Author: Peter D. Ford III

Beyond Ferguson Building A Culture of Genius

Great Teaching Equals Loving Discipline

August 26, 2015 2:03 pm August 26, 2015

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I am not surprised by Dropout Nation‘s reports on how schools and districts handle (or mishandle) discipline. I am not surprised that too many schools have abdicated their discipline to…

I am not surprised by Dropout Nation‘s reports on how schools and districts handle (or mishandle) discipline. I am not surprised that too many schools have abdicated their discipline to police officers. I have lived through the experiences and the data. Harsh discipline data doesn’t tell everything. But it does shine light on what needs to be fixed in the classroom as well as in society.

For many, many years I technically violated our union contract by going out on the yard during lunch and after school. This is because supervision wasn’t part of our duties as teachers under our contract. Over that time, I deterred or broke up my share of altercations. In my classrooms, I also found that I can maintain order. Over time, I have learned this: A committed, caring teacher can discern a goof-ball from one with malicious intent; in fact such a teacher can soften the edges of those hardened young people because they relate to them more respectfully than adults even in their life, and they appreciate that.

The ability of a committed caring teacher extends into the classroom. When I started out, my first principal said “The best classroom management is a good lesson plan.” Any parent knows that if you keep children occupied you reduce the opportunities for dumb things to happen. A classroom is no different. Schools can improve their discipline with better trained teachers and leadership creates an environment that encourages learning and deters disruptive behavior.

The 500 lb Silverback Gorilla in the room people don’t want to acknowledge is the dearth of prepared, qualified, and committed educators where they’re needed most. Teachers who only drop worksheets or lecture incessantly will invite mischief, or worse chaos. Teachers who do that tend to be the least qualified and least committed, and sadly those teachers end up where they shouldn’t be: in schools where committed, caring teachers who know how to manage classrooms are needed most. Harsh discipline can also be a function of how and why it’s meted out, as well as what you do after the harsh discipline. The problem begins before teachers go into classrooms. If you do a survey of education schools you’ll find very few that have a stand-alone course in classroom management.

Again, I am not surprised that too many schools abdicate their discipline to police officers. There are far too many schools that simply don’t have enough supervision during those non-classroom hours — from lunch time to recess — when incidents occur that might lead to discipline and worse. Especially incidents of police officers shooting students happen. I’ve also always thought that most of these tragic officer shootings are a function of their inexperience with young people. That is all the more reason not to have traditionally-trained police officers walking the corridors of schools.

There will still be situations where harsh discipline must happen. I’ve known students disciplined harshly for dumb stuff. At the same time, I’ve also known students who indeed needed to be removed from the school environment, and not allowed to return until they came with a parent. If the consequences for behavior are clear and consistent, what may seem as harsh from the outside will be accepted by the student and family. What the adults do in a school AFTER harsh discipline goes far to limiting repeat behavior. Acceptance, commitment, and support to those young people is necessary to counterbalance their burdens and manage the learning environment for everyone else.

That this sounds like what good parents do should be no surprise, and a bell-ringer: You’ve got to love these young people as your own children. If not, seriously consider another line of work.

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Beyond Ferguson This is Dropout Nation Why Systemic Reform

Beyond Ferguson: Better Teaching = Better Discipline

Peter D. Ford III

December 2, 2014 5:20 pm December 2, 2014

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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….

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.

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This is Dropout Nation

A Teacher on the Shame of the Beltway

Peter D. Ford III

November 11, 2014 1:31 pm November 11, 2014

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Some of you know my story. Others do not. But I can tell you why, as both a native Washingtonian and a teacher in Los Angeles, why so many students…

Some of you know my story. Others do not. But I can tell you why, as both a native Washingtonian and a teacher in Los Angeles, why so many students don’t get the access to high-quality math instruction they deserve, an issue featured last month on Dropout Nation‘s report last month on the lack of college-preparatory opportunities for kids attending D.C.-area schools.

My mother and father taught in D.C. Public Schools from the 1960s through the 1980s. Because our family were practicing Catholics, my brother and I attended Catholic schools our entire secondary lives. I didn’t take Algebra 1 in middle school. But I still ended up taking A.P. Calculus by my senior year at a very competitive high school (or, as my former pastor described, the good Jesuit one downtown versus the expensive one in the ‘burbs).

I’ll start off by saying this: Algebra 1 in middle school should not be a prerequisite for access to higher mathematics in high school and beyond. What is needed and deserved for all students is a continuum of quality, committed educators who can teach the math they require.

Teaching in urban schools here in L.A., I can tell you that many schools choose not to instruct math in the sequence they should for two reasons. The first has to do with students unprepared for math. It is hard to teach Algebra 1 to 13-year-olds, or even high school students who cannot multiply fluently as well as lack a deep and broad vocabulary. How students are getting out of 3rd grade without multiplying through their 12’s should be a crime, a crime that’s committed with regularity in our urban schools.

The other has to do with the dearth of qualified teachers. Stanford, USC, Alabama and Oregon have an easier time finding 5-star football recruits than urban schools have finding high-quality, committed math teachers. We know what high quality is. Committed is a different story. When I talk about committed, I mean educators willing to hang around in urban schools for an extended period of time, as well as help a school build and maintain a culture of expectation and excellence.

Back when California required Algebra 1 instruction in eighth grade, you still had many students not taking Algebra 1 because schools and districts feared that the poor performance of the students would hurt the scores on the Academic Performance Index. Just 30 percent of eighth-graders took Algebra 1 in 2009-2010, according to Dropout Nation‘s analysis last year. Of course in the long run it would help the student; even if they failed in eighth grade, they would excel in ninth and still be on the path to calculus. But, of course, student needs often become secondary to the edu-bureaucracy’s needs.

One lesson for families and others in the D.C. metro area is that if districts (and teachers’ unions) aren’t willing to put educators where they need to be to fix this problem, then families must have the flexibility and freedom to demand other educational options that will work for this purpose. This includes launching charter schools, voucher programs, and other choices.

Another lesson can be seen on the boots on the ground level where I work. Give me some students who can multiply and reduce a fraction, and I’ll have them ready for high school. Then I can pray they will get the same commitment from other teachers that they have gotten from me when they leave me — instead of the “could you come teach at our high school?” request I get way too unacceptably often.

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