Federal controls are destroying our schools

[OneEyeJack]

I just attended an a small office party to celebrate a court decision.

In 2010 a kindergarten student was expelled for religious and racial intolerance. He recited the following in class:

I'm a little Hindu,
I do all I can do.
Where my pants and skin don't meet,
I make my skin do.

At the school board meeting an official representative of the local Hindu community said that every Hindu child learns that poem and it does not offend anyone, especially another Hindu. The school board members following federal guidelines still expelled the child stating that this was a zero tolerance policy and they would not accept such behavior. Turns out the child learned the poem at the neighborhood day care center run by a Hindu family and taught to him by the grandmother.

Last Friday after 5 years of motions and claims and counter motions the law suit has been settled and the court finally overturned the 2010 expulsion and removed all references from the child's transcripts.

The now older child was being blocked from acceptance to a federally funded program for gifted and talented students because of this expulsion on his record and the severity of the charges. Today he was finally accepted and starts attending classes next Monday.

 

[Doog]

That's nothing....you should see the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

It's in shambles...graduation rate: 54%

Here's their report card...they spend $17,000/student/year

http://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/Pages/District-Report.aspx?DistrictIRN=043786

 

[Alfred_B]

Zero tolerance policies are at the school district level. It's essentially a risk management strategy where you eliminate decision making abilities to minimize risk.

It's idiotic, they know it and will assign the blame to mythical federal guidelines as an excuse.

 

[Greasymechtech]

Its not Federal controls... its the voters.

Problem with some voters is that they don't have children in schools and wouldn't understand a caring parents view of education.

 

[javacontour]

Yep it's voters/parents. If parents were involved, districts wouldn't be able to have zero tolerance policies.

If enough parents started calling for the dismissal of administrators who don't use good sense, things would change.

But one of the reasons you have so many programs and are feeding some kids three squares a day is because the parents are sub-par, to put it mildly.

 

[rshaw125]

Fruit and Nut land. Enough said.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: rshaw125
Fruit and Nut land. Enough said.


That describes school administrators!

 

[KGMtech]

Such a waste of resources and a pathetic example from a group of well paid people tasked with providing basic learning & life skills to youth.

 

[Nate1979]

People have such thin skin these days. Bunch of babies.

 

[Drew99GT]

If it's a Muslim student though, they'll build a Mosque in the school and bend over backwards to accommodate them.

 

[crazyoildude]

No comment ...teacher people have teacher people mentality...Humor them

 

[OneEyeJack]

7 high school students were suspended because during a gift exchange between rival school bands at a football game. The gift was a fruit bowl and it contained among many other items some watermelon slices and Popsicle's. That was judged racially offensive by school board members. Since the suspension of the 7 students the school district has also disbanded the 144 member school marching band even though there are 21 black members. The school board said that high school is no place for such blatant racism and that the self esteem of many students may have been irreparably damaged and that this could effect the rest of their lives, something they might never recover from without intensive therapy.

Link

 

[Mr Nice]

Don't forget half the terrible teachers at any public school would not last 2 weeks at Walmart before getting fired.

 

[KzMitch]

America.
We're doing it wrong.

I'm embarrassed for these idiots.
Just 20 years ago, you could shame them.
Now, the idiots have no shame, but somehow were elected, or worse, appointed to make decisions that affect education.
We're screwed and it's getting worse.

Someday, way in the future, archeologists will look back on our society and laugh til they wet their pants. And kids in school in the future will use us as an example of how NOT to do it.

 

[Merkava_4]

Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
I'm a little Hindu,
I do all I can do.
Where my pants and skin don't meet,
I make my skin do.


I'm just trying to figure out what that poem means.

 

[OneEyeJack]

Oops.... a typo. Good catch....

Where my pants and shirt don't meet,

 

[AKhan87]

Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
If it's a Muslim student though, they'll build a Mosque in the school and bend over backwards to accommodate them.
???

I doubt that, growing up "brown" in USA, muslims & hindus were treated the same, we would get racial slurs that would obviously point to the other religion all day. My personal experience growing up in a wealthy area in St. Louis has been good, but dealing with rednecks finally after age 28 because of business, has been that of serious racial discrimination from them, especially towards black people, because rednecks said that since we did business with black people also, we must be dangerous and out of our mind. This experience was not only ignorant but pathetic as well, 3 rednecks in a row had this to say but at the end of the day, because the cost of the rebuilt engine was so reasonable, they did business anyways.

 

[crazyoildude]

My Thing is this is America If you don't like it feel free to go home!

 

[CourierDriver]

All this uproar is really caused by global warming, this just in from the clowns in Paris....

 

[sciphi]

Link to federal regulations instructing schools to use zero-tolerance policies?

I blame local administrators. Seen enough of those far from the classroom who pull in large salaries for doing nothing except make students worse off. And drive off all the talented teachers/related service providers for nonprofits and the few districts who aren't yet over-run.