Failing schools; the hidden truth

I submit that a school where children are in charge is a failing school, by any reasonable measure. Conversely, those schools where the adults are in charge succeed, by any reasonable measure.

There is a simple test. Is prohibited behavior permitted? A school where prohibited behavior is permitted is a school where the children are in charge.

As an example; according to Albuquerque Public Schools policy: “"Sagging”, or the wearing of pants below the waist and/or in a manner that allows underwear or bare skin to show, and "bagging", or the wearing of excessively baggy pants with low hanging crotches are prohibited.”

Yet if one visits a school campus in the APS, one will witness students sagging and bagging; openly and in direct defiance of the rules. In those schools, students are in charge. The issue is not sagging; sagging is simply an obvious and incontrovertible example of students in charge of schools.

I suspect that if a study were done that correlated incidents of children in charge and compared that number to evidence of academic success; an inverse relationship would become apparent. The more students that ignore the rules; the less successful that school is in educating children; and the more likely it is to be a “failing” school.

The study will not be done. The educationally inefficient environment that disregard for the rules implies, is absolutely the responsibility of principals, superintendents, and board members. (Teachers have no power to impose meaningful consequences on students who disrupt education.) They will not document their failure.

As an example; the APS used to survey teachers on a regular basis and one of the questions had to do with the negative impact of disruptive students. The data was inconvenient. The question is no longer asked.

A large part of school failure has to do with educationally inefficient environments stemming from the lack of control over student behavior. In order to escape accountability for their failure to maintain control over students, APS administrators and board members, who have both the power and the responsibility to address the issue, will not survey, they will not document, they will not investigate; they will not even discuss the issue.

And that is a dirty little secret behind schools that fail.