She skipped a lot of classes this year. Because this was her senior year and she had already been admitted to a state college, no one did much about this skipping. Teachers wrote the occasional referral. Deans talked to the girl. But in a school desperate to get students into any college, a school where entry into community college earns you a big blown-up poster on the hallway walls, Deirdre was a success story. Counselors talked to the girl. Teachers talked to the girl. She went her own way, regularly turning in late assignments in a school where the penalties for late work are minimal to nonexistent.

Eduhonesty: I’m hoping it all works out for Deirdre. She’s a smart girl and when the bar is raised, she may be able to adjust. She is going to be slammed up the side of the head by the academic requirements coming at her, though, and this girl has a poor work ethic. She was able to function in high school without a better one. Will she adapt in time? She will have to get herself up next year and will have to make it to class without nagging from concerned authority figures. She will have to make herself complete assignments on time.

Those big-money majors? I am guessing they are out of her reach. The rigorous demands for engineering and computer science majors are likely to be too big of a shock. If she survives college, she’ll probably end up in a social sciences major. We did not do right by this girl, but teachers knew better than to mess with this willful student. She had a lot of attitude and the administration loved Deirdre. She needed a firmer hand. Instead, the authority figures in her life endlessly told her not to do something she already knew she should not do anyway.

Let’s hope college works out better than I think it will.

We are not all equal.

A classroom is not a democracy.

It’s no surprise if kids don’t understand this fact, though. We negotiate too often. We allow class votes too often. This sharing of power has become embedded in our culture. Some parents let the children pick where to go to dinner, which is perfectly reasonable if parents make it clear that this choice is a treat, not a right. Parents let their children walk out of the house in outfits that barely cover the essentials, wearing fabrics so sheer that any coverage may be moot. Parents encourage children to question authority, often without realizing they are doing so. They argue with the principal over dress code violations, sometimes in front of their child.

“If you need to go to the bathroom you go don’t worry what the teacher says,” they tell their child in text messages that break the no-phone-in-the-classroom rules.

Eduhonesty: This post is for parents. If you make it clear that you will back your child regardless of the rules he or she has broken, that child will not follow the rules. After awhile, your child will be regarded as difficult. What happens afterwards depends on staff, rules and administration. I can tell you that teachers tend to give more attention to less difficult children, whether they ought to or not. Administrators tend to believe the worst of difficult children, even before the facts are in.

Adults are still in charge and most of them realize this. Children benefit from understanding they need to follow the rules, even rules that may not make sense to them or sometimes their parents, rules such as the one that forbids skin-tight pants. Learning to obey rules helps prepare students for future life. Picking and choosing rules to follow can only be a loser for a child, and in the long-run for a parent. It’s a short step from rejecting the school’s leggings rule to rejecting a parental curfew. To a child who learns it’s OK to disobey one adult, after awhile all adults may come to look pretty much alike.

Admin: “How much testing did you do this year”

Teacher: “We had one week of tests in April. To prepare for the April test, we had approximately 10 days of testing before that. After our standardized test, we still had another six days of testing.”

Admin: “What was that for?”

Teacher: “Uhhh, to be honest, I don’t really know. The writing test was perhaps useful because the kids are not tested in writing in 8th grade, but why we had to have three additional reading and math tests is beyond me.”

Admin: “How do kids feel about this?”

Teacher: “Especially at the end of the year, many are angry. Kids realize that all the testing cannot be justified by teachers and administrators as preparation for the state test because testing continues until almost the last day of school. The state test is over in April.”

Admin: “About how many days did your district spend on testing this year?”

Teacher: “Around twenty-one days.”

Admin: “That’s more than one-tenth of the average school year.”

Eduhonesty: My own students spend more than 10% of the school year testing too. The opportunity cost in lost instructional time is staggering. The testing juggernaut needs to be stopped.

Eduhonesty: Telling underperforming students that their work stinks lacks political correctness in these times. We are always supposed to be encouraging. Unfortunately, the alternative is letting kids think they fooled you. Most kids won’t work harder than they have to work in order to get a decent grade. Many kids are perfectly satisfied with a passing grade, even if that grade is a D- and only 60%. In this situation, I think it’s perfectly reasonable when you know a student blew off an assignment to say, “This is absolutely awful. Here’s another copy. Start over.”

There’s a judgment call here. If a student tried to meet expectations, that requires a different response than an assignment that was done in 3 minutes on the bus without a moment’s review at the end.

