Pubdate: Mon, 11 Jun 2001
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Section: Pg 13A
Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: William Raspberry

RIGHT REASON CAN LEAD TO WRONG ACTION

Is it permitted to say a kind word (or at least a less-condemnatory one) 
about the teachers who allowed nine District of Columbia middle school boys 
to be strip-searched at the local jail?

Of course it was an awful thing to do - maybe stupid and illegal as well. 
But doesn't it matter what the teachers and their jailhouse partners in the 
caper were [ital]trying[ital].to accomplish?

Those teachers aren't demons. According to the school official who 
organized the jail visit, the teachers merely were trying to. show the 
middle school youngsters where their misbehavior, if unchecked, was likely 
to lead them.. The hope was that, given, a glimpse of the "real world," the 
kids would be "scared straight."

Now, it appears more likely that the youngsters will collect hefty damages 
from the District of Columbia's struggling school system and that it is the 
teachers who will be seared to try anything not preapproved to grab the 
attention of children they fear may be headed the wrong way.

I can't tell you anything about the particular children involved in this 
unfortunate matter. But I can tell you that the discipline problem their 
teachers face is all too real and that it is worse among those already at 
greatest risk of failure in school and in life: the children of low-income 
parents.

Those are the children for whom the much-maligned public schools may 
represent the last best hope. And many of them are floating through school 
without learning much of anything - and behaving so badly that it is hard 
for anyone else to learn much. Such children require better teaching, 
improved curricula, smaller classes and all the things we keep saying they 
need, including love. But they also need discipline.

I hardly need to add that they don't need strip searches.

On the other hand, should the teachers responsible for the poor judgment - 
and the jail employees who got carried away in their attempt to cooperate 
with the teachers - be dismissed out of hand? Two managers at the jail have 
been suspended, a deputy warden has resigned under pressure, and some 
teachers and administrators may be in danger of losing their jobs.

What strikes me about this whole episode is that, so far as I can see, all 
of the adults involved were trying to do something helpful for the 
children. That isn't always the case. What happens far more frequently is 
that, instead of trying to change the behavior of the troublemakers, 
schools bend their efforts toward protecting the rest of the student body 
from the undisciplined ones.

The [ital]Chicago Tribune[ital] recently reported on a middle school in 
suburban Chicago that handles discipline problems another way. This 
academic year alone, Carpentersville Middle School handed out 493 
suspensions - disproportionately to black and Hispanic students. The 
suspension rate - roughly one in every two pupils in the school - hardly 
suggests any serious effort to help the children who are seen as causing 
the trouble.

It is fair to say few troubled school districts in America have figured out 
what to do about rampant disciplinary problems. Laxity exacerbates the 
matter, while zero-tolerance breeds disrespect for authority. Rules that 
are fair on their face tend to be interpreted in ways that don't seem fair. 
And the ruckus-causing children don't seem to respond to the gentle 
discipline you used with your own little darlings.

I never have believed in the efficacy of the whole Scared Straight 
approach, instituted a quarter-century ago at Rahway State Prison and 
popularized in a TV documentary a short time later. And I certainly don't 
believe in strip-searching children in an effort to make the experience 
more like real life.

But the way we have been responding to the affair may lead to a greater 
abuse: teachers giving up on troubled children and just turning their 
backs. At least those District of Columbia teachers and jail officials were 
[ital]trying[ital].
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth