Category: Discipline and Disorder
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Where Is the VEA on School Safety?
by James A. Bacon Greetings from sunny Costa Rica, the well-run Central American nation that bears less resemblance these days to a banana republic than to the United States! Costa Rica dedicates some 7% of its GDP to education, according to Wikipedia, and its population is 97% literate, which, if you think about it, might…
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School Discipline – Part 5 – How and When Democrats Broke Virginia Public Schools
by James C. Sherlock We read earlier today that the eminent developmental theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner has written: The more we study human development, the more it becomes clear the family is the most powerful, most humane and, by far, the most economical way of making human beings human. That truth, however, does not account for…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 4 – The False Legend of PBIS Effectiveness
by James C. Sherlock To discover the origins of the legend that Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is effective, we have to dig into the interlocking government and ed school interest groups that fund and publish “studies” that validate their views. The goal of the ed schools is always to capture the attention, funding…
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Educational Expectations
by Matt Hurt Since the Region VII superintendents initiated the Comprehensive Instructional Program in 2014, we have annually identified our top five most successful teachers of our most at-risk students in each SOL-tested course. In their classes, at least 50 percent of students were economically disadvantaged, and they also had a significant number of students…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 3 — A Sharp Policy Turn to the Left after 2009
by James C. Sherlock Here is the information from a slide briefing to the Loudon County school board on February 6, 2013. “Experimentally.” The slide itself was actually produced in 2008 by pbis.org. It seems like a bad joke now, but that was how it was presented. Not a word about race there, but there surely…
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School Discipline in Virginia – Part 2 – Positive Options Trumped by a Race Card
by James C. Sherlock I have found both surprise and confusion among some readers when I use the term “valid studies” in discussing the avalanche of doctoral theses and studies produced annually by schools of education. The federal Institute for Educational Sciences established What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) in 2002 to sort the wheat from the…
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Virginia Community Schools Redefined – Hubs for Government and Not-for-Profit Services in Inner Cities – Part 1 – the Current Framework
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in Attendance, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Children and Families, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and Disorder, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Health Care, Infrastructure, LGBQT, Mental illness and substance abuse, Political Influence, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Social Services and Entitlements, Threat Assessmentby James C. Sherlock I believe a major approach to address both education and health care in Virginia’s inner cities is available if we will define it right and use it right. Community schools. One issue. Virginia’s official version of community schools, the Virginia Community School Framework, (the Framework) is fatally flawed. The approach successful elsewhere…
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Chilling Revelations In The Saga Of The 6-Year-Old Teacher Shooter
by Kerry Dougherty Excuse my language, but what the hell is going on at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News? On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that school administrators there have downplayed threats of violence, apparently ignoring pleas for help from frightened teachers. One account claims that the same boy who shot and nearly killed…
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School Discipline, Part III: Reframing Discipline in Virginia and Considerations for Making New Policy
by Matthew Hurt and Kathleen Smith Reframing School Discipline The Student Behavior and Administrative Response (SBAR) data collection was implemented in response to reframing school discipline from that of criminal, punishment, and exclusionary practices from 1991-2020 to that of restorative, intervention, and inclusionary practices in 2021 and beyond. The SBAR reports on behaviors that impede…
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Spotsylvania Pandemonium
Posted for the benefit of readers who are still in denial about the meltdown in discipline and the epidemic of violence in Virginia schools: There have always been fights in schools. It’s never been like this.
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Part II: School Discipline, Virginia Data and Virginia’s Disproportionality Concerns
This is the second of a three-part series on school discipline. The authors present information and provide discussion questions for the audience to respond. We hope the discussion will further an understanding of the complexity of school discipline and safe and orderly schools within the context of the presented data. by Matthew Hurt and Kathleen…
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School Discipline, Part I: Framing School Discipline and National Data
by Matthew Hurt and Kathleen Smith This is the first of a three-part series on school discipline. The authors present the information and then provide discussion questions. We hope the discussion will further an understanding of the complexity of school discipline and safe and orderly schools. Part I of this series frames school discipline and…
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“We Have Failed Our Students Under the Guise of Grace”
by James A. Bacon The breakdown of discipline in some of Virginia’s public schools is so stark that it has penetrated the ideological filters of the The Washington Post news staff. The lede to the WaPo’s article about last night’s Newport News School Board meeting sums up the picture nicely: Dozens of teachers and parents…
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Newport News Schools Making Changes After Shooting – But Not Enough Yet
by James C. Sherlock Better late than never. Truly. The Daily Press reported today that the Newport News school board has secured funding for state-of-the-art metal detectors. State-of-the-art means systems that can detect weapons without the long lines and delays we associate with such systems. As an example, a 125-year-old company, Kenton Brothers, offers Evolve…