Excessive violence in schools

[Josh]

So every time a kid is bullied or a kid misbehaves in class we make a Federal case out of it and take it to Federal court?

Do you even conceive of the ridiculousness of that idea?

In any event, Title IX is a Federal statute. So if that is what Trump actually means then that would require that Congress pass some new Federal School Discipline Statute to empower the DOE and DOJ to investigate and prosecute incidences of school misbehavior. And then we would probably have to triple the size and budget of the DOE in order to hire all those new Federal school discipline investigators and prosecutors.

Hey, I'm not the one in favour of federalising everything. (You may have mistaken me for Trump; I am not Trump.) I agree that something like Title IX is a terrible idea.

[Ken]

So every time a kid is bullied or a kid misbehaves in class we make a Federal case out of it and take it to Federal court?

Do you even conceive of the ridiculousness of that idea?

In any event, Title IX is a Federal statute. So if that is what Trump actually means then that would require that Congress pass some new Federal School Discipline Statute to empower the DOE and DOJ to investigate and prosecute incidences of school misbehavior. And then we would probably have to triple the size and budget of the DOE in order to hire all those new Federal school discipline investigators and prosecutors.

Hey, I'm not the one in favour of federalising everything. (You may have mistaken me for Trump; I am not Trump.) I agree that something like Title IX is a terrible idea.

Well, all of my daughters were able to play school soccer at the same level and with the same resources as the boys because of Title IX. And my middle daughter can pursue a science career at her university without fear of being discriminated against for research jobs and such because she is female. Which definitely used to happen before Title IX. So there is that.

But this particular instance is an example of Trump seeing some issue blow up in social media (school discipline) and thinking that there is some presidential (i.e. Federal) solution to that problem that he can claim he will solve through Federal action if he is elected president.

It demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of Federal powers, Federal capabilities, and Federal roles when it comes to education. Which is concerning for someone running to serve a second term as president. There are about 3.6 million public school teachers in the US educating about 50 million students in about 98,000 different public schools. So we are talking about an enormous scale.

There are a grand total of 3912 employees of the Department of Education, a small minority of whom have probably ever even set foot in the classroom. What they mostly do is administer Federal student loans and Pell Grants for higher education. And then write implementing regulations for things like Title XI at both the K-12 and college level and acting as a data clearinghouse for state-collected data on educational topics like literacy, school discipline, dropout rates, etc.

Trump should actually know that. If not the precise numbers, the general sense of how big the department is and what it does. He obviously doesn't.

So even if you were to decide that the Federal government needed to get directly involved in school discipline in individual schools, the DOE has no capacity to even think about that. Other than the main HQ office in Washington DC the DOE only has 10 small regional branch offices in the US in Boston, NY, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and Seattle that are mostly just administrative offices with bureaucrats and data folks administering the Pell Grant program and that sort of thing. Mostly working with various state departments of education. So 40 states do not even have a single regional DOE office within that state. Who does Trump actually think is going to parachute into problematic schools and solve their discipline problems?

The fact that Trump seems to know none of this is concerning.

[Josh]

Okay, so:

- Without Title IX, your girls would be trapped in the Handmaid’s Tale

But:

- It would be impractical and absurd for federal oversight to do anything about pupils getting the tar beaten out of them

[Ken]

Okay, so:

- Without Title IX, your girls would be trapped in the Handmaid’s Tale

But:

- It would be impractical and absurd for federal oversight to do anything about pupils getting the tar beaten out of them

No, that isn't what I said and you know it.

[Josh]

So, which is it? Is federal involvement and interference in education a good or a bad thing?

[Ken]

So, which is it? Is federal involvement and interference in education a good or a bad thing?

We have a Federal system of government and education should generally be a state responsibility. Especially the day-to-day management of schools. the DOE role should generally be limited to things like data collection and dissemination of information. Countries that have national education systems like say Finland tend to be smaller than the average American state. Finland is about the size of Minnesota. Layering a Federal layer on top of the already bureaucratic state layers just adds way too much pointless bureaucracy. And there is already generally too much of that.

That is not to say that there isn't sometimes a role for Congress to play in writing education-related law. But I'm skeptical. Most of the recent Education law coming out of Congress has been a disaster. Namely the "No Child Left Behind" law from the Bush era that was foisted on us by Senators Ted Kennedy and Judd Gregg. Or the more recent "Race to the Top" nonsense from the Obama Administration. The new-ish quasi-Federal science standards called NGSS (science equivalent to Common Core) are also a complete hot mess. The only good Federal education law that I have seen in the past 15+ years that I've been teaching was the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act which made some necessary changes in the way schools operate.

