Losing classroom control begins with principals

I can explain the cause of this rising concern about out-of-control classrooms and discipline policies.

Teachers usually send students to the office because the student is disrupting the lesson to a degree that makes it impossible to teach and to learn.

School principals are held accountable to the district for their school’s suspension and expulsion statistics. These factor in their job reviews.

The district wants to see low numbers, because more students in school means more average daily attendance money for the district. Cha-ching.

The discipline data is also used to analyze disparities among minority groups and as a gauge of the principal’s degree of control over students and teachers. You don’t want to look like a racist or as though you are incompetent to run a well-ordered school.

Suspensions and expulsions also require ample paperwork and time-consuming meetings that administrators would rather avoid.

So the office sends the disruptive student back to the classroom, sometimes without anyone having talked to the student at all. Maybe they even gave the kid a doughnut.

Disruptions continue, but the principal looks good on paper.

This story was originally published December 22, 2015 at 6:21 AM with the headline "Losing classroom control begins with principals."