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School Suspensions May Push Students Out
By Bianca Vazquez Toness (WBUR)
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Do school discipline policies force some kids to drop out?
The number of Massachusetts students suspended for 10 days or more has more than doubled in the last five years. During the 2006-2007 school year, more than 4,000 children in Massachusetts spent at least two weeks out of school on suspension. And studies show suspended kids are three times as likely to drop out as those who aren’t suspended.
It was his freshman year of high school, and Kamal Arty was excited to play lacrosse and take art classes at Cambridge Rindge and Latin. But instead, the 14-year-old spent much of the year at home.
KAMAL ARTY: I sat at my house, I read books. I don’t really like playing video games, so I just read books.
His troubles began at a homecoming dance, where a friend was having an argument with another woman who he thought was another student. Kamal claims he tried to break it up. Turned out that woman was a teacher. She pressed assault charges the next week.
ARTY: I don’t know, I couldn’t believe it. No way that I feel I assaulted her.
Kamal’s mother, Malika Arty, asked school officials to explain what happened, and when they couldn’t, she complained.
MALIKA ARTY: That it was absurd. Like, ‘You’re saying what about my child?’
Arty says her son never got in trouble before the incident with the teacher.
ARTY: He was always very well-liked. In fact — quite a few of his teachers, his lacrosse coach, his football coach, his local barber – everybody wrote letters for him saying that they’d never, ever seen any violent nature in him whatsoever. His science teacher said he would stake his reputation as an educator. I never forgot that line.
But those letters didn’t help, and the principal suspended him indefinitely. Although Kamal eventually got back into school, his mother says the suspension made him a different kid.
ARTY: I definitely think he’s changed, I think he’s less motivated. I think that if he saw the same situation he might walk right by. And that kind of hurts me because I raised him to be the kid that stepped up into it, like ’What is going on here?’ And I think right now he might be like,’That has nothing to do with me.’ Just because when you get slapped on the hand that hard, you kind of learn not to touch the fire. So I wonder if he doesn’t step into any fires anymore.
Under Massachusetts laws, principals have the power to remove students from schools when they assault school personnel, or if they are charged with a felony.
And school officials are increasingly exercising that power. During the 2006-2007 school year, principals across the state suspended or expelled students 64,000 times. Three hundred and sixty-five students were thrown out of school permanently.
Joanne Karger is a staff attorney for the Center for Law and Education, an organization that focuses on the right of all students to a high-quality education.
JOANNE KARGER: Although suspensions are the most common form of punishment, there’s little evidence that suspensions result in reducing problematic behavior or in actually making schools safer. And in fact when students are removed from their regular education environnment, they end up falling behind in their schoolwork and they become academically disengaged.
Cambridge Public School officials won’t comment on a specific student’s situation. But spokesman Justin Martin says the principals in his city use discretion when they discipline students.
And Cambridge has a lower rate of suspension than many other districts. But some parents are still worried the district is misusing its power.
Shanti Oppenheimer also lives in Cambridge. He got in trouble for something that happened out of school, before he even started at the city’s high school.
SHANTI OPPENHEIMER: Summer after eighth grade, it was an unarmed robbery case and assault.
Oppenheimer was with friends who took someone’s money and iPod. He was thrown out of Cambridge and sent to a special education program in Boston.
He returned to Cambridge the next year, after the case was resolved. He was happy to be back.
OPPENHEIMER: I was excited. That was the school I was supposed to be going to.
A few days into the new school year, there was a shooting and witnesses told school officials Oppenheimer was on school grounds.
OPPENHEIMER: They searched me. At the time I had a leafy green substance in my pocket and then in my backpack they found a big knife.
Oppenheimer was expelled, and later arrested.
OPPENHEIMER: I’m not saying that I didn’t mess up, I’m just saying, like, they might have thought I was going to succeed, but I feel like they all had doubts. And I guess their doubts came true when I was expelled, but I just felt like if they already expected me to fail — like that’s just kind of weird, you know.
Cambridge Public School officials wouldn’t comment on Oppenheimer’s case, but Tom Scott from the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents says principals need the power to suspend and expel students.
TOM SCOTT: We cannot afford to go backwards and take away what’s one of the few tools that many of the school’s have to maintain an environment thats going to be in the best interest of majority of the kids. It’s a fine balance between those individuals who are denied some access and the vast majority of kids who should not be subjected to some of the stuff that goes on.