Especially in urban and impoverished school districts, class size can be a very important variable. A class with many lower-performing students will suffer from behavioral disturbances for a variety of reasons, frustration, boredom and poor peer choices among them. As numbers go up, and the number of frustrated, bored and overly social students rises, teaching challenges increase.

Eduhonesty: A good disciplinary system combined with positive incentives for appropriate behavior can help with this phenomenon, but no true solution exists as long as we guarantee a public education to just about everyone who does not bring a gun to school.

I shared a hotel breakfast with a special education teacher from Houston. She seemed to respect her district, her principal and her school. She has taught for 37 years and will be retiring this year, a perfectly happy soon-to-be-former teacher.

Eduhonesty: I tend to use this blog to write down what’s wrong or problematic. I can find no shortage of material due to increasingly bloated levels of bureaucracy at all levels, the source of increasingly convoluted rules and regulations. But I neglect the perks of the job too often. This special education teacher and I have been on our children’s school schedules, able to plan vacations and be home with the kids. That’s a huge perk. My colleague is a single mom. This may be the best job in the world for a single mom, especially if you work in a huge district like Houston so that you and the kids are on exactly the same schedule. She’ll have a decent pension while she’s still young enough to enjoy that pension.

My school year is drawing to a close. I’ll miss my kids. I’d be happy to find myself teaching them again next year.

Teaching has many great moments.

I was projecting the day’s lesson onto the white screen in front of the class.

“Math? Why do we have to do math?” one of my students asked. “The tests are over.”

For this class, the big, standardized tests for the year had just finished, although the kids one grade ahead had another week of testing coming at them. Let’s be clear that the report card grades for the year were not in yet. School had another week and some left which all the students knew. But in this kid’s mind, the year had officially ended.

I responded that we were there to learn. The end of the big tests did not end the need to study math. My student and a number of his friends appeared unconvinced. With the tests over, and having received assurances from me that everyone in class was passing, a group within that particular math class appeared ready to shut down, regardless of days left in the school year.

Eduhonesty: Kids are often smarter than we give them credit for. At this point, a number of my students seem convinced that instruction is all about hitting test targets. We’ve been telling them that, often indirectly and sometimes even directly. I’m not surprised that this group has decided that any school days remaining after the final standardized test are essentially irrelevant. Hell, I’m not even sure they’re not right.

Nonethesless, I will continue to teach math.

I’ll give a short example. The rule says, “All students must be in the classroom when the bell rings.”

That’s a fine rule. We need to keep that one. My problem is that teachers can get in trouble if they don’t 100% enforce that rule. If an administrator does not like you, trouble becomes particularly likely. Then it’s your fault if the kid’s in the hallway. (I don’t feel like I have much to worry about because administration knows me. I am good for extra work on a regular basis, among other considerations.) Teachers in some schools are written up when students ignore the rules.

But teachers are not sticking cogs inside wheels for a living. Students exercise their free will regularly and I don’t know any teacher who has learned a magic spell to counteract free will.

Two days ago, two of my students were late to class. I could see them standing at the end of the hall. In a loud teacher voice I told them to “Get into class right now!” One called back, “She’s crying!” I repeated my demand because I know my students. The girl in question would cry if her boyfriend forgot their two-week anniversary. She cries all the time. She cries if anyone else cries. She is one of the best sympathetic criers I have ever met. So I forced the girls to come to class.

But I would like to reserve the right to leave another student alone at the end of that hall. I know my kids. I want the ability to make a judgement call. When that kid who never cries has a crisis, I need to be able to adapt to the situation without worrying about administration landing on my back.

Eduhonesty: As I noted, I don’t believe my administration would cause me trouble because they know me. In many lower-performing schools, though, teachers and administrations come and go in a revolving door of hiring, firing, and moving up and on. Too often, we don’t know each other. Teachers should not have to worry about being “written up” for allowing a student to break a rule. Let’s assume I am an intelligent professional trying to do my job. I’d like not to have to worry about looking bad because I am not 100% with a program that is not 100% enforceable in any case.

Before we were all judged by rubrics and rules that are becoming less and less flexible, I could let a kid sleep in class without worrying about receiving a professional black mark. Now, in some schools, I’d be immediately reproached and maybe even end up with a reprimand in my file if an administrator walked in and saw that sleeping kid. Let’s be clear that I wake almost everybody up if they try to snooze during my presentation. But when a kid from a group home says, “Sorry, ma’am. I was up all night because we had to go pick up a new guy and I only got two hours sleep,” I want to be able to say, “You can sleep. I’ll catch you up later.”

