Willful Defiance: LAUSD Caves to Political Correctness on School Discipline Policy

Here's Sandy Banks, the far-left black feminist columnist, at the Los Angeles Times, "Troubled youths deserve more effective discipline than suspension":

The limits on student suspensions approved by the Los Angeles Unified school board this week may burnish the district's progressive credentials, putting L.A. in the forefront of a national shift away from zero-tolerance policies that ban kids from campus for minor offenses.

But the measure, which forbids suspensions for "willful defiance," has also shown how complicated and emotional the issue of student discipline can be. The two school board members who voted against it have markedly different perspectives that rarely make them allies.

The ban was prompted by national research that suggests suspension is a tool capriciously used and that it unfairly penalizes black children, who tend to be punished more severely and for less serious offenses than other students.

In Los Angeles Unified, blacks account for 26% of the district's suspensions, but only 9% of its students. That imbalance troubles Supt. John Deasy. He championed the measure, backed by community groups who consider suspension a "push out" practice that creates a "school-to-prison pipeline" for black and Latino students.

Yet the school board's only African American member, Marguerite LaMotte, voted against the ban, and lectured the students who crowded the board room to support it.

"I'm going to vote 'no' because it will give you the wrong message," she told them. "I'm not going to give you permission to go out and act crazy and think there are no consequences for your behavior."

LaMotte represents the region with the most black students in the district. She sees toleration of bad behavior as a disincentive for good behavior, a soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations deal.

"We love you," LaMotte told the students. "But there's a path you have to walk."

Board member Tamar Galatzan represents a suburban chunk of the San Fernando Valley with the most white students in the district. She didn't need to give a speech; her hard-edged 'no' made her feelings clear.

"It frustrates me," Galatzan told me later, "to hear all the protesters talk about the rights of the students who are causing problems in class, and there's nobody that's talking about the rights of the other 35 students who are trying to get an education."

I've heard grumbling like that from parents and teachers, who imagine good kids held hostage by troublemakers, out of discipline's reach.

The problem is that the troublemaker and the kid who wants to learn just might be the same student. And tough love feels like no love if we bounce them out of school...

Yes, because the troublemaker kids are really victims!

She goes on:

"Willful defiance" is a very broad label that can cover anything from wearing baggy pants to fighting to mouthing off in class. The category accounts for almost half of California's 700,000 yearly suspensions, and more than one-third of those in LAUSD.

Critics say it gives school officials too much discretion and too little incentive to work with struggling children.

"Teenagers misbehave. They make mistakes, bad choices, a lot," said Jose Huerta, principal at Garfield High. "We react to that. The kid disrespects a teacher, says the F-word in class and you don't know what to do. So you kick him out until you figure it out.

"And you miss a chance to help a kid who may be crying out for help,"

The ban is part of a broader push to move away from suspensions as a disciplinary tool. Research shows they do more harm than good, depressing achievement and alienating students who don't see incentives to improve.

The resolution is loaded with timelines and noble concepts like "restorative justice," but short on guidance for a teacher wondering what exactly she's supposed to do when Johnny curses her out in class.

School board President Monica Garcia doesn't see that as a drawback. Schools need to find ways to engage students who feel angry, disrespected, unloved. "I'm expecting that an educated adult ...can create [disciplinary] alternatives that don't say to a student 'You don't deserve to be in school.'"

Yes, and it's no surprise that statistics show the 53 percent of public school teachers cite discipline problems as a reason for leaving the profession. (And teachers at LAUSD charter schools have especially difficult challenges.)

But hey, "restorative justice"!

Here's the Times' report from this week, "LAUSD board could ban suspensions for 'willful defiance'."

I'm surprised this comment squeezed by the newspaper's moderators:

"And a disturbing finding has surfaced: African Americans are bearing the brunt of the harsh discipline policies. Statewide, black students are three times as likely as whites to be suspended; in L.A. Unified, 26% of those suspended in 2010-11 were African Americans although they make up 9% of students."

Notice the Orwellian phrasing here. Suspensions just happen, unrelated to student conduct. The only possible explanation for a racial disparity in suspenions is racism. Carefully avoiding the fact that black students are EARNING the suspensions because black students are COMMITTING INFRACTIONS at a much higher rate. But at the L. A. Times you are not allowed to commit truth if it reflects badly on blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, or homosexuals.

The average black IQ is 85. The average white IQ is 100. Low IQ is closely correleated with poor impulse control, high time preference, poor ability to foresee consequences, low ability to retain previously imparted information, lower ability to engage in delayed gratificiation, and even lower empathy. We should EXPECT, not be shocked, by blacks causing trouble and getting suspended more often. Nor should we consider it unjust any more than the overwhelming portion of prison inmates being male a reflection of "sexism" in the justice system. The fact is, men are overwhelmingly more likely to commit violent crime.

Yes, Orwellian language.

It's all Orwell these days, from the White House on down. Truth is thought crimes and hate speech.