Real solutions do exist to improve schools, but apparently not in Philadelphia. A student seeks to do the right thing and they are force transferred to another school. The district has been doing the same thing to teachers for years. They even tried to suppress the report by Judge Green which was critical of the school districts lack of discipline. The model the school district follows is that if you speak up, you receive the discipline, not the offender. As the article demonstrates it’s true for South Philly High, it also is true at Roxborough where a young man I know was beaten three times, once requiring hospitalization. He was force transferred to Germantown High.
Teachers face the same consequence. Discipline your kids and if they get their parents to visit the principal to complain, the teachers face discipline, not the kids. Write a pink slip, and as my former principal of one year ago said, “I will investigate you to see what you did to cause the situation.”
A different principal once said to me these kids behave differently than you might be used to. He was referring to their loud use of vulgarity daring teachers to do something about it, their pants down to their knees, and their lack of effort which makes homework meaningless for many students. 15 years ago he may have been right. But even then, that doesn’t mean we had to accept it.
Our school district is an example of the stop snitchin mentality. Most parents are good parents and most kids are good kids. But by letting the minority rule the majority suffers.
We need to take back our schools in order for them to be effective and that starts with enforcing a discipline code which enables students to learn and allows teachers to teach.
I thought after Judge Green’s report went public we’d get some positive action in our school district. We didn’t. The current response to the beating of 30 students in South Philly High makes it apparent we’re no positive action will be taken now. We have been told to move on. And the direction we are apparently moving on to is one where our magnet schools will be disassembled. That’s our school district, break up what works, and ignore what doesn’t.
No snitchin, it’s what the kids learn in school. If I had been a better student I might have made principal. Instead, I’m running for http://www.electkeithnewman.com/.
