Learning While Black [Kid starts a fight at school. Kid's dad, angry his son got punished, sues.]

http://www.time.com/time/education/article/0,8599,238611,00.html ^ | June 5, 2002 | Jodie Morse

[summer]

I did a search and found a National Review article about this TIME article, but, not the original TIME article, as here.

I could really go off on a rant about this article, but I'm going to try to keep my cool here.

(1) Where was the teacher when this fight broke out, you ask? Well, I don't know. Maybe the teacher's back was turned to write on the blackboard. Or, believe it or not, some high schools have portable classrooms, and it is a big 20 second walk from the school's main building out to the portable, but, in those 20 seconds, a fight can break out and a teacher may not be around. Some teachers have the wild notion that 16 year old students can walk all by themselves without incident for 20 seconds, just like 6 year olds can do in elementary school. But, some teachers would be wrong about that.

(2) If a teacher was around, why didn't the teacher break up this fight, before the student had injuries so severe he had to get stitches? Uh, you never know if a 16 year old who has a foul mouth, in chronically late, calls other students names, throws a first punch, and then beats up a kid to the point where the kid needs stitches is also carrying a knife. Of course, to search such a student ahead of time could be "racial profiling" and subject the teacher to a lawsuit. And, to break up a fight, with a kid who will take out that potential knife and use it on a teacher, is just not a good idea if the teacher wants to avoid being cut up.

(3) Now, here's my question: When does the teacher (and other school officials) get the right to sue this kid's father for filing a bogus lawsuit in this matter? Or, when do parents of public school children start signing legal waivers prior to sending their kids to public school, so that time and taxpayer money is not wasted on these bogus lawsuit? If Bill McBride and Janet Reno would like to try to win this teacher's vote, they should countersue the NAACP and this kid's father. Also, explain to this kid's father that from a teacher's perspective, the problems concern the fact his son: (a) has a foul mouth; (b) is late everyday to class, disrupting everyone; (c) still calls his classmates names; (d) starts fights; (e) assaults students; and (f) has a father who is too busy filing bogus lawsuits to teach his son how to behave.

Finally, what happened to GW's Teacher Protection Act? That was a good idea. Did it ever get signed into law? If not, it should, because of events such as those described in this TIME article, and the article below:

Bad Kids in Class [Palm Beach teachers: 'We leave teaching because of kids' bad behavior.']

[summer]

The National Review article re: the above TIME magazine article

[Crowcreek]

Just a comment from a guy who went to high school when fights were common -

If this fight took place during class hours, AT the school, expulsion sounds right for the one who threw the first punch . . .

[usadave]

And, yes, as Russell readily admits, after a bout of name-calling with a white classmate last fall, he threw the first punch in a fistfight that left him battered and his adversary with five stitches over his left eye.

...but 35 states suspended that percentage of blacks, according to The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. The syndrome has even acquired a catchphrase: "learning while black."

It sounds like the white student that Russell punched was a victim of that syndrome known as SPITEBABSWW, or Sucker Punched In The Eye By A Black Student While White.

[Marine Inspector]

In Modesto, black students are 2 1/2 times as likely as their white peers to be expelled.

And I would bet that black students are 2 1/2 times as likely as their white peers to start a fight.

[bybybill]

Bet you that the teacher/school never made the kids call the teacher MR/MISS/ MRS. Bet you that the teacher wasn`t wearing a tie/dress. Bet you that both boys were not involved in sports. Bet you that, thanks to the lawyers, most of the other kids will miss the lesson of this whole mess, being a white or black jerk is stupid.

[LWalk18]

Unbelieveable. This kid, a troublemaker, is whining because he got a worse punishment for a) starting the fight and b) inflicting far greater damage. And the parents would rather scream racism than deal with the fact that their son is seriously troubled and is heading toward more (at least he was not criminally prosecuted). You know, I'm black, and somehow I managed to go through thirteen years of schooling without a single suspension. This kid could have too if he stayed out of trouble and his parents woke up and dealt with their son's problems.

Cases like this are why I didn't become a teacher, as much as I liked the other aspects of the work.

[Imal]

All you have to do is take a look at the expression on Dad's face in the background to get a feel for where this poor kid learned how to be a juvenile delinquent. Presumably he'll graduate to the prison system where he can make Daddy proud.

As always, there may be missing details, but what is described doesn't support a lawsuit. This kid's dad must be doing everything he can to make sure his son has a lousier life than he did: teach him to spout obsceneties at school, ignore class schedules, resolve disputes with violence and then blame authorities for punishing his illegal behavior. What a screwed-up legacy!

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. In this article, Jodie Morse seeks to somehow find a statistical explanation for what the Modesto School District did, when the answer is rather obvious: this kid clearly had discipline problems prior to this incident, then escalated from unfocused hooliganism to assault. The school "farther from where he lives" is probably the California equivalent of a reform school, and it looks like they were late in transferring him there.

