners rubbed it in their faces.
Second issue is that schools all over this country, not just in the south, are becoming more brutal with students for various reasons, and are being privatized with little oversight, and are experimenting with alternate methods of discipline.
American society is crumbling, and kids are always the first to suffer for a dying society.
Yes, witness the history or Greece where if you lost during gambling, you could sell your child into slavery to a Roman, or another Greek. And remember, until Darrow and the case against child labor, we had six year olds in the coal mines getting their legs crippled when they tried to separate the coal from the shale.
Ever read Margaret Meade's studies? Children are harbingers of disaster, just as amphibians are harbingers of environmental disaster.
Something to think about.
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