"School Reform" as a cause of increased violence

[Csubstance@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/11/03 1:28:55 PM, LeoCasey@aol.com writes:

<< I am actually rather busy these days with our own little epidemic of 
violence and school safety problems, the overwhleming majority of which are 
directly attributable to Klein & Co., but I don't want George's comments to go 
without some recognition on my part. >>

12/14/03

Last year, when Paul Vallas and the "reformers" in Philadelphia gave Edison a 
bunch of schools, the first things the Whittles did to "reduce costs" was lay 
off security at the schools. The result was chaos for more than three months. 
It was caused directly by privatization and Edison -- and indirectly by all 
of the teacher bashing crazy notions of "school reform" being pushed behind the 
Business Roundtable and Voucher tout versions of reality.

Schools get more and more dangerous when the authority of the adults in the 
buildings is undermined. Every idea that is floated for changing public 
education by reorganizing governance -- espeically it it floats in behind a smokes
creen of teacher bashing headlines and articles about "failure" based on test 
score "bottom line" nonsense -- increases violence. I hope someone besides me has 
read Leo's posting about the fight that escalated into a riot between Day One 
and Day Two because the local school administration made a bluner in not 
suspending the fighters and the Bloomberg Klein CEO cabal has undermined all of 
the alternative placements for violent kids.

Anyone who thinks all kids can be turned away from violent behavior by sweet 
words and soothing programs (all peddled, often at some profit, by people with 
little or no inner city teaching experience) should be made to (a) live in 
one of these communities without locks on the doors for a year and (b) send 
their children to the public school in that community.

Half the pathologies we see in our inner city classrooms stem directly from 
violence or the fear of it. Students who are constipated (and therefore can't 
concentrate) from their fear of going into dangerous washrooms, for example. 
Right up to schools whose test scores drop because there is a gang war going on 
during test season in the housing projects where all the kids live. (Chicago's 
Williams Elementary). But the only thing you'll read in the academic studies 
or in The New York Times is a spun version of the reality. Chicago's 
"Renaissance" closing of the school for its "failure." New York's Klein- Bloomberg spin 
machine. 

The front line teachers and the kids are crying out for the truth to be told, 
and instead we get more doses of propaganda from the executive classes.

Happy Holidays,

George Schmidt