What is going on with our school system?

[The Arizonan]

Seriously, what is going on here? If you follow the news, then you'll learn that school faculty members contact the authorities over petty stuff like a kid in New Jersey making inappropriate comments regarding brownies or a high school student exposing himself for a yearbook picture in Mesa, AZ (the guy got 69 charges of indecent exposure). Also, there are a zillion other instances of faculty members not dealing with stuff at school in a proper manner.

[The Dowager Mod]

You get what you pay for, Teachers in this country have been demonized and screwed over the past couple decades, Now were getting the bottom of the barrel.

[heatcharger]

You get what you pay for, Teachers in this country have been demonized and screwed over the past couple decades, Now were getting the bottom of the barrel.

This. You have moderate heroes like John Kasich and Chris Christie who demonize teachers and cut their pay, and then you have the rat race known as No Child Left Behind, which gets curriculums oriented to test-taking rather than actually learning. Also conservatives like in NC trying to change curriculum to make it less accurate doesn't help.

[ElectionsGuy]

With regard to the original post, its zero tolerance policies that are enacted at a local level. This means zero fun and zero flexibility. They think that suspensions and punishments for small infractions of any reference, pretend play, or jokes about some topic they don't want kids to learn about (guns, smoking, etc.) will help stop kids from growing up in a culture of violence, drugs, etc. and stop them from thinking about those topics. Instead it doesn't stop it and the kids get screwed over from missing school and possibly having their confidence stunted.

In short, its kind of like the same logic as the drug war, trying to give more punishment for minor rule breaking to stop whatever they want to stop. Its had similar results as well. (Obviously not trying to compare the two directly, as the drug war is far more serious and large scale, just an analogy)

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

With regard to the original post, its zero tolerance policies that are enacted at a local level. This means zero fun and zero flexibility. They think that suspensions and punishments for small infractions of any reference, pretend play, or jokes about some topic they don't want kids to learn about (guns, smoking, etc.) will help stop kids from growing up in a culture of violence, drugs, etc. and stop them from thinking about those topics. Instead it doesn't stop it and the kids get screwed over from missing school and possibly having their confidence stunted.

In short, its kind of like the same logic as the drug war, trying to give more punishment for minor rule breaking to stop whatever they want to stop. Its had similar results as well. (Obviously not trying to compare the two directly, as the drug war is far more serious and large scale, just an analogy)

[Kevin]

With regard to the original post, its zero tolerance policies that are enacted at a local level. This means zero fun and zero flexibility. They think that suspensions and punishments for small infractions of any reference, pretend play, or jokes about some topic they don't want kids to learn about (guns, smoking, etc.) will help stop kids from growing up in a culture of violence, drugs, etc. and stop them from thinking about those topics. Instead it doesn't stop it and the kids get screwed over from missing school and possibly having their confidence stunted.

In short, its kind of like the same logic as the drug war, trying to give more punishment for minor rule breaking to stop whatever they want to stop. Its had similar results as well. (Obviously not trying to compare the two directly, as the drug war is far more serious and large scale, just an analogy)

[136or142]

With regard to the original post, its zero tolerance policies that are enacted at a local level. This means zero fun and zero flexibility. They think that suspensions and punishments for small infractions of any reference, pretend play, or jokes about some topic they don't want kids to learn about (guns, smoking, etc.) will help stop kids from growing up in a culture of violence, drugs, etc. and stop them from thinking about those topics. Instead it doesn't stop it and the kids get screwed over from missing school and possibly having their confidence stunted.

In short, its kind of like the same logic as the drug war, trying to give more punishment for minor rule breaking to stop whatever they want to stop. Its had similar results as well. (Obviously not trying to compare the two directly, as the drug war is far more serious and large scale, just an analogy)

I don't know much of anything about the U.S education system, but I suspect there is a lot of truth here.  'Zero tolerance' is a policy Americans use in much more than just the education system.

I don't know what it is about Americans, but it seems that collectively you guys can't use judgement and discretion but must go to extremes.

This isn't going to help my cause,  but, as a long suffering listener of the ridiculous late night radio program Coast to Coast, of which Alex Jones is a regular guest, there are two things I agree with him about:
1.Some of his comments on the Bilderburg meetings.  I don't agree with him that all sorts of conspiratorial things go on there, but I agree with him that when elite business leaders are getting special access to elected leaders that the public has a right to know who are attending these meetings.

I know Alex Jones got into a heated conversation with David Gergen over this at the Bilderberg meeting (or maybe it was Bohemian Grove) and somehow Alex Jones stayed sane and didn't go overboard and merely asked over and over again something like "all I want to know is who are our elected leaders meeting with."  And Gergen gave the most haughty response of something like "I find your comments to be very disprespecting."

I can understand why so many Democrats in the Clinton Administration really didn't like David Gergen after he was brought into their Administration.

2.Germane to this discussion though, Alex Jones also said something like "Where did this zero tolerance stuff come from?  What ever happened to human beings using their God-given intelligence to use their discretion and make judgments based on the specifics of the situation?"

I was very surprised when I heard Alex Jones say that.  It's possible that to some degree zero tolerance is a bureaucratic necessity in the need to treat everybody equally, but here in Canada we have similar bureaucratic requirements and I don't think we follow 'zero tolerance' to anywhere near the same degree.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Our schools really are no longer public. They're prisons.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Too many buercrats ruining the school districts

[SWE]

Maybe the problem isn't so much schools as it is kids exposing themselves for their yearbook photos?

[The Arizonan]

Maybe the problem isn't so much schools as it is kids exposing themselves for their yearbook photos?