Texas high school sends 170 students home for violating the dress code
By Charlene Sakoda
May 15, 2014 4:45 PM

Odd News

Duncanville High School in Texas was the scene of a mass uprising Wednesday after 170 students were sent home for violating the dress code and anadditional unknown number were given in-school suspensions. As reported by KDFW Fox 4, administrators even called upon local police to help control the situation.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Duncanville students were found in violation of the dress code in the morning and administrators instructed those violators to gather in the cafeteria before being sent home. Some of the items listed in the Duncanville Independent School District’s dress code policy include a requirement that students wear belts, shirts free of logos and designs, and it prohibits denim.

Student Jose Marquez was suspended on Wednesday and said, “The teacher just calls me and tells me to lift my shirt up and I didn’t have a belt on. So [no] belt and ID and got kicked out.” Edward Ramirez, a junior with a 3.5 GPA said he had never been written up before the dress code sweep. He told KDFW, “The staff told me that my shirt was out of dress code despite the fact that it is a school spirit shirt.” The dress code does include an exception to the policy allowing principals to OK school spirit shirts like the one Ramirez wore, on stipulated days. Some students said that faculty allowed the spirit shirts on most days.
…
As news of the student suspensions spread, protests began and a food fight reportedly started in the cafeteria around 11:30 a.m. and migrated to the school hallways. Brittany Hall, a Duncanville High School senior told KDFW, “The class just got fed up and things were being thrown like trash cans, tables, and food. We actually had to hide underneath a table just to not get hit by everything that was flying.” The KDFW helicopter camera captured a “heavy police presence” outside the school around 1 p.m. Things had apparently gotten out of control and administrators decided to call in the authorities to regain order, but no arrests were reported.

The article goes on to describe the administration’s intent to continue enforcing the dress code.

Eduhonesty: Many people don’t understand why schools have dress codes. Mostly those codes were created to manage possible gang problems. You can’t represent your gang colors if the school dress code does not allow those colors. For that matter, you can’t represent your gang colors if the code uses your colors. If everyone is wearing black and red, gang-affiliated or not, the gang message becomes lost. Dress codes also save money. A quick trip to Walmart or Target for black pants and red or white collared shirts accomplishes the year’s clothing purchases for school.

Kids fight dress codes pretty hard, though. Adolescents want to express their individuality. They try a small logo, an unusual shade of blue, a necklace that has not specifically been forbidden. They buy forbidden leggings that look like jeans to wear on Spirit Friday with their school shirt. They wear scarves or bright pink shoes. Teachers wrestle with the dilemmas posed by those pink shoes and tiny logos. Do I want to send the kid out for a dress-code violation? She’ll miss the math. If I don’t send her out, though, the logo will be bigger next time and someone else will turn up in forbidden pink shoes.

I hate dress codes. Dress codes result in disciplinary actions that take students out of the classroom. Dress codes suck up teacher time as teachers fill out the necessary disciplinary referrals and make related calls home. Dress codes result in students being too cold sometimes since hoodies are hardly ever allowed in the classroom (too easy to hide your face) and hoodies may be the only outerwear brought to school.

Dress codes also make kids feel poor. Students in urban and financially disadvantaged districts go to other schools for sporting events or they see those schools on museum field trips. They know that more prosperous areas don’t have a rigid dress code. If those wealthier schools have any code at all, it’s often something like “Girls cannot wear spaghetti straps or skirts/shorts that rise above the fingertips when their arms are by their sides. Boys must wear belts.”

I’d like to scrap my school’s dress code for a year or two to see what happens. If gang problems recur, we can go back to the dress code, but I suspect the threat of a strict dress code might be enough to stave off the threat of gang colors. These codes came into existence mostly as a result of gang activity some years ago. Colors for representing may be old-fashioned by now. I recognize the advantages of the dress code, especially for financially- strapped parents, but that food riot speaks volumes about how adolescents view these codes. When we consider the chaos in that cafeteria in Texas, I think we can reasonably ask if Duncanville High School would be worse off next year without a dress code. A great deal of administrative time is lost in my school and presumably in Duncanville High by administrators managing clothing code violations.