Going soft on school discipline is another slap at poor kids who could excel
Low-income strivers — impoverished families who follow the rules and work hard to climb the ladder to the middle class — may be the most underserved population in America today.
For 20 years, national policies have focused largely on the lowest-performing students, often to the detriment of their higher-achieving, low-income peers. Recently, many cities — including Chicago, Philadelphia and Syracuse — have made a goal of reducing school suspensions and other tough-love approaches to school discipline, with little concern for the impact on the kids who come to school ready to follow the rules.
These efforts have received vocal support from the federal Department of Education. Policymakers and educators say they are doing this in the name of equity. But when everyone in a school is harmed by some students’ unruly behavior, it’s a strange notion of fairness indeed.
Imagine that we wanted to prioritize low-income students who demonstrated aptitude to achieve and a willingness to work hard. First, we would put in place “screening” tests to look for gifted students in elementary schools.
We would ask schools, including those with a high percentage of poor students, to identify at least 10 percent of their students for special programs, and allow these kids the opportunity to spend part of their day learning with other high-achieving peers, and to go faster or deeper into the curriculum.
A study by David Card and Laura Giuliano demonstrated this sort of approach is particularly effective for high-achieving, low-income students.
By middle school, we would embrace tracking so that poor, bright students had access to the same challenging courses that affluent high-achievers regularly enjoy, and that are essential if young people are going to get on a trajectory for success.
Finally, we would ensure schools were safe and orderly places, balancing the educational needs of disruptive students with the equally valuable needs of their rule-abiding peers.
Yet in most cities we do very few of these things. This is in large part because many progressives are convinced that any sort of tracking is classist and racist, and amounts Going soft on school discipline is another slap at poor kids who could excel | New York Post:
