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ED WATCH: International Perspectives
Political Lessons from Discipline
BBC News, July 31, 2007
Two recent articles in UK news sources highlight how British leaders are advocating a tough approach to student discipline. In a recent speech, political leader David Cameron called for "head teachers to be given more power to control and exclude disruptive pupils" as well as "scrapping external appeals panels for exclusions." Telegraph.co.uk reports that Mr. Cameron’s "discipline package" is part of an attempt to "repair Britain’s ‘broken society.’" The BBC adds that focus groups, commissioned by the education department, reveal that student discipline is "the biggest school issue for parents." BBC article »
Related: David Cameron Outlines School Discipline Plan
Brown: I Want to Turn UK into the ‘Education Nation’
Michael Settle, The Herald (UK), June 21, 2007
Improving “school discipline” is a “touchstone electoral issue” and a major part of Gordon Brown’s plan to make England into “the education nation,” Michael Settle of the Herald reports. The prime minister advocated “tougher discipline” in addition to “increased investment, stronger links with business, deeper involvement by parents, [and] better quality teaching.” Specifically, Brown “referred to more attention being given to ‘good behaviour’ and ‘decent manners’ and revealed how he wanted Ofsted, England's education watchdog, to consider ‘raising the bar on what is satisfactory and unsatisfactory behaviour.’” As Brown said, “there is no place in the new Britain we seek for complacency and no room for inadequate skills, low aspirations, a soft approach to discipline or for a culture of the second best." article »
Teaching Viewed as Stable and Respectable Profession
Sean Cavanagh, Education Week, June 13, 2007
An article comparing the United States with China emphasizes the relative weakness of the authority of American educators. Compared to the Chinese, American teachers have a significantly harder time maintaining order in their classrooms, Sean Cavanagh of Education Week reports. One reason may be that “teachers in China also have traditionally commanded broader respect throughout society to a much greater degree than teachers in the United States.” In China, as Daniel W. Gregg, the director of an exchange program with Shandong province, notes, “The parent hands over the child to the teacher. They entrust the teacher to be the one who will look after the child and help them do well. No one questions [that] authority—ever.” On the other hand, citing Teaching Interrupted, Common Good’s 2004 survey, “[m]ore than half of U.S. teachers said that school discipline problems are made worse because they are afraid that parents and school administrators won’t back them when behavior problems arise.” article »
China Outrage at YouTube Classroom Attack
Richard Spencer, Telegraph (UK), May 31, 2007
A YouTube video from China shows that disorder in the classroom is affecting teachers and schools worldwide, reports Richard Spencer of the Telegraph. The video “shows a scene of classroom chaos,” with a teacher appearing “non-plussed as his charges chat, swig drinks, and hurl swear words across the classroom.” One student even “hurls a bottle of water at the teacher,” while another “makes as if to fight the teacher, whose attitude remains passive throughout.” Spencer notes that “the video is not the first indication that standards of school discipline, long based on schoolground marching exercises and lessons in patriotic ideology, are not what they were” in China, as teachers “often report disrespectful and violent behaviour.” article »
Give Power Back to Principals
Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia), May 16, 2007
In a sign that bureaucracy and litigation are undermining school achievement and discipline around the globe, a recent editorial in the Australian Gold Coast Bulletin notes that “[s]chool principals, teachers and parents have had their clear idea of how schools should be run taken away by a succession of state governments and educational engineers.” The Bulletin cites “lawyers who want to pick holes in school discipline” as a primary cause in the declining educational standards and lack of discipline in Australian public schools. “Opportunistic lawyers, and sometimes parents who are lawyers, see schools as easy prey for litigation because they know that principals no longer have the power to properly discipline wrong-doers… Stern words and strong punishments are avoided because principals know that neither the courts nor the education system will back them to the hilt.” article »
A lawsuit in Australia over school bullying shows that litigation in schools is increasingly an issue worldwide. The state of New South Wales was ordered to pay damages of up to $1 million to a boy bullied at primary school more than 10 years ago, the Australian Associated Press reports. “Justice Carolyn Simpson concluded the primary school had ‘grossly failed’ in its duty of care to Benjamin Cox, who now suffers from a severe psychiatric condition.” A spokesman from the New South Wales Education Department said measures to combat bullying “had been introduced in the 13 years since the incident.” article »
