The Myth of School Chaos

By Jeff Simpson

In 2011, President Obama's Administration wrote what is known as a "Dear Colleague" letter.  This letter was by no means a guideline but was a well thought out and researched memo to help America's public schools address the opportunity gap and work on ending systemic racism. 

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice (Departments) are issuing this guidance to assist public elementary and secondary schools in meeting their obligations under Federal law to administer student discipline without discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The Departments recognize the commitment and effort of educators across the United States to provide their students with an excellent education. The Departments believe that guidance on how to identify, avoid, and remedy discriminatory discipline will assist schools in providing all students with equal educational opportunities.1
The Departments strongly support schools in their efforts to create and maintain safe and orderly educational environments that allow our nation’s students to learn and thrive. Many schools have adopted comprehensive, appropriate, and effective programs demonstrated to: (1) reduce disruption and misconduct; (2) support and reinforce positive behavior and character development; and (3) help students succeed. Successful programs may incorporate a wide range of strategies to reduce misbehavior and maintain a safe learning environment, including conflict resolution, restorative practices, counseling, and structured systems of positive interventions. The Departments recognize that schools may use disciplinary measures as part of a program to promote safe and orderly educational environments.

This was a letter that was jointly drafted by the US Department of Education and the US Department of Justice.  It was a well documented, and well thought out response for a very real problem in America....a huge racial disparity and opportunity gap in our schools. 

There is a problem with the letter though, it came from President Obama(we are in an era where the number one priority of the Donald and the hard core far right, is erasing anything that President Obama might have done to create a legacy).  Secondly, this guideline, is meant to help address racial disparities, another taboo issue for what passes as conservatives these days.  In their mind, there is no problem and people of color get in more trouble and have lower grades because they get the grades and punishment they deserve.

See it is important to trust the teachers and the schools when punishing kids of colors, but if they have any other complaints or questions about their working conditions - they need to "shut up and teach" and " stop indoctrinating " our children.

Now that we have established what our friends on the right are so upset about, and the pure hypocrisy of it, lets dig a little deeper into their complaints.

Recently, a group of people on the far right drafted a letter and sent it to Secretary of Education Betsy "Amway" DeVos.   The main signator on this letter, was Rick Esenberg, the face of the Bradley Foundation's Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty(WILL). 

There were others who signed, but it really is just a formality.   The group think of worker drones for the monied interests of the far right, is as indistinguishable as a harem of seals on the shore. 

Let's take a quick peek at the letter:

The baseless demands of the Dear Colleague letter are having real world consequences throughout the nation. Milwaukee is a case in point. The Resolution Agreement requires MPS to “assess whether [it] is implementing its student discipline policies, practices and procedures in a non-discriminatory manner” by collecting “data regarding referrals for student discipline and the imposition of disciplinary sanctions at all District schools” and evaluating, among other things, “whether black students are receiving more removals, referrals or discipline than students of other races,” “whether black students are receiving more expulsions than students of other races,” “whether certain teachers and administrators refer disproportionately high numbers of students of a particular race for discipline,” and “whether black students are disproportionately referred for offenses in which subjective judgment is exercised.”  MPS must provide these evaluations to OCR along with “a description of actions it proposes to take in response to these evaluations.”21 If the data “suggests . . . disproportion,” in other words, MPS must “explore possible causes for the disproportion and consider steps that can be taken to eliminate the disproportion to the maximum extent possible.”22 

Esenberg, is arguing here that it puts a burden on the school systems to try and figure out why, and eliminate the disproportionality in discipline for the students of color. 

Esenberg and friends understand why the kids of color have more discipline problems and lower GPA's, etc... They are not white.   They are telling Ms. DeVos, that the problem is solved, there is no fixing it and it is time to focus on the white kids. 

Of course the red polo/khaki crowd eats this stuff up.  To perpetuate the myth that our public schools are failing, that the inner city (larger population of minorities) are out of control and they are interfering with the white kids who want to learn. 

It does not take a field full of tiki torches to see it!

Just check out some of the bit players in the right wing echo chamber:

Dave Blaska for instance:

The greater irony is that it was President Barack Obama’s administration that forced districts to set what amounts to racial quotas in school discipline. Thankfully, a Wisconsin-based conservative action group is moving to restore order in the classroom so that children of all colors can succeed.

The National Review weighed in:

As a policy matter, there is overwhelming evidence that Obama-era policies culminating in this “Dear Colleague” letter pushed schools to avoid disciplining students who needed to be disciplined. It made avoiding politically incorrect numbers more important than maintaining school safety.

Actually that is ridiculous, there is zero evidence that the "guidelines" (not regulations), pushed anyone into anything and in no place in America have they "avoided disciplining students who need disciplining"(that distinction is aimed for the Walker Admin who thanks to the far right activist judges, have made sure there is no disciplining of people who need it - but that is another post).