But advocates say the schools use suspension to remove kids who are harder to educate — namely, special education students. And the numbers do raise questions: 67 percent of the students suspended and expelled last year were special education students, when they make up only 17 percent of the state-wide school population.
Center for Law and Education attorney Joanne Karger.
KARGER: So even though they’re entitled to receive the appropriate help and instruction to address their disability, they’re being punished for their disability.
Karger and her group do suggest alternatives, mainly something they call “restorative justice.” Under that model, when kids get in trouble they would have to enter mediation with their peers and anyone else affected by their behaviour. The group would come up with a resolution together.
Shanti Oppenheimer’s mother, Sue Brent, says no one considered why her son brought a knife to school — that maybe he was scared in a new, big school after a shooting on campus.
SUE BRENT: Kids just…they sometimes do not think through their actions, they just quickly do what feels right in the moment, without really thinking it through. If he had thought through this whole thing, he never in a million years would have done it because of all that he’s lost.
Because he can’t return to Cambridge Rindge and Latin, Oppenheimer is back at the special-education program in Boston, which he says doesn’t compare.
OPPENHEIMER: I’m not getting the same education. I get little packets that my sister could do for homework. It’s kind of ridiculous. But I don’t feel like I’m learning that much on a day-to-day basis.
While he’s looking for another school, Oppenheimer may have no alternative. Since he was expelled, he has lost his right to an education in Massachusetts schools. He’s in the school in Boston only because federal law mandates some schooling for anyone considered a special-education student. But that, he says, won’t prepare him for college.
OPPENHEIMER: The economy’s not looking great. How am I supposed to get by without going to college?
If she could, Oppenheimer’s mom says she’d take out her checkbook and sign him up for private school.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I am a Boston Public Schools middle school teacher and was disappointed and frustrated by today’s portion of the Project Dropout series. I teach in a classroom everyday where a handful of students, through their disruptive, rude, and demeaning behavior, are able to deny the entire class a proper education. These are students of all races and academic potential who come from difficult home-life situations and who are not very concerned right now with either their own or anyone else’s education. To expect that I as a teacher should be able to somehow magically “reach” all of these children, or even one of them, (and I have certainly tried) and change their lives around or to expect that the school system as an institution can do so with the limited resources that it has is to be in utter denial of reality.
Ms. Vasquez-Toness’ report high-lighted the cases a few students: one who had physically assaulted (or whatever you want to call it) another person and another student who had, among other things, been apparently caught with drugs and a knife. Yet the focus was not on the seriousness of the students’ actions nor on their own personal accountability but on the supposed harshness their treatment by the school system.
Unfortunately, our public schools are not funded well enough to properly handle the kids who do not come to school with the pre-requisite personal or social skills needed to sit in a classroom without disrupting the educational process. There are times when, for the sake of al those kids who are trying to get their education, when a student has to removed from the classroom or even the school. The question is not whether a student will fall behind in his education, but rather the question is who will that student be: the one causing the disruptions or everyone sitting around him.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I think our public education system is under a great deal of strain economically. Many districts would like to provide alternatives to suspension of students who endanger the school community. In fact, when students are suspended for extended periods or expelled from their school, it it the school district that must pay for the outside placement of the student which is far more expensive for the district. Also, lets not forget to place at least some of the responsibility on the students themselves. These are young adults who are being expected to follow some basic guidelines (non-violence, respect of others, no weapons or drugs in the school, etc.). These rules are reasonable expectations in order to create a safe, accepting environment that our students require to thrive and grow.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I literally stood in the kitchen screaming at the radio this morning. So let me see if I can get this right, Oppenheimer and others like him are being punished for their disabilities. Since when is assaulting a teacher and carrying drugs and a large knife to school a disability? Arty seems to think he did nothing wrong, and that it would have been okay if it was just a student and not a teacher that he assaulted. And his mother backs him up.
When my child is threatened by another student with a “large knife,” I don’t want restorative justice, I want him out.
And did Ms. Toness actually see the letter that the science teacher wrote on Arty’s behalf, or did she just take the mother’s word for it?