After more than three years of problems with its inflexible zero tolerance discipline policy, the Canadian province of Ontario has decided to eliminate the rule, Chinta Puxley of the Kingston Whig-Standard reports. “Delinquent Ontario students are going to be supported - and not automatically suspended or expelled from school - this fall after the province abolishes zero-tolerance policies that have prompted appeals to the human rights commission, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday.” Selwyn Pieters, an education lawyer in Toronto who has dealt with about 150 zero tolerance cases, emphasized why the rigidness of the policy made it ineffective: “You have kids who are expelled for accidentally touching someone, you have kids who are expelled for stealing pop and chips. It criminalizes them and it diminishes their choices.” Likewise, Rick Johnson, president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, said that the revised law needs to give schools “the flexibility to deal with struggling students on a case-by-case basis… and tailor programs to the local community.” article »
Related: Liberals to Drop Zero Tolerance in Schools / Ontario to Scrap ‘Zero Tolerance’ School Rules / Schools to Drop 'Zero Tolerance'
A column by Chris Keates, the head of the largest teachers union in the United Kingdom, reminds us that educators all over the world are struggling with the effects of ill-conceived discipline rules in an environment of escalating student misbehavior. Keates notes “the simple, self-evident truth that teachers cannot teach, and pupils cannot learn, in an environment where there is disruption and violence” and argues that the biggest problem in schools is “low level disruption” -- “[c]onstant challenges to authority, a persistent refusal to obey school rules and frequent, regular verbal abuse of staff.” “Although this is now belatedly recognised by the Government as a serious problem… too many governing bodies and independent appeals panels still overturn the professional judgment of teachers and heads and make perverse decisions to inappropriately reinstate a pupil who has been recommended for permanent exclusion.” Keates concludes hopefully by noting that the recent legislation giving teachers “new powers to discipline” should send “a powerful message to those pupils and parents inclined to challenge the authority of schools to issue disciplinary sanctions.” article »
A “three-day international conference” in Potchefstroom, South Africa on student discipline concluded that “[d]iscipline problems in schools are getting worse and at some schools are ‘completely out of hand,’” reports A'eysha Kassiem of the Mercury. “Pierre du Plessis and Coert Loock, professors at the University of Johannesburg, said discipline at some schools was so bad that it had led to both a reduction in the number of people who were prepared to become teachers and in the overall number of teachers.” The professors also faulted the international emergence of “zero tolerance” discipline policies, which “did not increase school safety, did not improve the school climate and was related to a number of negative consequences, such as an increase in school dropouts.” article »
Legislators in the United Kingdom have empowered teachers to combat student misbehavior, passing a new law which gives educators “tough new powers to lay down the law - not only in the classroom, but on the way to and from school as well,” Stephen Lewis of the York Press reports. These new powers include the “legal right to use physical force to restrain or control disruptive pupils,” authority “to punish pupils for unacceptable behaviour in school and on the way to and from school,” and the “legal right to confiscate mobile phones or iPods.” As Alan Johnson, the British Education Secretary, notes, “it's important that a small minority of young people should not be allowed to disrupt lessons and undermine the authority of teachers… [Principals] will now be able to send out a strong message to trouble-makers that if they misbehave, they can expect to be punished.” The response to the changes was positive, as “local teachers and educationists contacted by the Press broadly welcomed the measures.” article »
Heads Need More Power, Says UK Leader
ePolitix.com, March 5, 2007
A prominent British politician recently took a strong stand for giving principals (or “head teachers”) the authority to maintain school order, ePolitix.com reports. David Cameron, member of Parliament and leader of the Conservative Party, said that his party “would give head teachers more power to improve school discipline.” “Heads must feel they are the captains of their ships and in charge of their school,” Cameron said. He argued that “increased powers for head teachers should be combined with more support schemes for the socially excluded, and [he] proposed contracts between parents and schools setting out how students must behave.” article »
Experts Warn: Kids Being "Hypercoddled"
Kathy Sundstrom, Sunshine Coast Daily, May 18, 2006
