Last week’s Dropout Nation commentary on focusing on overhauling school discipline in the wale of Ferguson caused me to think about how we can stem the use of out-of-school suspensions. One solution lies with our classroom teaching.
I have a theory I call the ’95-5 Rule.’ Let’s say you have a 500 student school, and every period of every day, 95 percent of students behave appropriately. That also means every period of every day you’d have 25 students in the dean of discipline’s office: There is no school in the country equipped physically and in personnel to manage 25 students out of the classroom, 3-6 times a day for 180 days. You can do the math for a 1,000 or more student school; a 3,000 person high school would have the equivalent of our school’s entire 8th grade class in the dean’s office every period.
This would apply to discipline over tardiness, too: The moment you have 25 students every period standing in line at the attendance office to get a late slip, the teachers get a memo saying to ‘not send students to the office who are tardy,’ even if the school rules state that clearly as the procedure.
Being unprepared to handle discipline issues like these lead to the harsh penalties for what seem to be small infractions, which has partly created the discipline crisis we have in our urban schools particularly.
To my knowledge there is no teaching program in California, especially in Los Angeles (which is home to the ed schools run by UCLA and that University of Southern California), that has a stand-alone classroom management class. My very first principal said “The best classroom management is a good lesson plan.” Teachers are not prepared to manage students well coming out of the schools, and often have to rely on extra professional development, their own efforts, or trial by fire to develop those critical classroom skills. For example, teachers in a school I worked at started improving their classroom efforts a year after I handed the former principal for whom I worked a copy of Douglas Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion, (a Dropout Nation Top Eight book).
Teachers must be trained to create a classroom environment where there is neither time nor opportunity for that behavior to occur. They must also be trained to address misbehavior with immediate-yet-fair consequences for that behavior. Those steps would greatly improve student behavior and school environments.
But improving school discipline isn’t just about better teaching. Schools must have the personnel and resources (space) to manage that 5-to-10 percent of kids who aren’t behaving well that day. that on any given day cannot function in a classroom. We already know that sending them home, especially if they are going into chaos, won’t work. Schools must also create a climate where students feel no need to have their shields raised every day, where they know that every adult is committed to their safety, welfare, and learning.