Erasing clear lines opens a jar of Pandoras; always. Always.

Pandora's Box, should you not recollect the pertinent details, wikilink.

As much as I loathe them; an unsolicited illustrative personal anecdote in the midst of a philosophical discussion;

I was at one point in my teaching career, assigned to keep middle school students from cutting into the snack bar line by passing money through the chain link fence.  The fence had been installed recently, as the means of keeping kids from cutting the line.

I was forever telling kids to "get away from the fence" while they were forever trying to see how close they could get to the fence before I ran them off again.  There were no consequences then or now (I assume) for students who like to amuse themselves by pushing limits with no meaningful consequences.

One day, I had painted, a line on the asphalt about ten feet from the fence.  I told students to not cross the line.  Problem solved (the line was exceedingly narrow).

Discipline in schools has eroded to the point where misbehaving students, including chronically disruptive students, are holding back the education of other students.  Student discipline has eroded because adults have lost authority over students.  Students no longer do what adults tell them to do.  To the extent they do, it isn't out of any habit.

Ask any teacher; what would happen if they walked up on a fight and then told everyone else to leave? would they?

The most  honest answer is that it "depends".  It shouldn't depend.  If the answer to the question

do students respect the authority of their teachers and other adults at school, 

is anything but a resounding yes,
the answer means no.

This is no way to remove a line without inviting calamity.
If the conduct in response to removing the line
is to run out of control, where again can you dig in your heels?

The administration of the APS is all about blurring lines.

The administration owns the responsibility of enforcing discipline policies.  Whether or not they enlist or draft the assistance of teachers, the final responsibility for enforcing the rules is born by administrators.  The more powerful the administrator obviously, the more responsibility they bear.

APS Supt Winston Brooks
bears the greatest responsibility.
The ongoing failure to maintain
discipline is his failure.

He is the one hiding the data, link.

He is the person most responsible for
the fact that there is no useful data
to study, about how kids behave in
APS schools. If any was gathered,
it has been conflated with other data
to muddy the truth.

APS' data on bullying and vandalism were conflated.
For what purpose, except to blur the statistics on bullying
by mixing them with the more politically acceptable data on vandalism?

Theoretically, superintendents can be held accountable for a failure to control bullying; not so much for a failure to stop vandalism.

Administrators tend to blur clear lines because they want a wider variety of consequences from which to choose when dealing with rapscallion.  They have parents who get irked and make waves when their kid gets punished for something at school.

The lighter the consequences administrators employ, the more unlikely they are to be the subject of complaints about the consequences they employed and, and consequently, the more likely they will end their career in a comfy office suite at 6400 Uptown Blvd.



There are consequences of not employing adequate consequences while enforcing discipline problems.  Those consequences are felt by the relative handful of teachers and other staff members still trying to enforce discipline policies without adequate administrative support.

They have no voice, ergo they make no difference.




photo Mark Bralley