[News] Use of force in classrooms betrays Black, Latino and disabled students

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Use of force in classrooms betrays vulnerable students

Black, Latino and disabled students bear brunt of physical discipline in 
educational settings

July 8, 2014 12:00AM ET
by Michelle Chen 
<http://america.aljazeera.com/profiles/c/michelle-chen0.html> 
@meeshellchen <http://www.twitter.com/meeshellchen>
*http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/education-restraintschooltoprisonpipelinedisciplinepunishment.html*

Any kid who has ever faced down a schoolyard bully will understand the 
adage "Pick on someone your own size." These days, the biggest bully of 
all is school itself: When their behavior causes too much trouble, 
students are sometimes pinned to the ground, tied up or locked inside a 
cell by an adult, supposedly for their own good. What schools call 
restraint is in many cases just brute force masked as social control. 
And according to rights advocates, it is the system that is out of control.

There's a mean streak creeping into public schools based on the idea 
that kids are there to be fixed, straightened out, humbled and made 
acceptable for a world of standards and rules.**This law-and-order 
sentiment, woven into the institutional culture of public education, has 
allowed schools not only to treat behavior problems like security 
threats but also to brand children as criminals --- supposedly to teach 
them a lesson. The trend of heavy-handed policing in schools --- from 
harsh discipline to suspension and even incarceration of kids --- 
reflects a disturbing social tendency to equate control with repression. 
It also strips the rights of our most vulnerable citizens, letting 
authority figures pick on those least able to defend themselves.

According to a recent NPR-ProPublica investigation 
<http://www.propublica.org/article/schools-restraints-seclusions> of 
federal data from 2011 and 2012, schools have reported instances of 
broken bones, bondage of children in elastic cords and duct tape and 
even suicide. A 2009 <http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09719t.pdf>study 
<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09719t.pdf> (PDF) from the Government 
Accountability Office identified at least 20 deaths resulting from 
disciplinary restraint or isolation of children. NPR and ProPublica 
reported that in 2012 alone, students were restrained about 267,000 
times --- and 3 out of 4 of those kids had "physical, emotional or 
intellectual disabilities." In one year, some 7,600 incidents involved 
"mechanical restraints," such as binding a child with a bungee cord. At 
other times, children were suppressed with an adult's bodily force. 
Picture a first-grader with hyperactivity disorder being pinned to the 
floor by a safety officer four times her size; it's a security measure 
that carries grave risks of its own.

There are, sadly, times when children with severe mental health issues 
need to be restrained from hurting themselves or others. But the lack of 
consistent policy on disciplinary tactics or even clear data on how 
restraints and other interventions are used raises questions about 
whether schools themselves need to be more restrained in their policing 
of children.**In the bigger picture, harsh discipline feeds into what 
civil rights advocates call the school to prison pipeline 
<https://www.aclu.org/school-prison-pipeline>, a continuum of oppression 
that effectively funnels children toward ever harsher forms of 
punishment. For instance, getting suspended for a schoolyard fight might 
eventually exacerbate a student's disruptive classroom behavior; once he 
or she is branded a troublemaker, expulsion or arrest might follow, then 
a stint in youth detention --- and so the cycle continues, with 
especially devastating effects on black and Latino communities.

School safety is a collective responsibility, not merely a top-down 
execution of punishment.

Even more troubling is a tendency for these abuses to mirror trends of 
structural violence and discrimination outside school. According to the 
Department of Education 
<http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-discipline-snapshot.pdf> (PDF), 
black students make up 16 percent of total enrollment but 27 percent of 
students referred to law enforcement and 31 percent of those arrested. 
Similarly, students with disabilities 
<http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2014/03/report_students_with_disabilit.html>, 
which can range from physical impairments to autism spectrum disorders, 
account for just 12 percent of the student population but a quarter of 
those subjected to arrest and law enforcement referral. This trend 
starts even before kindergarten, with far higher rates of out-of-school 
suspension among black preschoolers (particularly boys) compared with 
their white peers.

When they coincide, blackness and disability further compound the 
effects of the disciplinary gauntlet. Black youths make up about 
one-fifth of students with disabilities but more than one-third of those 
restrained with a mechanical device or equipment designed to restrict 
their freedom of movement.

Patterns of biased discipline 
<http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED524710.pdf> (PDF) --- whether they 
reflect subconscious profiling 
<http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/school-discipline/> or outright bigotry 
in school authorities --- reveal the dangers of culturally ingrained 
stereotypes that mark black and Latino students as inherently deviant 
and less worthy of empathy and care.

Despite some recent policy proposals in the Senate 
<http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Seclusion%20and%20Restraints%20Final%20Report.pdf> 
(PDF) to limit the use of restraint and curb excessive discipline in 
schools, the cruelty continues, bolstered by institutional opacity. 
Because the data collected from schools on the use of restraints is 
spotty, official statistics likely represent a major undercount. And 
lacking oversight of teachers and administrators' use of physical 
discipline, school districts cannot develop effective ethical parameters 
limiting the use of force on children.

But a growing body of research gives us concrete ideas for the kind of 
discipline that works in unruly classrooms without violating children's 
rights. In many cases, preventive solutions are surprisingly simple, 
starting with treating kids like kids.

To reach a détente with schoolyard rebels, education authorities should 
repeal zero tolerance policies that encourage overreaction to common 
disruptions (such as pre-emptive security crackdowns on ordinary school 
fights) and instead focus on proactively de-escalating violence.

The next step is to implement positive interventions 
<http://b.3cdn.net/advancement/5d8bec1cdf51cb38ec_60m6y18hu.pdf> (PDF): 
conflict resolution programs, peer dialogue, psychological counseling 
and training for school staff on how to cool down arguments or fights 
without having to resort to violent restraint. Instead of racing to fund 
metal detectors and guards to police the halls, officials should focus 
on providing on-site, comprehensive mental health care in schools so 
students are not automatically suspended or carted away in ambulances 
before school staff can properly assess their behavioral issues.

Even for more serious situations, such as when one student assaults 
another, youths can be diverted into rehabilitation or counseling 
programs that can keep them from falling into the criminal justice 
system. Some schools have alleviated disciplinary problems with programs 
based on the technique 
<http://www.fixschooldiscipline.org/toolkit/educators/swpbis/#> of 
social emotional learning 
<http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/outcomes/>. This 
holistic approach, which requires training for both kids and staff, 
fosters conflict prevention and resolution by building a social climate 
of self-awareness and conscientiousness among peers.

The broader lesson in this is that school safety is a collective 
responsibility, not merely a top-down execution of punishment. Real 
school security is about making young people feel safe being themselves, 
showing their vulnerability, asserting control of their bodies and 
defending themselves, calmly, against undue aggression, whether it comes 
from a peer or an authority figure. Conventional school disciplinary 
policies reflexively impose shame and fear in the name of security. It 
takes a lot more strength --- and compassion --- to secure our schools 
through mutual trust.

Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times 
<http://inthesetimes.com/>, an associate editor at CultureStrike 
<http://culturestrike.net/> and a blogger at The Nation 
<http://www.thenation.com/blogs/michelle-chen>. She is a co-producer of 
"Asia Pacific Forum <http://www.asiapacificforum.org/>" on Pacifica's 
WBAI and Dissent magazine's Belabored 
<http://www.dissentmagazine.org/tag/belabored> podcast. She studies 
history at the City University of New York Graduate Center
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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