The Moonie publication Washington Times even weighed in via Marco Rubio:

Mr. Rubio said the guidance should be revised “to ensure that schools appropriately report violence and dangerous actions to local law enforcement,” while others have encouraged Mrs. DeVos to repeal it outright.   In the tragic aftermath of the murders in Florida, which were preventable, we simply cannot take the chance that other school districts, in response to a Dear Colleague letter issued in 2014 by the Obama administration, will continue to enforce or will implement the disastrous race-based, discipline-free program put in place in December of 2013 by Broward County,” William Perry Pendley, president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, said Friday in a letter to Mrs. DeVos.  

Now that we see how shallow the echo chamber is in Wisconsin, let us take a quick look at actual reality.

1.  The Dear Colleague letter was a guideline, not a regulation.   There as no - do this or else attached. 

2.    Yes there is an imperative to look at discipline in our schools along with the opportunity gap.  It does not make logical sense, that children of color are the ones causing disruptions or are incredibly more of a discipline problem, than the white kids.  Anymore than it makes logical sense that there are more unarmed black men who get shot by police than any other race.  Yet the results speak for themselves. 

Should we accept institutional racism?  Or should we just not be surprised that a subsection of people who have waged a war on science would also have no interest in logic?

3.  The only people in Wisconsin who have been advocating for a "consequence-free environment" are the people knee deep in Walkergate and the John Doe investigation, and while that turned into a consequence free work place for our Governor and it only cost $1,000,000,000 in legal fees for Mr. Walker.   

4.   Unfortunately, the students in Wisconsin face consequences every single day.   When Scott Walker and his crew in Fitzwalkerstan, cut almost $2 Billion dollars from public education, the children have faced daily consequences.   The consequences from a massive teacher exodus of veteran teachers, who took not only years and years of institutional knowledge with them but also the ability to mentor younger teachers on the finer points of the job that they do not get in college.   

Our children have faced the consequences of a poorly funded public education system that hurts children in terms of higher class sizes, less Educational Assistants, less professional development, fewer of our best and brightest college students majoring in education, crumbling buildings and longer bus rides, among other things.   

Our children also have had to suffer the consequences of less needed services in the community, their parents being forced to work more than one job and spending less time with the kids, the increased cost of and lack of healthcare causing more stress and worse sickness and disease amongst families.   

5. I am not blind, I understand when our friends on the right talk about children needing "discipline" they mean punish the kids of color.   However, for most of us, "discipline" means -

: training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character

Training, not punitive punishment, is how you make long term change.   It is why the recidivism rate in our prisons is almost 70%.    The days of the old wild west are gone for a reason.

6.  Finally, and this is the biggest, is that ACT10 absolutely plays a big part on the chaos in the schools now.  As Dave Zweifel says, it absolutely IS the issue.   

The far right Walkerites, first order of business when they were elected was to make sure that their biggest opposition, the public workers unions, and more specifically the teacher's unions.  So they had to be punished. 

Act10 was secretly forced upon us as a way to make sure that the teachers had no say in their workplace.   If they made less money, they would have less money to send to the Democrats running for election, which would in turn help the Republicans stay in office. 

However, the biggest problem is that Republicans have no idea what unions actually do.  Whole they for sure do help their members to have a fair wage, they also advocate for better working conditions, safer classrooms, well being and safety of members, the rights of students, especially individual students and those who need more advocacy, because they spend every day with the kids. 

When Scott Walker forced a pay cut on the teachers, he also silenced their voice in every aspect of the school system. 

Now it is more than ironic that they are trying to tell everyone that we should listen to the teachers, they know what is best in the classrooms. 

#7 - Extra Credit - There will be talk that restorative justice was the reason a teenager was killed in a school in New York, based on a "report" by some right wing extremist group T74.   There is no more casual relationship between this death and Restorative Justice as there is between this death and algebra. 

I am not here to say that our public school system is perfect with no room for improvement.   That is not realistic, nor is it a prevailing thought anywhere. 

However, our public school system is the best thing we have, is the one equalizer in our society and has proven it not only works, but it works well. 

It just needs to be fully funded and tweeked. 

The best first step for that would be to realize that the WILL's, Blaska's, National Review's, Betsy DeVos's of the world have no interest in anything but their own bank account and ruining public education. 

They are on the wrong side of America and the wrong side of history. 

Vote PUBLIC EDUCATION in November! 

National Review Waxes Melodramatic Over Walkergate

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is soon due to make a ruling regarding the John Doe investigation into Scott Walker and his illegal collaboration with third party dark money groups, such as the Wisconsin Club for Growth. Even though four of the seven justices are obliged to recuse themselves due to the large amount of support they received from WCoG and other such dark money groups, they have shown no indication that they will be doing the proper thing.

The possibility of this going south for Walker and the dark money groups have them scared to death. If all of Walker's misdeeds come to the light of day, it will sink his presidential bid just as fast as if he was caught deflowering a virgin goat. Even if their Machiavellian scheme to bury the John Doe works, the fact that the Supreme Court is so tainted will raise doubt in people capable of independent thought.

