Cleveland Schools Struggle With Finding and Helping Potentially Violent Students, Study Reports
J Kroll, Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 13, 2008
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{snip}
The Cleveland school district is overwhelmed by students’ mental-health needs and has few ways to identify youngsters who could turn violent, a new study says.
The limited number of counselors available are diverted to roles other than counseling, according to the report from the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C.
Researchers also found that staff and students, often from very different backgrounds, struggle to connect. And the study questioned the effectiveness of discipline policies and the professionalism of security officers.
That report was one of two released Wednesday, Aug. 13, by the district, which commissioned the research after 14-year-old Asa Coon opened fire last year at SuccessTech Academy. He wounded two teachers and two other students before killing himself. {snip}
The second study, targeted at keeping danger out of buildings, found progress in the hiring and training of security officers. But schools chief Eugene Sanders said the more important study is the one aimed at helping the district identify and treat students who pose a threat to others or disrupt classes.
{snip}
The report notes that the schools must deal with issues that stem from the poverty and chaos that many students find in their neighborhoods.
The study, which cost $337,000, says other community agencies treat the same children, but the district and those agencies don’t communicate well.
{snip}
Researchers called for better training a faculty that is nearly two-thirds white so that teachers more clearly understand the backgrounds of a student body that is two-thirds black.
“I think you have teachers who are very good teachers, but who feel alien in the community,” AIR research scientist David Osher said in an interview.
Cleveland’s difficulties are similar to those of other urban and inner-ring suburban school districts, Osher said. He commended Cleveland school officials for confronting the challenges and said he’s optimistic that the 52,000-student system can turn things around.
But he said Cleveland’s plight is unique because of an unusually high rate of lead poisoning—from paint in aging houses—that can affect behavior and academic performance.
Osher also cited what he called “chronic underfunding” that has left school staff thin and panting to keep up.
For example, the report says that in 2006, the district had only 85 psychologists, one for every 692 students. And at one high school, guidance counselors spent most of their time re-enrolling a parade of students who had been dropped from the rolls for poor attendance.
Researchers also found the district moved slowly in tracking widespread absenteeism and tardiness, even though the number of students who missed more than 15 days in a year was well above 90 percent at two high schools. Truant officers, forced to take care of several schools at a time, have been reduced to clerks mired in paperwork, Osher said.
Teachers union President David Quolke said layoffs several years ago gutted the ranks of district social workers.
{snip}
The study also called for more professional behavior from a security staff that teachers said were too cozy with students and sometimes not available when needed.
The security force was a main focus of the other study, conducted by the Council of Great City Schools. The group, representing the nation’s largest urban districts, said Cleveland school security officers lacked training and suffered from low morale.
{snip}
(Posted on August 13, 2008)
Comments
Build Prisons,, Lots of large Prisons
Posted by Cafedeflore at 6:17 PM on August 13
gesssh only way to handle those violent students is…A NICE BIG SLEDGE HAMMER RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES…WON’T HURT THEM MUCH BUT WILL GET THEIR ATTENTION…..WHY PAY ALL THAT MONEY FOR NOTHING…I WILL DONATE THE SLEDGE HAMMER MYSELF!!
Posted by lydia at 6:34 PM on August 13
Let’s not forget that the interestingly named Asa Coon was a White student.
Posted by Annoyed In Illinois at 6:53 PM on August 13
It is true that security staffs in black majority schools are too cozy with the kids. the security staffs are often from the same environment, and do not always provide any role model. there are exceptions, but i’ve heard this complaint from many veteran teachers of black majority schools. you need to expand police forces and put armed cops in the schools; many to each school. until the chaos comes to an end, and fifty percent or more of the student bodies are arrested, removed, and placed in labor camps to understand the meaning of obedience, you are just wasting billions of dollars. i’m sure the waste of money called public education will continue to tolerate thugs, drug users and donothing students because the american people are weak and lack the guts to take on the largely incompetent black community. The few black students who are normal and eager to learn should simply be placed in private schools with scholarships. The number is so small that the cost will be a tiny fraction of the waste now incurred in public education for blacks. much of the same can be said of first and second generation hispanics, especially from Central America or Mexico. Most are ignorant peasants who have no concept of education or of ambition. Again, the few worth saving can be put in private schools.
Posted by at 6:54 PM on August 13
Lead poisoning is one way to explain “academic problems” (IQ 85).
But then you would have to say that all blacks in America ate lead paint when they were growing up.
But then how would you explain an even lower IQ (70) in Africa since they don’t paint grass huts?
Posted by at 7:03 PM on August 13
Ironically, Asa Coon is white.
The lead poisoning issue is a straw dog. Even if you eat lead, it leaves your system if your vitamin and mineral intake is good. Otherwise, there are two contradictory schools of thought on the issue:
(1) Lead poisoning doesn’t affect your mental abilities, and it’s merely an excuse to “explain away” racial differences in IQ.
(2) It does affect your mental abilities, but the preponderance of lead poisoning in urban areas means that black children have a particular problem with eating lead paint.
However, with time, since lead paint was banned in 1978, it’s going to be harder and harder to blame it with a straight face. After all, how many children nowadays live in houses with 30 year old paint?
