Discipline is Lesson #1

The goal should be helping students learn, not making the numbers look good
That is done by demanding high standards

Justin Creech West High School

La Follette ERO Ken Mosley

Zulma Franco, East High ERO

Tray Turner, Memorial H.S. ERO

Police EROs L-R: Justin Creech, West; Ken Mosley, La Follette; Zulma Franco, East; Tray Turner, Memorial H.S.

Time for the Madison school board to hear from real people instead of the social justice warriors. The Derail the Jail crowd has been haranguing the school board for over a year demanding racial equity *  — not of expectations or actual performance but in statistical equivalence regardless of conduct.

In the last week or so, massive student brawls have disrupted all four Madison high schools — last week at La Follette High School and three on the same day Monday at East, West, and Memorial H.S. Last week at a Florida school, 17 students were shot and killed, 15 injured. What’s on the Madison school board’s agenda? Getting Cops out of the Schools!

Your Intrepid Squire is attending the meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21, at school administration HDQ, Room 103 of the Doyle Bldg., 545 W Dayton St. Madison. I’d like some company.

Madison police have been staffing our public high schools for going on 20 years. They’re also known as educational resource officers, or EROs.

Under pressure from Black Lives Matter, Progressive Dane, and the Socialist Alliance, a school board committee headed by member Dean Loumos is considering:

• Removing police from schools entirely
• Giving school officials final say over an arrest or citation
• Prohibiting EROs from arresting or citing
• Limiting or restricting EROs from carrying firearms (gun, taser, mace)
• Reducing their ability to call for back up
• Getting EROs out of their MPD uniforms and wearing some kind of “soft” alternative uniform
• Continuing EROs but keep them off-site until an emergency arises
• Conducting a root cause analysis of violence in the schools
• Setting aside money for students of color who would decide what to do with it
• Prohibiting teachers from threatening ERO involvement during “behavioral incidents”
• Doing a “deep MMSD survey” for implicit bias
• Facilitating a “culture shift” in high schools (whatever that means)

Here’s what’s not on the list: Respect authority and your classmates, quit fighting, learn discipline, embrace your education. And for Gawd’s sake, stop playing the victim.

The social justice warriors plan to demonstrate against cops in schools at 4:45 Wednesday afternoon in front of the Madison Schools admin bldg.

The racism of low expectations

Ironically, police are arresting fewer students in the schools — 22% fewer than four years ago. That is not to say more should not have been arrested, only that fewer were arrested last school year. Dumbing deviancy down may explain the recent outbreak of free-for-alls. Regardless, the racial “disparity” continues. Those racist cops!

Of the 105 high school students arrested in the 2016-17 school year, 81 were Afro-American. The Blaska Policy Werkes would eliminate race designations as being inimical to educational achievement, public order, and self respect. But identity politics is integral to the liberal-progressive-socialist genome. Race feeds their cult of victimhood. Police only feed the school-to-prison pipeline. Anyone who says different is blaming the victim, who, it is held, is not responsible for his own behavior. (Or her behavior. Girl fights are up 25% in the Madison schools.) That is the worst kind of racism.

Discipline is the first lesson …

Without it, you can’t shoot a three-point basket, play the guitar, or find the hypotenuse of a triangle. The Superintendent of the Policy Werkes would begin every school day with the Pledge of Allegiance (standing) and a passage from Admiral McRaven’s commencement address to University of Texas graduates. The one that starts out with making your bed.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

For further study:

• Two former deans decry Madison school violence, by Mitch Henck
• Madison school discipline is a hot mess, Vicki McKenna
• School disorder hurts academic performance, an academic study finds

* “Racial equity” has become the all-purpose justification for dubious educational policies. Equity proponents view “disparate impact” — when the same policies yield different outcomes among demographic groups — as conclusive proof of discrimination. On the education front, “equity” does not seek equal treatment for all students. Instead, it demands statistical equivalence in discipline referrals and suspensions for students of every racial group, regardless of those students’ actual conduct. — from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.