An Australian education expert is concerned that today’s children are being “hypercoddled” by their teachers. Dr. Gordon Tait, a professor of education at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, believes the problem is that teachers are being expected to take on duties that would traditionally be the responsibility of the parents, such as toilet training, nutrition, exercise, and behavioral issues. The litigation concerns arising from these additional duties have led teachers to remove even the “slightest risk of risk” from classes. Dr. Tait warns, “Ultimately, you’re not only in danger of having a boring curriculum, but one which is unchallenging, far less textured and nuanced and layered…What you might end up with is kids who have never even learnt to deal with risk.” article »
A bill up for consideration before the British House of Commons would, for the first time, codify teachers' rights to discipline their students. If passed, the law would allow teachers to assign detention even during vacations, to confiscate cell phones and knives, and to use "reasonable force" to halt student fights. article »
School Trips Can Be Life-Changing Experience For Pupils, Says Study
Kevin Schofield, Scotsman, February 6, 2006
A British study reveals that school field trips can have beneficial, lasting effects on children’s lives, potentially affecting their career and lifestyle choices, their environmental awareness, and their relationships with their families. Unfortunately, the trend for schools, both here and across the Atlantic, has been to limit the number and scope of such educational excursions, due mostly to liability concerns. Said one British policymaker, “There is a danger that kids are now being wrapped in cotton wool because teachers are very nervous.” article »
Parents Go Nuts over No Fun School
Jonathan Marciano, Hampstead & Highgate, November 18, 2005
An English primary school has come under fire from its students’ parents “for going overboard on health and safety.” Evidencing that legal fear exists on both sides of the Atlantic, Rhodes Avenue has recently banned the eating of nuts, the swapping of lunches, and the lighting of sparklers at its “bonfire night.” Producing the most ire, however, was their recent decision to remove three oak trees from the school’s playground for fear they might “[collapse] in high winds.” Ironically, a child had to be taken to the hospital for a fractured arm after tripping on the removed trees’ stumps. John Midgley, a supporter of Lord Falconer’s, England’s Lord Chancellor, efforts “to prevent schools [from] being unfairly sued for negligence,” argues “’that while the school has a duty to care for the children within it there are many cases … where risk assessment is going completely over the top and defying common sense.’”
An Edmonton Journey
Jeff Archer, Education Week, January 26, 2005
For 20 years, American educators have been studying the school system in Edmonton, Canada, to learn about "site-based management." In Edmonton, "schools control 80 percent of the district's total budge. They pick their own reading programs and their own staff training. They decide how many people to employ, and in what jobs. If they don't like services the district's central office is offering, they can take their money elsewhere." University of California, Los Angeles, professor William G. Ouchi has written a book, Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need, that "touts the Edmonton model, and retells how it's been copied by the school systems in Houston and Seattle." In U.S. public schools, principals often have little control over their budgets. New York City public school principals control only 6.1 percent of the money spent by the district; Los Angeles principals control 6.7 percent, and Chicago principals control 19.3 percent. article »
Schools Warned Over Sunny Trips
BBC News, June 4, 2004
From the U.K.: Teachers in Derby are asked to consider "postponing or cancelling events . . . in periods of excessive sun." Teachers should also keep "a supply of maximum factor suncream to spray onto pupils, although they are told not to rub it in for fear of being accused of inappropriate contact." One parent said, "They are making something out of nothing really," and another, "People are going absolutely crackers." article »
Teachers Suing Students
Ian Bell, Sunday Herald (Scotland), April 18, 2004
An insightful editorial from Scotland's the Sunday Herald criticizes an effort by that country's teachers' union to obtain the right to sue students for financial compensation whenever a false accusation is made: "The issue of compensation . . . confuses the relationship between the individual and society. A financial settlement might be good for the individual who lands it, but does nothing for the common good. . . . Punishments could be devised within the school system. Why is the union not calling for that reform, rather than the chance to put a cash price on hurt and humiliation? Perhaps because increasingly money is the only language our society understands. The irony, if such is your taste, is that we will pay a heavy price for it."
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