Teaching Interrupted

A presentation by former Public Agenda President Deborah Wadsworth before the "Is Fairness in Public Schools Unfair?" forum co-sponsored by Common Good and the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.

An archive of existing survey research illuminating attitudes toward discipline and the lack thereof in the public schools would most certainly turn into a multi-volume publication. I have been watching Public Agenda's and others' research on this subject for almost twenty years and I can't think of another issue that elicits such consistent and anguished responses from almost every group we have ever interviewed (the notable exception being professors of education).

What is distinctive about the current study, commissioned by Common Good, that I've been asked to share with you this morning, is the powerful indictment we've captured this time around by teachers, in particular (but parents as well) of the serious costs associated with our apparent inability to do something about a problem that everyone agrees continues to plague public schools nationwide.

The answer to the question we posed in the title of Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster the Common Good? is resoundingly and unequivocally "No." To the contrary, the common good today appears increasingly to being held hostage by the few. Top lines from the study look like this:

1. Student discipline is important. Kids are lost without it.
   
2. Schools must have discipline to function, and things not going well.
   
3. A handful of youngsters are at the core of the problem, affecting learning for everyone.
   
4. Teachers are operating in a culture of challenges and second-guessing that is affecting their profession.
   
5. The entire situation is exacerbated by fear of litigation.
   

National random samples of both middle and high school teachers and parents of middle and high school- aged students agree that the lack of discipline is pervasive and poisoning the atmosphere and that the vast majority of kids are suffering because of the behavior of a few persistent classroom troublemakers who cause too many students to lose critical opportunities for learning and cause too many teachers to abandon their profession.

We found near-universal (97 percent) acceptance among teachers in this study that a school needs good discipline and behavior in order to flourish, with more than seven in 10 parents in agreement. Moreover, in an era of intense focus on raising academic standards, 93 percent of teachers and 88 percent of parents also say it should be part of the school's mission to do something about behavioral standards...to teach kids respect for rules, respect for each other, and for their elders.

With such an overriding consensus, one might logically ask, "what's the problem?" Over the past few hours, we have listened to compelling testimony about the fairness of public school rules on discipline and, from Richard, about how we arrived at the current state of affairs. Public Agenda's study contributes to this commentary the authentic voices of teachers attempting to sort out why the common good continues to be jeopardized by the misbehavior of the few and parents' take on all this as refracted through the experiences of their children. These new findings go beyond the recurring portraits we've come to expect of the frayed environment that plagues our schools and the depictions of the death by a thousand cuts that teachers appear to suffer on a daily basis, to include a look at the significant fallout from this situation.

Despite the fact that "more than three quarters of teachers and parents agree that the school experience of most students suffers at the expense of a few chronic offenders." More than three quarters of the teachers we interviewed also say that students who are persistent behavior problems and should be removed from school grounds... are not.

More than three quarters admit they could be teaching a whole lot more and that they'd be a lot more effective if they didn't have to spend so much time dealing with disruptive students who poison the atmosphere for those who really do want to learn.

An article in the Arizona Republic just a month ago captured this problem rather graphically. It began this way: "Valley teachers in the trenches say that too often it is chaos in the classroom: students who talk back, use vulgar language, throw chairs or play cards...Elizabeth Ann Moore who teaches in a Phoenix high school filed an injunction April 7 against a 15-year-old sophomore whom she says sexually harassed and abused her with vulgar language...the student returned to school last week after a five day suspension. His father is expected in court...to answer on his son's behalf."

The article went on to say that "the incident sparked a flood of calls and e-mails to [the newspaper] from teachers hailing Moore's decision to go public...Many shared similar tales of verbally abusive students, the impact discipline problems have on the learning process, and the struggles of getting school administrators' backing. Several teachers even said they left the teaching profession because of the challenges."

In Public Agenda's study, similar consequences emerged. Huge majorities say they find themselves maneuvering around a handful of troublemakers who disrupt their classes, eat up their time, eat away at their motivation, and at worst, drive them out of the profession. As many as one in three teachers in this study say "they have seriously considered quitting the profession - or know a colleague who has left- because student discipline and behavior became so intolerable." And this, at a time when many, many communities are desperately searching for enough teachers to begin the coming school year.

Lack of parental support and fear of lawsuits exacerbate the problem. Focus groups with teachers convey their sense of the emergence of an increasingly damaging culture. Not only are teachers' judgment and authority being questioned, but adding insult to injury, there is the chilling effect of the potentially litigious parent standing in the wings, often times rewarded with money and media attention to boot.