In Mesa, some high school kid who was part of a sports team exposed his junk for a yearbook picture. The people working on the yearbook didn't notice the prank until several days later. So, they called the police and the kid got 69 counts of indecent exposure.

Why did they bother calling the police on the kid? It's not like he punched someone in the face or something. I thought that there was something called "statute of limitations".

The only people with any common sense in this story were the fellow students who didn't make a big deal out of it.

[dead0man]

You get what you pay for, Teachers in this country have been demonized and screwed over the past couple decades, Now were getting the bottom of the barrel.

Teachers might not get the pay they deserve, but they are clearly not "demonized and screwed over".  People sh**t on administration from time to time, but those asshats usually deserve it.  I see a ton more pro-teacher stuff than I do anti-teacher stuff.  (it probably helps that my sister is a teacher)

[SWE]

Maybe the problem isn't so much schools as it is kids exposing themselves for their yearbook photos?

In Mesa, some high school kid who was part of a sports team exposed his junk for a yearbook picture. The people working on the yearbook didn't notice the prank until several days later. So, they called the police and the kid got 69 counts of indecent exposure.

I mean, obviously they punishment went way too far, but if you're going to pull your dick out during your yearbook photo, maybe it's a tiny bit your fault when you get in trouble for it?

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Yeah, and it typically last longer than a couple of days, so I don't know what you're talking about.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Too many buercrats rubbing the school districts

You're an idiot.

The real problem is lack of funds. ie, taxes are too low.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Tenure is a disease.

[Taco Truck 🚚]

Seriously, what is going on here? If you follow the news, then you'll learn that school faculty members contact the authorities over petty stuff like a kid in New Jersey making inappropriate comments regarding brownies or a high school student exposing himself for a yearbook picture in Mesa, AZ (the guy got 69 charges of indecent exposure). Also, there are a zillion other instances of faculty members not dealing with stuff at school in a proper manner.

It's the parents.  It is not the schools.  It is not the teachers.

The problem with America is no one wants to take personal responsibility.  It is always someone else's fault.

The pokemon thread got over 4 times the responses as the obesity thread.  Everyone complains about the cost of healthcare and wants to blame Obama, Republicans, Insurance companies, fast food restaurants, etc.  They want to blame everyone but themselves.  We all could shave trillions off of future healthcare expenditures all on our own but we won't do it.

If a kid exposes himself in a high school year book he has broken the law.  The school literally printed up hundreds of pieces of evidence of the crime and intended to distribute them to minors.  All it takes is one parent or uncle or grandparent of a 14 year old girl to call the cops and multiple people at the school lose their jobs and have their careers destroyed.  If all the parents at the school were cool and the school board was cool there wouldn't be a problem.  No way anyone is going to trust their career to a group of hundreds of parents.

Once society started handing out trophies to everyone who participated this was the inevitable result.  A kid gets the bad grade they earned and the next thing that happens is we have a complaining parent.  Keep in mind the parent was more concerned with their substance abuse, affairs, conspicuous consumption, etc. than helping their kid with schoolwork.  Half the marriages in this country end in divorce.  And that's for the parents that even bother to get married.  I really wonder what percentage of the children in this country grow up living under the same roof as both biological parents.

So we have the majority of Americans overweight or obese and the majority don't have a 4 year college degree.  That's just two data points.  The children of these fine Americans are what we are asking teachers to educate and we give them hell if the kids aren't just given straight As for showing up.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Seriously, what is going on here? If you follow the news, then you'll learn that school faculty members contact the authorities over petty stuff like a kid in New Jersey making inappropriate comments regarding brownies or a high school student exposing himself for a yearbook picture in Mesa, AZ (the guy got 69 charges of indecent exposure). Also, there are a zillion other instances of faculty members not dealing with stuff at school in a proper manner.

It's the parents.  It is not the schools.  It is not the teachers.

The problem with America is no one wants to take personal responsibility.  It is always someone else's fault.

The pokemon thread got over 4 times the responses as the obesity thread.  Everyone complains about the cost of healthcare and wants to blame Obama, Republicans, Insurance companies, fast food restaurants, etc.  They want to blame everyone but themselves.  We all could shave trillions off of future healthcare expenditures all on our own but we won't do it.

If a kid exposes himself in a high school year book he has broken the law.  The school literally printed up hundreds of pieces of evidence of the crime and intended to distribute them to minors.  All it takes is one parent or uncle or grandparent of a 14 year old girl to call the cops and multiple people at the school lose their jobs and have their careers destroyed.  If all the parents at the school were cool and the school board was cool there wouldn't be a problem.  No way anyone is going to trust their career to a group of hundreds of parents.

Once society started handing out trophies to everyone who participated this was the inevitable result.  A kid gets the bad grade they earned and the next thing that happens is we have a complaining parent.  Keep in mind the parent was more concerned with their substance abuse, affairs, conspicuous consumption, etc. than helping their kid with schoolwork.  Half the marriages in this country end in divorce.  And that's for the parents that even bother to get married.  I really wonder what percentage of the children in this country grow up living under the same roof as both biological parents.

So we have the majority of Americans overweight or obese and the majority don't have a 4 year college degree.  That's just two data points.  The children of these fine Americans are what we are asking teachers to educate and we give them hell if the kids aren't just given straight As for showing up.

[Higgs]

Tenure is a disease.

[angus]

Tenure is a disease.

as is paranoia. 

My son has to have "lockdown drills" for the same reason that you and I have to have 300 thousand dollars worth of liability insurance.  We're a very litigious society.  People like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are very good at exploiting that.  They are the cream of the cream, and we will put people like that in charge of our laws.  We get what we ask for, and what we deserve.  Nothing more; nothing less.