The Madison School Board is still dithering around on whether to reinstate out-of-school suspensions of disruptive students. The district suspended the practice in 2021. Now kids who are acting up or worse are kept in school, but sometimes with a monitor who stays with the kid the whole day. This ties up sparse resources that might otherwise go to good kids who just want to learn.
What’s more the debate on this question gets to the heart of what’s wrong with this school board: with one or two exceptions they are focussed like a laser beam on the trouble makers. Here’s what board member, and the recent board president, Ali Muldrow had to say about this at a meeting earlier this week: “My hope is that the solution promotes student wellness and mental health, that our interventions are developmentally appropriate and that they are de-stigmatized and not used to criminalize young people.”
For one thing I’m not sure what much of that means, but the gist of it seems to be that she is entirely focussed on the disruptive kids. She’s concerned for their wellness and mental health and she wants to make sure they’re not stigmatized or criminalized. Well, fine I guess, but where’s Muldrow’s concern for the students who are having their learning disrupted or the teachers who are having their classrooms upended?
The story about this in the Wisconsin State Journal goes on to quote a study that finds that kids who are expelled from school don’t fare any better when they return than kids who are left in school. But that misses the point. When the bad kid is out of school he’s not disrupting the learning for all the good kids who remain. Frankly, I don’t care all that much about disruptive kids. Sure, give them whatever social services or psychological interventions they might need to make them behave, but above all do what’s in the best interests of their victims: the students and teachers who just want to have a productive school day.
This is much like crime. The best way to reduce crime is to lock up the bad guys. We know that a very small number of habitual criminals cause most of the mayhem. Figure out who they are and then lock them up until they reach an age where they’re not likely to commit more crimes.
That will disproportionately impact young Black men just as school expulsions will disproportionately effect Black kids. But the flip side of that is that crime and classroom disruptions disproportionately impact Black people too. This sentiment was reflected by a Black mother in a recent story in the New York Times about how school districts are starting to reinstate police officers in schools. The Times wrote:
“I’m an angry, frustrated parent,” said Dorian Warren, whose son attends (Denver’s) East High School. She said she came to the issue “speaking as a woman of color, and as a mother of an African American child.”
While policing results in disproportionate punishments for students of color, Ms. Warren said they were being victimized disproportionately as well.
“You have to do what you have to do to keep these kids safe,” she said. “And I feel like we are gambling every time we don’t.”
If there is a “school to prison” pipeline the problem is mostly with the kid, not the system. If there’s a way to deal with them in a way that turns them around and makes them good students and productive citizens, well, let’s do that. But let’s not do it at the expense of their victims.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
So glad I found your blog. Such a breath of fresh air!
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Agreed, 100%, except, I’d like to add that it isn’t all about the kid: it’s about the parenting of that child, or the lack thereof. I’d like to see the parents of those kids being held more accountable and their responsibility brought into the equation and discussion. My grandson, at 8 years old, was bullied and the entire classroom disrupted by one of these children and so we see first hand what it can do to the other students and teachers. We’d be better off providing some parenting classes to help the parents of these kids that are creating the problems fix the problem. Why isn’t anyone talking about their roles? How about required parenting classes for both before a child can return to school. I grew up and raised my children in an environment where certain behavior got you expelled. We were all held to the same standards and understood the same rules applied to all. I think kids do better with less gray area in terms of behavior expectations. We need to get back that. This lack of standards for socially acceptable behavior is not just disrupting other kids’ learning and costing us a ton of money, it’s growing some really badly behaved young adults.
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There is no easy solution here. Removing habitually misbehaving students from the school setting doesn’t work for them. It may for others. The occasional misbehaving student may learn from it. Each child is different and deserves an individual solution. Blanked discipline models don’t work and never really did. A question is: Can the MMSD figure this out? Other schools & districts have.
The American high school and middle school model doesn’t work and hasn’t worked very well for a number of years. Perhaps, they need alternative pathways including work based learning, schools within schools, off campus learning sites, home based learning in extreme cases. Many students will thrive in smaller schools more focused on their needs rather than large schools that strive to provide old model comprehensive school models. The problem is the k-12 education sector especially public doesn’t really want change.
If one accepts the premise that all students can learn, it is on the educators and parents to find a model that will work.
The challenge here is not the models, they are figured out and being implemented around the country and some may be found here in the Great State of Wisconsin. The challenge is changing the mindsets of board members, administrators, some teachers, and parents. Especially the board and education leaders – admin and unions.
IF the MMSD is what it claims to be, it could figure this out, but it would put the needs of parents and students first, not the staff and board perspectives. The brain power at the school of education @ UW Madison along with practitioners in the state could do this. I know schools that figured this out and their models can be replicated.
But, I bet the board hires some consultants that create a report and do some training and the status quo keeps on keeping on.
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At age 73 I went back to high school as a substitute teacher in the Madison School system. I was dismayed, saddened and distraught as I observed disruption as being normative in the classes where I “taught”. Yes, I was a substitute and can still recall from my teenage years that when the regular classroom teacher was away, there was some extraordinary goofing off, but nothing, Nothing, NOTHING like I experienced. Our adult children had the benefit of quality public education in Madison Public Schools….what I experienced gave some legitimacy to those that choose to send their kids elsewhere. Sad.
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Just as you probably don’t listen to Ali Muldrow’s Tuesday noon radio program on WORT, I have a feeling that she doesn’t read this blog. She should, though, because Madison’s schools are rudderless and losing good students to other area districts, private and public. The status quo is not OK and everyone – parents, kids, teachers, the school board and administrators – needs to take their share of responsibility to make it better. The new, interim superintendent is saying the right things but she’s made it clear she doesn’t plan to take it on full-time. My problem is that I have no faith that our current board will pick a great school leader.
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