Eighty-two percent of teachers say that parents' failure to teach their children discipline ranks as one of the biggest causes of school behavior problems. Interestingly, 74 percent of parents agree. In an earlier Public Agenda study, only about a third of parents interviewed said they have succeeded in teaching their child to have self control and discipline. Even so,about half of the teachers in this study say they've been accused by a parent of unfairly disciplining a child, and more than half attribute the cause of classroom problems to teachers who are soft on discipline because they cannot count on parents or their schools to support them.

Power has shifted to the few, their actions bolstered by the possibility of legal recourse, and consequently, the desire on the part of institutions to placate them. They feel the whole culture is one that condones second-guessing their authority with nearly eight in 10 saying that students are quick to remind them that they have rights and that their parents can sue. Can you imagine ever saying this to a teacher of yours?

Adding to the pressure of dealing with parents who appear to be falling down on the job is the overwhelming burden of coping with the disproportionate impact this small number of very troublesome youngsters has on discipline overall. An overwhelming 85 percent of teachers agree that, "in the end, most students suffer because of a few persistent troublemakers." And in focus groups, it was startling to realize how rare it is for the schools to take effective action until a student has truly crossed the line by doing something violent or outrageous.

The resulting breakdown in discipline so poisons the environment that it is not very surprising, when one begins to talk about how to fix the situation, that the solutions teachers and parents are most attracted to are those that would remove persistent troublemakers from the scene.

Seventy percent of teachers and almost as many parents support "zero- tolerance" policies that will make it clear to students that there will be serious consequences for serious misbehavior. They come to this solution, however, with a considerable dose of common sense. Neither teachers nor parents are advocating military-style control, nor are they talking about throwing kids out of school for coming to class with nail clippers. The frustration with problem students being constantly recycled through the system often coexists with genuine concern that the system has failed to come up with an effective alternative for the toughest cases. There is strong support for creating alternative arrangements, finding ways to retrieve, not abandon, these most troublesome youngsters.

It's important to be clear when talking about discipline in the schools these days, that both parents and teachers do believe that the schools are doing a good job responding to the most serious behavior problems, like drugs and guns, and that there is support for resorting to legal sanctions in these instances. Sadly, more than half of the teachers, 52 percent, and 43 percent of parents report having an armed police officer stationed on their school grounds.

That said, it is the recognition of the costs of the less serious but troublesome behavior that is corroding the schools' environment that leads both teachers and parents to accept a full range of solutions we posed that do not depend upon legal action and can best be described as reasonable and commonsensical. Not surprisingly, "almost half of teachers and one in three parents strongly support giving principals a lot more authority to handle discipline issues as they see fit."

Almost seven in 10 teachers in this study and large numbers in earlier Public Agenda research think that finding ways to hold parents more accountable for kids' behavior would be a very effective way for dealing with student discipline problems. Both groups endorse what the authors of this study call "the broken windows approach" -– strictly enforcing the little rules so the right tone is created and bigger problems are avoided.

Solutions that limit lawsuits on discipline issues are also supported by substantial numbers of both teachers and parents. More than four in ten teachers and parents strongly back approaches that would allow litigation only for such serious issues as expulsion and similar numbers. Fifty percent of teachers and 43 percent of parents support eliminating the possibility of monetary awards for parents who sue over discipline issues.

Although relatively few teachers (14 percent) reject the need to document incidents of misbehavior as too cumbersome, more than four in 10 do say the requirements in their own school "go beyond common sense" and are used primarily to protect the schools from potential lawsuits. It is clear throughout this study that people are upset over the loss of common sense and by the distorted impact that the few are having on the common good.

For those among us, with Common Good in the vanguard, who are focused on the chilling impact that fear of litigation appears to have on addressing discipline problems in the schools, my recommendation is to take into account the fact that teachers at this point are not yet with you in clamoring for legal reforms. They are worried about the legal ramifications of their attempts to do their jobs responsibly, but they will need help in connecting cause and effect, and there is reason to believe they will be responsive.

There are many issues on the public's agenda these days, where people recognize the existence of a problem but cannot arrive at any consensus regarding solutions -- social security or the budget deficit, to name a few. On the issue of school discipline, this study shows a rare convergence of large majorities of teachers and parents agreeing on both the diagnosis of the problem and on a whole range of potential solutions.

Common Good can perform a real service in the coming months by backing up just a bit, in effect, starting where teachers and parents are these days by clarifying the impact these legal hurdles are having on daily routines; by raising questions about school policies that could benefit from change; by explaining how the current legal situation gives power to the few who are creating the problems even as it reduces the power of those attempting to solve the problems of discipline in the schools.

For too long now, parents, teachers, and even students themselves have been crying out for a safe and orderly school environment which all agree is prerequisite to real learning. It's high time we stopped wringing our hands over the problem and got to work addressing some of the solutions people appear willing to embrace.