Real racial discrimination is still rampant in many forms. Here it is being used as a weapon by this kid's racist father, but there are many genuine victims of racial discrimination in the U.S.

Self-serving nonsense like this discredits and delegitimizes real racism complaints, and hurts all victims of racial discrimination.

Imal

[Drew68]

No one is saying Kenneth Russell is an angel.

The 16-year-old high school junior from Salida, Calif., is a C student with a filthy mouth who has been known to saunter into class on his own schedule.

The damage that has occured by allowing thugs and apprentice criminals into the public school system is immeasuarable. Kids like this one place no value in education. In many cases, neither do their parents. For them, highschool is a place to engage in criminal behavior, assault and intimidate other students (and faculty) and disrupt the learning process for everyone.

Liberals can't seem to figure out why "White Flight" occured after the schools were integrated. This article sums it up nicely.

[Godel]

Funny, they could just as easily have written an article about the white student being harassed and beaten and how having stitches interfered with his ability to learn. I guess "Learning while white" didn't have the same catchy PC title.

[FreedomPoster]

And I would bet that black students are 2 1/2 times as likely as their white peers to start a fight.

Other available statistics would support that.

The Color of Crime (big *.pdf)

[Thebaddog]

Take a good look at the surly father. He's teaching the punk how to be a punk by being a punk. The dad should "encourage" his spawn to hit the books and not others.

[Movemout]

I'd have suspended his butt for sauntering into class on his own schedule. I would have suspended him for cussing. He would have straightened up or reached the maximum number of suspensions leading to expulsion before the fight ever took place if the teachers and administration hadn't bent over backwards to keep him in school. His dad is a real toad, himself. This just another example of victimology carried to the point of absurdity.

[otterpond]

Cases like this are why I didn't become a teacher

I did become a teacher and, in fact, taught at a predominantly black college in Dallas. At least, I taught there until a kid entered my office with a knife in hand and told me that my assignments were too challenging and that I was interferring with his right to an education.

He went to jail. I went to Florida.

[Skooz]

I'm black, and somehow I managed to go through thirteen years of schooling without a single suspension.

I'm white, and I lost count of how many times I was suspended in high school. I guess you and I blow their hypothesis out of the water, huh?

[shezza]

Homeschool bump!

Unfortunately, I see this attitude amongst many, many parents these days, whether black or white (or anything in between, for that matter).

Case in point: It's against regulations in the area where we live to leave kids under the age of 12 unsupervised, yet 99.9% of the time I am the only parent outside watching the kids play...and that includes two- and three-year-olds, as well. (What kind of parent sends a toddler outside to play without any supervision whatsoever? There are plenty of teenaged girls in the neighborhood who would love to be paid five bucks for watching a little one play outside for a couple of hours!)

The other day some unsupervised kids were playing on a neighbor's porch and broke a planter and a stand with glass shelves, all over the neighbor's front porch. I wasn't out at the time (nor were my kids), but came out when I heard her yelling at these kids to go home, get off her property or she was going to call the police. The kids, about a dozen of them ranging in age from 4 to 8, scampered off laughing but half-scared. Later on, would you believe some of the parents of these hooligans had the audacity to threaten the woman for yelling at their kids? Never mind that the kids were the instigators, playing where they should not have been, responsible for destruction of private property--in their view this woman was completely at fault for yelling at the children. One response: "If you don't like kids, you shouldn't have moved to a family neighborhood." (Followed by mutterings of profanity directed toward the woman.)

NONE of the kids, to my knowledge, were punished for being on this woman's porch or for breaking her planter and shelf. Rather, they were coddled for having to endure being verbally disciplined.

And, as evidenced in the news story above, the little hooligans will most certainly grow into big hooligans with mummy and daddy still getting mad at the discipliner, NOT the perpetrator who is actually at fault.

[Cacique]

btt

[RedWing9]

(2) If a teacher was around, why didn't the teacher break up this fight, before the student had injuries so severe he had to get stitches?

I have to take great exception to your question here. It seems obvious you've never seen a bare fist fight, nor been in one. A hard bare fist to the eyebrow area can, and usually will, cause a deep gash. This can take all of .7 seconds to occur. In other words, the teacher would have had no chance even if he/she was in the front of the same room.

[Alas Babylon!]

Here we see the reverse side of zero tolerance. I am against zero tolerance, because it is stupid and allows school administrators to avoid making a decision and using common sense. But what happens to a school that doesn't use zero tolerance and instead using logic and common sense in meeting out punishments? they get sued by the agrieved party. So for that reason (as proved here), many schools simply employ zero tolerance to avoid law suits.

Sometimes I wish we would outlaw lawyers.

[Skooz]

.... a C student with a filthy mouth who has been known to saunter into class on his own schedule.

....like the D and the F on his latest report card and whether they will affect his prospects for studying architecture in college.

Uhhh...........think this little angel will make it through 6 years of study to become an architect?