In preparation for whatever the results, the right wing is doing preemptive strikes to gain sympathy for Walker and his fellow scofflaws. The right wing has decided that the best course of action is to clutch their pearls and swoon back on their fainting couches.

One of the most notorious of these strikes is the God-awrful dreck penned by David French at the National Review.

After giving one anecdotal - and highly embellished - account after another, French ends up with this melodramatic prose:

For some of the families, the trauma of the raids, combined with the stress and anxiety of lengthy criminal investigations, has led to serious emotional repercussions. “Devastating” is how Anne describes the impact on her family. “Life-changing,” she says. “All in terrible ways.”

O’Keefe, who has been in contact with multiple targeted families, says, “Every family I know of that endured a home raid has been shaken to its core, and the fate of marriages and families still hangs in the balance in some cases.”

Anne also describes a new fear of the police: “I used to support the police, to believe they were here to protect us. Now, when I see an officer, I’ll cross the street. I’m afraid of them. I know what they’re capable of.”

Cindy says, “I lock my doors and I close my shades. I don’t answer the door unless I am expecting someone. My heart races when I see a police car sitting in front of my house or following me in the car. The raid was so public. I’ve been harassed. My house has been vandalized. [She did not identify suspects.] I no longer feel safe, and I don’t think I ever will.”

Rachel talks about the effect on her children. “I tried to create a home where the kids always feel safe. Now they know they’re not. They know men with guns can come in their house, and there’s nothing we can do.” Every knock on the door brings anxiety. Every call to the house is screened. In the back of her mind is a single, unsettling thought: These people will never stop.

Victims of trauma — and every person I spoke with described the armed raids as traumatic — often need to talk, to share their experiences and seek solace in the company of a loving family and supportive friends. The investigators denied them that privilege, and it compounded their pain and fear.

Keep in mind that none of these people were beaten, tasered or shot to death like so many, unarmed, innocent black people - whom this group loves to mock.

Also keep in mind that the Walkergate proceedings have led to six convictions and revealed a vast criminal scheme of illegal politicking with Scott Walker at the center of it.

Not only does French lay it on thick with the hysteria and melodramatics, but he plays loose and fancy free with the facts.

For example, take the first story French regales us with regarding Cindy Archer, who was then Walker's top aide as Director of the Department of Administration for Milwaukee County. After telling us of the horrors that this criminal was treated like a criminal, he writes:

“I told him this was my house and I could do what I wanted.” Wrong thing to say. “This made the agent in charge furious. He towered over me with his finger in my face and yelled like a drill sergeant that I either do it his way or he would handcuff me.”

They wouldn’t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off.

The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and — according to Cindy — leaving her “dead mother’s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.”

Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop.

Now the truth of the matter is that the raid was conducted by sheriff's deputies and FBI agents. And they took boxes full of stuff from her home and the stuff she tried to pawn off on her neighbors:

Archer's neighbors said about a dozen law enforcement officers arrived Wednesday sometime before 7 a.m. One agent took photos of the house, and others wore jackets that said they were responsible for gathering evidence.

Around 9 a.m., a reporter saw four FBI agents - two of them wearing latex gloves - talking in Archer's backyard before going into her house. Later, one removed a large box and put it in the trunk of an FBI car. They left about 10 a.m.

The FBI also seized the hard drive from a computer that a neighbor had bought from Archer six to eight weeks ago at a garage sale.

Next-door neighbor Dale Riechers said he had never turned on the computer because he was planning to work on it later in the fall. He told the agents about the hard drive and they asked to take it, Riechers said.

If one was wondering why the law enforcement officials were interested in the electronics, part of the reason is that a large number of computers and files came up missing when Walker left for Madison.

Another reason is that Archer was up to her armpits in the illegal politicking, as evidence by her email to Kelly Rindfleisch, one of those convicted, welcoming her to the "inner circle":

Included in more than 27,000 pages of emails and other documents unsealed Wednesday are the closest links yet between Gov. Scott Walker and a secret email system used in his office when he was Milwaukee County executive.

"Consider yourself now in the 'inner circle,'" Walker's administration director, Cynthia Archer, wrote to Walker aide Kelly Rindfleisch just after the two exchanged a test message.

"I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW and Nardelli. You should be sure you check it throughout the day," she wrote, referring to Walker by his initials and to Walker's then-chief of staff, Tom Nardelli.

Court documents have previously showed Walker's aides set up a secret wireless router in the county executive's office and traded emails that mixed county and campaign business on Gmail and Yahoo accounts. The email from Archer made public Wednesday is the closest link yet between that system and Walker.

Contrary to the arguments that the Walker apologists are using, the Walkergate investigations have nothing to do with Free Speech. They are all about their role in the theft of our democracy.