I just started watching the third season shows on DVD from the library (the wife refuses to let me get cable). It seems fairly realistic. Alot of John Waters' former employees are working on that show. Do the people who tell you real life isn't like the Wire read the papers? The Overbrook teacher who just got his neck broken over an ipod would probably disagree with them. There is also news about a stabbing in the face last week at one of the west region schools, but I can't find any news reports about it, not that should surprise me.

School violence is a problem. School violence disrupts learning for all students. School violence creates a culture of fear and aggression rather than a safe place for students to take risks and investigate their world. Granted. Indisputable. I don't think anyone, in the federal or state governments, no parents, and certainly no educators would disagree.
The problem is finding feasible, just, creative solutions. No one wants our public schools to be in their current state. Educators of all sorts are trying to come up with their own answers, starting charter schools, tracking, detracking, instituting different curriculums, using more technology, formalizing stricter standards. All of these techniques have met with mixed success in different contexts, and what we all need to realize is that there isn't one solution. Every child and every city and every community is different. One solution will never fit all when it comes to learning.
TV shows and movies, like The Wire, or Freedom Writers, suggest that we need heroes, visionaries, leaders to solve the problem and create a happy ending. This is a very dangerous myth. The solution is complicated and the road towards better, safer schools will be long and the path will not be straight. There is no panacea. Sorry.

I worked for a number of years "mainstreaming" the kinds of kids you are saying should be removed from the general student population, and while I’m not unsympathetic to your cynicism about the rationale for mainstreaming - I can't just read your post without responding from a somewhat different perspecive.

Pulling out kids is problematic for a number of reasons. First, fequently it doesn't work very well for the kids that are pulled out. Not having watched the Wire (too cheap to own cable), I don't know how accurate the portrayal of the pull-out program is, but yes, stigmatizing those students that are pulled out does generally (if not always, depending on the quality of the pull-out program in which they're enrolled) pretty much lock in a downward problem, you can easily picture why pulling out kids and putting them in programs where all the students have behavioral problems don't tend to work all that well except as a maintenance system to keep them in line until they get old enough to drop out. That doesn't mean that pull-out programs are never successful with any students, but at least theoretically, when you provide the proper support services (obviously a HUGE caveat), mainstreaming works better at getting at least some of the problematic kids to modify and adapt their behavior.

Ok, but why should we care so much abut what happens to violent kids? Isn't focusing on them resulting in the neglect of the kids that are focused on learning?

As a paradigm, pulling out kids that are acting out behaviorally really does create a slippery slope. Exactly what kind of behavior warrants being pulled out? Only violent behavior? What about kids that just have difficult concentrating, and are considered disruptive because they don't sit quietly at a desk and do what is told? What about kids who don't perform as well academically, and slow the other students down because they require more individualized attention? What about kids who have any variety of disabilities? What about when the discipline problems are exacerbated (if not created) by ineffective or unreasonable teachers?

And when you start to answer some of those tough questions, you run the risk of embracing a paradigm that not only doesn't serve the kids who are getting pulled out, it also doesn't serve well the general student body. I won't get into the whole argument here for mainstreaming, but one rationale for mainstreaming is based on the belief that all kids suffer in an educational environment where the students are segregated into groups according to a measure of how much the deviate from some concept of the "model" student. As an educator, I think that our educational objectives should be to help each student to maximize their potential, and not to sort them into some kind of hierarchy that only perpetuates existing problems that students have, and on top of that reinforces rigid class structures. Unfortunately, another rationale for mainstreaming of problematic kids (which isn't always owned up to it) is that it is cheaper to ask already overburdened teachers to deal with as many types of students as possible than it is to place kids in separate, and expensive, pull out programs. That leads to the perception that it is mainstreaming which is the problem, as opposed to the reality that it is the lack of funding - funding that would avail teachers of more resources - that is the real problem.

Ok, but all that is just so much idealist gobbledygook if a teacher has more students than they can handle anyway -- and on top of that you add violent students into the mix. And concerns about the role of schools to function as a de facto social sorting mechanism don't apply if basically the entire student population is poor anyway. At some level, you have to establish a bottom line in terms of acceptable behavior, right?

Yes. But as you embrace the perspective you present in your post, I would just hope that you remember some things: A big part of the problem is the schools themselves.

First, they are underfunded. That is the bottom line. At some level, some of those kids you're talking about could be helped if support services were better funded. Essentially, when you talk about pulling those kids out that could be helped and putting them into programs which may have a tendency not to work because of their segregated nature, those kids are then bearing the brunt of a lack of funding, and that is unfair when you consider that kids in Philly's schools get 1/2 the funding of the surrounding community. At some level you want to hold the kids responsible for their own behavior. You might say that if they don't live up to behavioral expectations, then they don't deserve the funding. We can't reward "bad behavior," (as George Bush says when it comes to negotiating with Iran or North Korea). Yes, at the individual level that makes sense, but at the systems level with that kind of thinking you run into problems. It goes back to the whole "personal responsibility" debate that's widespread these days - but the fact remains that there is a demographic issue here. I would suggest that all you're going to get with a "pull the damn kids out" mindset is a perpetuation of the problems. How does such an approach deal with the root problems?

Second, our schools still widely embrace an outmoded model for teaching and learning. To the extent that schools adapt and create a more progressive educational environment - one which is not based in defining for each student how they should be but adapts more effectively to meet the needs for individual students (think providing useful vocational training for those students that aren't academically inclined) - they begin to solve some of the problems rather than just stop the bleeding (literally) without addressing the underlying issues. So we need to evaluate our educational leaders on the basis of how well they can implement change in our schools, and not just how well kids do on tests. That's why one way I will evaluate the mayoral candidates is on the basis of how they are looking to approach the problems in our schools by increasing funding and creating an environment that will promote innovation.