Sometimes the Federal government does need to step when states are acting egregiously as was the case with school desegregation under Brown v. Board of Education. But those examples are fairly limited.

[temporal1]

Blows my mind that MAGA loyalists would get on board with this.

They are already naturally jumpy about Federal power and over reach. I mean the whole complaint lately was that the parents need more power in the schools. Not the state, or feds.

Is this presumption? i don’t know any MAGA loyalists, nor do i seek them out, but, i’ve heard nothing on this.

What i see a lot of is jumping to presume+accuse in order to preemptively demean+dismiss. (msm stinks of it.) It’s pretty crazy, the combination of fear+hate. It’s become habitual. It’s not a good look.

The Department of Ed needs a complete overhaul, if not disbanding; Betsy DV was incompetent, disappointing.
those following are worse.

DJT is initiating discussion, not a moment too soon.

The most important aspect of the military, police, security guards, school principals, fathers in homes, pastors in churches,
forum admin+mods, - is PREVENTION and DETERRENCE of crimes and sins. The less crime, the less need of oversight. Win-win.

i don’t believe he’s expecting to imprison more teens, but fewer. Teens need firm boundaries. Without, chaos.
As well, it could serve as a wake up call to states+schools to get busy and take care of business.

DJT seemed to employ this strategy as Commander in Chief. Not your average neocon politician.

[temporal1]

As an object lesson: CARMEL INDIANA

Anthony Brian Logan / Amazing High School Goes VIRAL For All The WRONG Reasons! / -13min

Description:
An amazing Carmel, Indiana high school recently went viral on TikTok for a variety of reasons, many of them being negative. Students decided to put together a TikTok showing off... (CONTINUE READING /

Found in Comments:

John WROTE:
“I live in Carmel and 10 minutes from the school.
This is exactly what happens when a community pours everything into its children.
I would argue 90% of the student body comes from two parent households with stable families.

Carmel is insanely clean, has a superior school system, and has the single best framework of infrastructure in the United States.
What you see in that school extends to the whole city, buildings, roads, business facades, employment, everything.
People shouldnt have an issue with this, they should strive to be like this.
Stop dumping money into woke [***] social programs, and put it into families.”

At about 5:00 ABL refers to a document that reflects this high school spends FAR LESS per student than (i think he refers to Baltimore schools).

Personally, i’m not sure i favor schools like this, to each their own. No question, the facilities are impressive.

Lots of folks are now recognizing schools cannot fix everything. The root problems are cultural and family problems, especially recognizing damage done by well-intended policies that resulted in huge increases in fatherless homes.

At about 7:00 ABL cited how money guarantees nothing, he gave an example of 2014 Mark Zuckerberg gifting $100 million to Newark schools, but the outcome was, “Raheem still can’t read.”

If your car has a flat tire, replacing the water pump will not fix your tire. The water pump salesman will be happy.

[temporal1]

Decades ago, some black leaders were issuing dire warnings that all these children, esp boys, growing up in fatherless homes was going to lead to calamity. They tried to warn. There wasn’t much listening.

P.13 / “Teenage elephants need a father figure”
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/teenage-e ... her-figure

[Josh]

So, which is it? Is federal involvement and interference in education a good or a bad thing?

We have a Federal system of government and education should generally be a state responsibility. Especially the day-to-day management of schools. the DOE role should generally be limited to things like data collection and dissemination of information. Countries that have national education systems like say Finland tend to be smaller than the average American state. Finland is about the size of Minnesota. Layering a Federal layer on top of the already bureaucratic state layers just adds way too much pointless bureaucracy. And there is already generally too much of that.

That is not to say that there isn't sometimes a role for Congress to play in writing education-related law. But I'm skeptical. Most of the recent Education law coming out of Congress has been a disaster. Namely the "No Child Left Behind" law from the Bush era that was foisted on us by Senators Ted Kennedy and Judd Gregg. Or the more recent "Race to the Top" nonsense from the Obama Administration. The new-ish quasi-Federal science standards called NGSS (science equivalent to Common Core) are also a complete hot mess. The only good Federal education law that I have seen in the past 15+ years that I've been teaching was the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act which made some necessary changes in the way schools operate.

Sometimes the Federal government does need to step when states are acting egregiously as was the case with school desegregation under Brown v. Board of Education. But those examples are fairly limited.

It sounds like we agree. Can we agree Title IX should be repealed, then?