April 6th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
In her attempt at emotional manipulation Bianca Vazquez Toness’ story was undermined by Arty’s story more than helped by it; at least with this listener. Arty claims he was suspended when he tried to break up an argument between a female friend and another female he thought was a student. It was alleged he assaulted the “other” woman who turned out to be a teacher. The story quoted character witnesses including a science teacher who couldn’t believe he would assault anyone. Were they eyewitnesses?
However, considering the circumstance, a school dance, surely Ms. Vazquez Toness could have found eyewitness for or against Arty’s account. I’m was left wondering about the veracity of his claims. She certainly found time to interview his mother who got in her obligatory “what about my child?” heart tug. Since we’re left wondering what really happened why should we swallow the poster childing of this guy for what’s wrong suspension and expulsion policies? His story is just not a good example.
Then there’s the other mommy’s little angel who brought a knife to school because he was scared of the big bad new school where someone had recently been stabbed. What about all the other kids who only bring their books, pencils and notebooks to school? In an era where we have to have metal detectors to keep weapons out of the buildings we don’t need to make excuses for foolish kids or their willfully ignorant parents.
And, as usual, a report used sloppy conflated statistics. Suspension and expulsion should not have been combined to create the alarmist 64000 number of kids kicked out of school. Suspensions and expulsions are apples and oranges regarding their effect on a student’s education. A suspended student presumably can return.
What could have been a really inciteful story was cheapened by the usual human facing emotionalization.
April 6th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I have been listening with increasing frustration to this series as it paints drop outs as victims of a system that would be miraculously transformed if only society would write a blank check to education activists who claim to have solutions to the problem. Today’s episode was the last straw for me. What a load of rot! I am the parent of a BPS student who was the victim of multiple minor assaults from the 1st to 4rth grades. The perpetrator was a boy who had a crush her a did not like the fact that she didn’t care much for him. After multiple violent incidents with several children (mostly girls) this kid was suspended and left the school permanently - much to my relief. Though not generally a proponent of zero tolerance policies, I think in the case of violence in a school setting it is essential. Today’s piece profiled two students, one fairly sympathetic who very well might have been the victim of an injustice but the other (the one with the knife) has no business being in a public school. The whiney protestations of the Ms. Karger and the sympathetic treatment he received from Ms. Toness made me want to puke.
April 6th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
After hearing this story this morning and again this evening I was moved to leave off all the things that need to get done to comment. Is carrying a large knife to school in your back-pack not a very very good reason to suspend a child? Or does the child first have to stab a classmate before it becomes a problem. And if big knife is not a reason for suspension how about a gun, how about a bomb? Did the reporter lose all objectivity in this piece by giving it the slant that she did? My children attended a school which was labelled as one of the state’s failing schools and we moved so that they could attend a better school and what a difference it has made. In the previous school (elementary school) my child had to each and every day deal with kids who were not respectful, who did not know the basics and who would not pay attention. I suspect that a large number of them will eventually drop-out. Whose fault is this? The teachers? The schools? No!!! The blame is squarely on parents who fail to teach manners, discipline and do the necessary things to nurture their children’s minds. But I have no problem with this anymore because I have come to realize that society needs drop-out losers to do the menial work that no one else wants to do. I feel sorry for the children born into families like that but quit blaming teachers and schools for parental failure.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I’ve been waiting for this episode. This is an extremely important issue. While the second student was admittedly not a good example of zero tolerance gone bad, the point is critically clear. Schools are too often pushing kids out of school for discipline violations. Ms. Karger is right– any loss of education is going to hurt kids in the long run and lead them to drop out. What about schools where large numbers of students are being suspended for long periods of time? Where is the accountability for the principals? While principals need the leeway to address the most serious situations, there are too many instances in which tehy have taken it too far. Enough is enough.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
The above comments make me sick. I work in a school district where principals routinely file criminal delinquency petitions against students with disabilities because they want to get them out of their schools. One kid was charged with disturbing an assembly when he wasn’t even the one who started the fight. How is that fair? It’s one thing to try to keep schools safe for other children, but it’s an entirely different story when kids from certain backgrounds are being targeted by school administrators. And what happens to the students when they are suspended or expelled from school? Where do they go? They don’t just disappear. They end up on the street or in the criminal justice system where tax payers have to pay more money to keep them locked up. This is the school to jail pipeline.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I am an educator and I know one of these young men. I was shocked and outraged with the one-sided nature of this report. Where is the fact-checking? Did anyone actually edit this piece? One of these young men has a long history of being in trouble in the Cambridge school system. Relating his own mother’s assertion of his innocence does not qualify as reporting.
