Do we really want schools to be free from violence, disorder and disruption? We say we do, but recent events in Cincinnati show that there are some prices we are not willing to pay.
A couple of years ago, the Cincinnati school district, in cooperation with the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, instituted a tough school discipline code. They realized that there is no point in talking about meeting world-class education standards -- or even improving student achievement -- unless there is order in the schools. It is obvious that students can't concentrate if they are worried about catching a stray bullet in the lunchroom. But disruption is far more common than violence in our schools, and it's routinely destructive to learning. All you need is one kid who sits in the back of the room shouting put-downs at other students to guarantee that very little learning takes place.
Cincinnati's discipline code provides stiff penalties for students who disrupt classes as well as for those who endanger other people. A student who makes noises or throws things or talks so that others cannot learn can be subject to an in-school suspension or regular suspension. Cursing out a teacher brings a mandatory suspension. And chronic offenders can be expelled for up to 80 days. Kids can appeal regular suspensions and expulsions, but teachers don't have to keep a kid in class if he is dangerous. He can be removed while awaiting his hearing, so that the other kids don't have to suffer.
But Cincinnati's tough code is in trouble. A proposed court settlement threatens to seriously compromise the way the code is enforced and may even gut it.
The settlement, which involves a 20-year-old desegregation case, notes the disparate impact of the code on African-American students and seeks to remedy it. Its solution is to keep records of the race and sex of the teachers referring students for disciplinary action and the race and sex of the students. These records will help decide whether a teacher should get a pay increase or further training in classroom management -- or be terminated.
What standards will be used in interpreting the records? Wil it be ok for a black teacher to refer a black child for disciplinary action but not for a white teacher -- even if it's the same offense? Will a white female teacher who mainly refers African-American boys be in trouble while a black male teacher doing the same will be all right? Will kids of different races who break the same rules be dealt with differently? Might a quota system be set up that establishes how many kids in different race groups can be disciplined for a given offense in a given year?
The problems with this approach to discipline are obvious. The mere fact that there is a disparity between referrals of white and black students does not mean there is discrimination. The question is whether a particular teacher was justified in referring a particular student for discipline, and you can't answer that by looking at their races. To what extent is this student's unacceptable behavior part of a regular pattern? Does it occur with most teachers? With this teacher only? Could it be provocation on the part of the teacher? We don't base parking tickets on the race of the driver, and we can't use it to decide questions of school discipline.
If the court accepts the proposed settlement, you can bet that teachers will think twice about referring a student for discipline. It will go on a teacher's records, and the punishment the teacher gets for reporting an offending student is likely to be greater than the punishment the student gets. Teachers will probably also decide that it's not worth it to report an African-American student when they might be called on the carpet for bias -- at least not until they have reported their appropriate quotas of students of other races.
Teachers in their role as disciplinarians are like policemen, arresting students who have broken the law. This court settlement is like telling policemen, "The more criminals you turn in, the harder time we will give you. And, incidentally, your arrests had better be racially balanced." There are policemen and teachers who are lousy, but you don't weed out the bad ones by making it impossible for all of them to do their jobs.
African-American leaders recently called a national conference to talk about black-on-black crime. This was courageous but, as they said, it was also necessary. There is a similar issue here. If the court settlement destroys Cincinnati's discipline code, some of the children who escape being suspended will be black. And the overwhelming percentage of children denied an education in disorderly and even violent classrooms will also be black. That's the real crime in this story.