So yeah, schools need to be made safer at all costs. If that means pulling out more kids, so be it. But don't take your eyes of the larger, long-run, problems.

Thanks, AJ, for kick-starting this discussion. I want to comment on two aspects: (1) the diversion program in The Wire; and (2) money.

(1) Some facts about the diversion program as depicted on The Wire:

- The diversion class was housed in the students' regular school, during normal school hours.
- The class was small (8 kids I think), and was funded entirely by a university study (including the teacher I believe)
- The study's goal was to return the diverted kids to their home classes, in a state of mind and preparation where they could be more effectively mainstreamed.
- The ex-cop was paid by the grant, and he and the university's lead researcher were in the classroom at all times. This effectively created a 3-to-1 student-teacher ratio.
- The ex-cop used his connections to help mentor the students, and to get them social services and police lenience when they needed it.
- The school district's concern about the program was an ideological opposition to diversion as a policy (an understandable concern, frustrating as it was for the ex-cop and the show's viewers).

So... while The Wire is unusually realistic in its depiction of urban poverty, it showed viewers a diversion program that's likely far better funded and less expandable/reproducible than any real-life diversion program Philadelphia would be able to create - assuming social and political concerns about diversion itself could be adequately addressed.

(2) Which leads me to the second issue: money. On Friday Paul Vallas told the Inky, "After five years of reform, we've gone about as far as we can go with our existing revenue base. In order to go to the next level, we're going to need more. It's as simple as that." The district's CFO said: "The cost of our reforms have outpaced our funding... We don't have enough money to serve our children in the manner that they need to be served."

I'm not passionately for or against Vallas, and I know there are inefficiencies in the school system - but until I see compelling evidence to the contrary, I'm inclined to believe the above-quoted statements.

I think our number-one priority is to create safe, productive learning environments. And I think that, in turn, takes more resources from the state, so we can get more teachers and support personnel in the schools and reduce class size. There are many other challenges and needs, but in my mind reduced class size and more human support (teachers and otherwise) is an unavoidable part of any real solution.

I know it will be very difficult to get more state support (not to mention federal support - Philly's federal aid shrunk from $346 million to $208 million in one year), but we have to succeed in that effort. I don't think we have a choice.

Best,
Matt

Before anybody gives anymore money to Vallas we need to know what he's done with five years' worth of dough he got originally. He says he spent it on reforms, but there is little evidence of any real reforms. Class sizes, for the most part escalated, to even beyond contract limits. Music, art and libraries all over the district disappeared during the Vallas years. Security forces, be it crossing guards or in school police officers, have been dwindling. Backups like accommodation rooms are disappearing all over. Still waiting for these Saturday detentions to appear that Paul promised years ago. We heard alot about rebuilding the district, but most teachers are still working in classrooms that have not been painted in decades, are still unhealthy and, in some cases, dangerous. Where are all these news schools Vallas was talking about when he started? What exactly has been reformed?

The only real changes are the excessive amount of testing teachers and students are constantly being expected to do. Children that have been socially promoted are not getting the additional help they deserve. Instead teachers are being urged to focus on "bubble students", those who are on the Basic level, but might be pushed up to Proficient so their school can make the AYP. Even the standard curriculum is being shunted aside so teachers can focus more on PSSA Constructed Responses. Vallas has turned our school into test mills.
Of course we can always depend on the local media printing whatever Paul tells them to say. That costs money.

Before any more money is sent to Philly there needs to be an outside controller to monitor what is going on with the money. Philly is the only district out of 501 PA school districts that currently doesn't have one.

Our recent bond rating by Fitch shows Philly as "one of the lowest school district ratings in the country". Hardly the type of news to attract new teachers (along with the recent teacher assult at Germantown High) or get more money from the state.

According to the School Me blog at the LA Times Education website both Nevels and Vallas are being considered for the super position out there. Maybe we'll get lucky?

My father has been a school administrator and educator his whole adult life and in a recent discussion he mentioned to me what he feels is a great flaw, and I tend to agree with him. He told me that teachers in Philadelphia can choose the school they teach at based on seniority-- and while this makes perfect sense, the outcome is very problematic. You end up with the worst schools with young, new teachers and the best schools with a more experienced staff.

He currently supervises student teachers and feels it is detrimental to young teachers that they can be influenced and mentored by those who have long term experience in the neighborhoods and with the families. As this problem compiles it creates "burn-out" in new teaching staff - and as a result a revolving door in some of the most poorly serves schools.

I brought this up not to demonize teachers in any way, but rather, I am wondering what a model would look like that provides support for young teachers so that schools that are suffering might be able to build a strong foundation of long-term staff.
Meredith

http://nabrhood.org | Neighbors Allied for the Best Riverfront

Well, I would say they can have schools have an "years of experience" average. Basically add up the years of experience of the staff and divide by the amount of staff to get the average teaching experience and try to keep all schools on par, but seniority still gets to pick first, it will just preclude all the senior teachers going to the same schools.

So you would hopefully get schools with a lot of senior teachers and a lot of young ones or schools with a decent mix.

I didn't mean to hold up The Wire as a paragon of how to solve things. Essentially, the show just portrays what's wrong with the system.
As for mainstreaming vs. pull-out, at what point does the ability for the most kids to learn trump the rights of kids who are failing and destroying learning opportunities for everyone.
Make schools safe, classrooms focussed on learning without constant disruptions for which kids can't be punsihed (a fact that they know pretty well) and you return consequences to schools. Sure, you can have a slippery slope. However, once everyone knows the rules, if you break them you're going somewhere else.
It's not backed by any study or independent analysis, but a strictly enforced code of discipline, implemented by people who are not at the whim of the political end of things, could change this system for the better.