In the case of the young man who brought the knife to school, what would his mom say if, God, forbid, he had stabbed another child. Would she tell the victim’s parents that he was just doing “what feels right in the moment, without really thinking it through”? It is absolutely the responsibility of Cambridge and all school systems to protect the safety of children. The young man brought a weapon to school (and drugs too!). The rules are clear to students and I am horrified that the reporter tries to elicit sympathy for either of the kids. Where is the sympathy for the teacher who was assaulted or for all of the kids who have to worry whether their classmates are carrying weapons?
I also find it outrageous that there was no mention of the Special Education Laws that protect students with IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) from expulsion. Special Education students are not allowed to be expelled, by law. They may be “excluded” from a community and there are legally mandated processes that are designed to protect a disabled student’s rights in instances in which a disability may be related to the offense. Shame on Ms. Vazquez Toness for failing to report this and for implying otherwise.
This is just an awful “report” and is a disgrace to WBUR.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I heard this yesterday and had to write. I applaud WBUR for including an episode on discipline as part of the dropout series and am disgusted with many of the “comments” posted here. Poor, minority students are the ones most hurt by discipline policies, many of whom have been labelled “disabled.” Even when suspended or expelled kids are provided an education, it is very low level. These kids are the ones who need the most help from our society, and they are all too often the ones being pushed aside. It’s no surprise that these kids end up dropping out of school.
I think some people are reacting to the seriousness of the two incidents described in the report. But most suspensions are for minor things like not showing up for school or talking out in class. If we really want to address the dropout crisis in this country, we need to include an examination of discipline policies.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:37 am
As an educator, the report left me very upset. It is quite easy to criticize the school system. Most people feel since they have particiapted in school, they can lambast the system. Administration is criticized for expelling students. Teachers are critcized for not reaching students. School is criticized for not meeting every need for every student. We are asked to sympathize with a student who assaulted a teacher, and another who brought drugs and a weapon to school. The students cry about their dashed hopes and tainted futures. Mothers cry out about the attention not paid to their children. The mistakes the students made are being asked to be forgiven, because what do they have going for themselves now?
I’m sorry but this is utterly ridiculous. No student needs to put his or her hands on a teacher. The reverse is also true, but if a student put their hands on me, for whatever reason, I am pressing charges. After Columbine, Virginia Tech and various unsafe educational environments, do not ask for my sympathy for anything involving a student and violence. There is absolutely no excuse for that. Studnet put hands on teacher. Suspended/expelled. End of story. what more you need to discuss? The fight the youth had in the morning that influenced his actions at night? His home life? Bad grade in class? Some excuse to cover the fact that he made a stupid bad decision? Please. It’s called consequences.
The second student is an even greater problem. People expected him to fail so he showed up with weed and a knife? Instead of proving them wrong and doing the correct thing at school he brought a knife? In what twisted world do we live in that we have to find excuses for this? Think about the purpose of the knife. If a student brings it, is there a chance the student will use it? Maybe people expected him to fail because he would. In fact, he did. What a wonderful response to the situation. “These people do not believe in me, so I will do everything I can to prove them right. And then I will moan about my lost future.” That future looked very bright with him bringing drugs and weapons to school. And the mother’s comments? Please. Cry me a river. Luckily your child did not create victims.
What is missing from this piece is personal responsibility. The students received adequate consequences for their actions. If the issue was special education or students of color being targeted for expulsion, then it would have been a different piece with better anecdotes. That is not the point. The point made in the segment was weak, disrespectful to teachers, sympathetic to violent/armed students and dismissive of administrators role in keeping schools safe. The student’s right to an education in a particular school environment rightfully end when that student, by their actions or intentions, is a danger to the community.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Mark Quinones’s comments and many others’ are simply pathetic. Who cares if you trot out your “educator” card. If you can not muster any modicum of human compassion for those that are clearly severely underpriviliged and don’t revolve their lives around your arrogant and sub-human orientation, please don’t come near my children–special-needs or not. I would never, ever want you and your lack of humanity, nor your ilk, near them. I would never want my kids to adopt your smallness; your bitterness; your pathetic acrimony towards kids. These kids at least HAVE an excuse for their behavior–what the hell is yours?