Re: Texas parents

On Dec 13, 8:57 am, toto <scarec...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:43:07 +0100, NL <nlan...@xxxxxx> wrote:
AFAIKTexasis one of the few (only?) American states that still allows
teachers to use corporal punishment (i.e. hitting) to discipline their
students, so yeah, maybe parenting inTexasis different...

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934191.html

Actually Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennesssee Oklahoma and
Louisiana have a higher percentage of children who are corporally
punished in school. Unfortunately 21 states allow this. That's
almost half of our states.

--
Dorothy

New York state does not allow corporal punishment in schools,
according to the site you gave. Some schools in that state are
suffering from a total breakdown in discipline, according to the
article below. The current discplinary system is not working. Maybe
corporal punishment for serious offenses would improve the school
environment, so that students would fear teachers and not the reverse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/nyregion/19education.html
New York Times, December 19, 2007
On Education
How a Middle School Can Be 'Dangerous' and Still Get an A
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
When Shawn Carson taught last year at a middle school named the South
Bronx Academy for Applied Media, he entered his room on many days to
find a message from his students on the blackboard. In graphic and
vulgar language, as he recalled in a recent interview, it described
him committing a homosexual act.

On one occasion, Mr. Carson said, he caught his female students
breaking open lockers in the room. Some of his pupils, known in the
school's parlance as "scholars," threw his books and stapler out the
window. When he went from desk to desk, offering editing advice on
writing assignments, he was often met with profanity.

Mr. Carson was not alone among the school's faculty members who said
they endured such episodes. Michelle L'Eplattenier said a digital
camera and a cellphone were stolen from her room. A student in Shannon
Staples's class routinely overturned desks. Ms. Staples was also
punched while trying to separate two pupils trading blows.

Because of their experiences, Mr. Carson, Ms. Staples and Ms.
L'Eplattenier have all left the school within the past year, part of
an exodus that has claimed roughly half the faculty. And their
concerns about the school's climate are echoed by students. In a
survey conducted last year by the City Department of Education, 98
percent of Applied Media's students said there was fighting in the
school, 94 percent said there was bullying and 67 percent said they
were worried about crime and violence in the school.

Reflecting such realities, the New York State Education Department has
placed Applied Media on its list of "persistently dangerous" schools,
one of 52 in the state. Applied Media earned the designation after its
second year of existence.

Yet when the city's Education Department recently released its
progress reports about public schools, Applied Media received an A.

There are, of course, firm statistical reasons for the grade. While
the overall performance of Applied Media on standardized tests falls
well below citywide averages, the school raised the scores of its
lowest-performing pupils, as well as those in special education and
bilingual tracks, which are indeed sensible criteria for appraising a
school.

The A grade, though, may also have something to do with the fact that
the progress reports weigh all safety factors as only 2.5 percent of a
school's total grade, said James S. Liebman, the Education
Department's chief accountability officer. He has said the department
decided not to give safety more consideration because statistics on
school violence rely on self-reporting and tend to be deceptive.

For a great many children, parents and teachers, however, the order
and security inside a school matter for rather more than 2.5 percent.
And so the case of Applied Media and its A is a tale of two schools,
the one reflected in the Education Department's metrics and the one
experienced firsthand by many of the teachers.

"This is a school that's doing remarkably well on the progress side,
and 'remarkably' isn't a word I use lightly," said Mr. Liebman, who is
also a law professor at Columbia University, where this reporter is on
the journalism faculty.

The principal, Roshone Ault, said she supported teachers in
disciplinary matters by bringing in experts in "social-emotional
learning" to train the faculty and was offering students incentives
like pizza parties for good behavior.

"ON discipline we had a system in place," she said. "There was a lot
of support around it."

But teachers dispute her description.

"I didn't teach last year," Ms. Staples said. "I was a police officer
and a baby sitter. You'd write up kids left and right, and then
nothing would happen. No one would help you. And the kids would just
come right back. After I got hit, the principal's response was,
'That's what happens in middle schools.'"

Mr. Carson similarly described a lack of administrative support and
meaningful discipline. "The administration would be telling you that
it would all fall into place if you had a better lesson plan or more
student engagement or arranged the desks in a U shape," he said. "But
it doesn't matter how good your lesson plan is if the kids can't even
stay still long enough to write the 'Aim' and 'Do Now' off the board.
There are no repercussions. There is no punishment fitting the
infraction."

The woes, Ms. L'Eplattenier said, went beyond discipline. Many
classrooms lacked books, a problem also cited in the student survey. A
school supposedly oriented to media did not have a student Web site. A
closet's worth of canned food, donated by pupils before Thanksgiving
2006, was never given to any charity and eventually spoiled, Ms.
L'Eplattenier said.

During the 2006-7 term, 13 of the 16 teachers were in their first
year. The principal, Ms. Ault, had never led a school before founding
Applied Media in 2005. She previously coordinated special education at
a charter school in Harlem that was shut by the state for academic
deficiency.

Still, Applied Media showed student progress on its standardized
tests.

One reason for the improving scores, Ms. Ault said, was that during
the period of test preparation in the late winter and early spring,
she removed the "most disruptive" students from their regular classes.
Dmitry Terekhov, a teacher, said: "The A we received is a testament to
the teachers. We got the job done."

Mr. Liebman advanced another view of Applied Media's identification as
"persistently dangerous," saying it actually speaks well for the
school. Only a school that keeps track of its disciplinary incidents
will compile enough examples to make the state list, he said. Ms.
Ault, the principal, offered the same explanation. Some teachers,
however, say they were dissuaded from reporting incidents.

As for the high attrition rate among teachers, Ms. Ault called it
"commonplace" at new schools. Mr. Liebman said many teachers flee
schools that are in the midst of reform and instilling a "culture of
accountability." He did not address the roles of theft, violence and
insults in persuading teachers to leave.

Even Mr. Terekhov, one of the few teachers striking some optimistic
notes about Applied Media, conceded the challenges. "No principals
want to be where we are," he said. "No teachers want to be where we
are. It's too hard."

.

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