Oh I agree alot of this comes down to funding. In my expereince I’ve never seen a school have an ISS room run by a regular teacher or even had special training.
True story: In one HS I worked at they had ISS but no funds for a teacher. They didnt even have a room set aide for it. The best they could do was assign one coach to have the kids in a little used room part time.
In another HS they also didnt have an ISS teacher but had a different teacher every hour cover the room. Even if it was a sub.
In most schools the ISS teacher is paid about the same rate as a para - or about half what a regular teacher makes.
Then when you have just ONE ISS room in a school of 500 kids, what happens if you have 50 kids in it?
But how does even the most devoted anti-racist teacher deal with kids that want to walk in and out of their room, just want to look at their phones, disrupt constantly, and refuse to do any work?
I wasn’t reminding anyone that racism is wrong. I was pointing out that what is often attributed by conservatives to “culture” is just the refraction of racism. That is a point I am not so sure you do get.
I would also add that the whole idea that black parents in the aggregate care less about education than whites has very little empirical support. It appears to just be a racist trope.
What you certainly don’t do is just write that kid off as coming from a bad culture, or decide that we can just kick those kids out of school because it is someone else’s error of personal responsibility.
What you do is try to figure out why that behavior is happening and solve it. Sometimes, often even, you can’t. You can only work at the margins. But I can tell you some things that really help. One is smaller classes. Another is ample, full-time social workers and counselors. Another is the funding and training for restorative justice practices. All of those have something in common: $$$. I can’t speak for every state, but in most states, per-pupil spending is lower at schools that have more disciplinary problems. It should be the opposite.
The big ones are:
[ul]
[li]Housing segregation and discrimination[/li][li]Transportation networks designed during the height of white flight[/li][li]Household wealth disparities[/li][li]Racially-segregated job markets[/li][/ul]
These are both the product of past racist practices and ongoing racist practices.
For a while one hypothesis was just that people self-segregate because they prefer living near people like them. But it turns out if you give people vouchers to move and help them overcome discriminatory housing processes then they pretty readily move to places with much higher economic and educational opportunity.
The biggest step you can make to help children is get their parents involved. Not notified, not called, not text, INVOLVED. They can care all they want about their children, if they don’t ‘care’ enough to be involved, daily, then that child will undoubtedly do worse than an involved parent’s child.
Schools WANT kids in school! Why? Because that is how funding is given.
Teachers on the whole want to help children, they sure as hell ain’t there for the big bucks.
I had teachers that would bend over backwards to help me if I showed even a modicum of effort and interest. But no effort and no interest? They can’t and shouldn’t be nannies. They are teachers.
Suppose I showed you that, empirically, black parents care more about education than white parents and report higher rates of wanting to be involved in their schools. But then you observe that, in fact, white parents are disproportionately involved. What would you conclude the cause is?
I know of no such thing as housing segregation and discrimination based upon what? Color? Because as far as I know, the color of money is king (assuming you have a decent credit history and not a bad rap as far as damage to previous rental property etc)
No clue on your second point
Household wealth isn’t racist …
What job markets are racially segregated?
I am really trying to understand how these issues are primarily racially motivated, but all I see is class. The poor downtrodden folks can’t be asked to pick themselves up. If they can’t pick themselves up, how can society expect them to pick the kids (That they shouldn’t have had) up as well.
Vouchers might well help a certain section of those folks, the ones who actually do care. What about the rest of them? Can’t kick them out of school, what do you think those schools turn into?
They turn into parking lots because the ones that don’t care won’t go to school.
Then I would say that the black families don’t really care all that much regardless of what they answer to on a questionnaire. You MAKE the time for your kids. THEY are YOUR responsibility
‘Obviously, those slaves don’t care much about freedom. If they did, they’d be free. It’s about PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.’
~1890
‘What, you’re complaining? After the government took responsibility and freed you? And you’re still complaining that the only work you can get is in a field, for pennies, with constant abuse, and you can only live in a leaky, filthy shack? Take responsibility for your own life! It’s about PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.’
~1950
‘My god, you’re still complaining? After all these years, you still haven’t taken PERSONAL RESPONSIBILIITY? If you really wanted to vote, you’d just do what it takes to vote. Obviously you don’t care enough.’