Posted by Question Diversity at 7:10 PM on August 13
How difficult is it to find violent students? Hey Cleveland, they’re the ones with the guns beating the hell out of the other kids. The black ones, as we have seen for centuries cannot be helped. They need to be removed from our society. I still believe deportation to a black country is the right, but certainly not politically correct, thing to do.
Posted by Flamethrower at 7:58 PM on August 13
Underfunded? The Cleveland schools get more money per pupil than almost all of the Cleveland suburban schools.
Asa Coon was a white student, and the media let everyone know it. He apparently was from a troubled home, and was subjected to abuse at home and school.
Posted by William Hendershot at 8:02 PM on August 13
Underfunded? The Cleveland schools get more money per pupil than almost all of the Cleveland suburban schools.
Asa Coon was a white student, and the media let everyone know it. He apparently was from a troubled home, and was subjected to abuse at home and school.
Posted by William Hendershot at 8:03 PM on August 13
has few ways to identify youngsters who could turn violent, a new study says
It’s easy to tell who will turn violent. Simply look to see how dark their skin is.
Whites have been using this technique for decades now to accurately predict who will turn violent and which neighborhoods are violent.
Posted by at 8:09 PM on August 13
Give them more funding, now there’s the answer. The security people have low morale, golly gee I wonder why? No doubt diciplinary measures are null and void. They are dealing with the spawn of immoral liberal parents, mostly blacks and their role models are gang bangers and rappers, and rapists, whose favorite pastime is drug abuse, and lootin’ shootin’ and scootin’. There are not enough jail cells to hold even a small percentage, and don’t you know it’s all whitey’s fault.
Posted by WHITE SLAVE at 8:14 PM on August 13
It’s always cities with large black populations that have these kind of problems to such a high degree. Blacks in large numbers always bring a place serious problems but no one dares recommend they be attacked as problems peculiar to blacks and requiring special handling in terms of the behavior & psychology of blacks. If they do treat it in a special way as a black problem they can’t admit it.
Posted by Odysseus at 9:29 PM on August 13
“The Cleveland school district is overwhelmed by students’ mental-health needs . ..”
Why should anyone with severe mental health problems be in public school at all?
” … and has few ways to identify youngsters who could turn violent, a new study says.”
Yes, that is a mystery, as only one male black in three is headed for a felony conviction during his life.
“Researchers called for better training a faculty that is nearly two-thirds white so that teachers more clearly understand the backgrounds of a student body that is two-thirds black”
Another thing to worry about in lieu of learning enough about one’s subject to teach it competently. And why is it never necessary to “understand the backgrounds” of Poles, Irish, Jews, Italians, WASPS, Germans, French or Swedes?
“I think you have teachers who are very good teachers, but who feel alien in the community,”
They’re mostly law-abiding, sort-of-literate whites who’ve met their fathers and eat with utensils. They are completely alien in the “community.”
“For example, the report says that in 2006, the district had only 85 psychologists, one for every 692 students.”
My school had zero psychologists for over 600 students. There were zero metal detectors, zero “security” personnel, and my graduating class had two blacks. Not a coincidence.
Blacks in the aggregate simply cannot be expected to conform to white expectations in what to them is an uncongenial, alien environment.
Posted by Cassiodorus at 9:43 PM on August 13
Being a substitute teacher, I happened to work with two schools of the mentioned Cleveland school district. In spite that I was in a dire needed of money at that time, I was able to survive there only for five days. I’m not going to discribe to you the HORROR of that so called “education”. To be short and completely honest: I was surrounded by animals (this is not a bias or abuse, this is a fact). The student around me looked and behaved exactly like animals. One fact I do have to present and defend: they did not behave like animals on purpose, to be an animal was their nature, their necessity. They need not any education whatsoever. Plus, being a big man, I was really afraid for my life.
Posted by alex at 9:48 PM on August 13
“But he said Cleveland’s plight is unique because of an unusually high rate of lead poisoning—from paint in aging houses—that can affect behavior and academic performance.”
_________________________________
So it isn’t genetics or plain lack of interest that is holding back blacks: it is that gosh darn yummy lead paint that they just can’t help but eat - plus the usual heaping servings of “white racism” on the side, of course.
As long as it isn’t the truth, any excuse will do!
Posted by at 9:50 PM on August 13
Ah yes…..chronic underfunding and lead poisioning. They’ve just been given yet another excuse for failure and dismal behavior.
The baloon is about to be launched.
Posted by at 10:03 PM on August 13
These education experts are simply PC idiots who have it all backward and yet wonder why decade after decade the schools only decline. Solution:
Students should be put on notice that it is THEY, not the teachers (who are trying to prepare them for a modern high tech world) who must adjust and “connect” with the teachers. Otherwise they get expelled.
No more trying to bring back the loser drop-outs but encourage trade schools for those who are not academically inclined.
School attendance should be regarded as a privilege and not a pampered right and the age requirement should be dropped to 14 years.
Schools in high minority populated centers should no longer be basically babysitting institutions to keep disruptive low lifes off the streets and out of jail. Build more jail space but keep the standards in the schools high. Eventually, the kids will get the right idea that, whatever their home or neighborhood environment, in school they have to shape up or ship out. This will eventually improve everything.
Posted by Odysseus at 10:08 PM on August 13
Regardless of whether you believe the reality of race or you deny the reality of race, ONE thing is for sure; blacks, for either reason, require extra time, extra money, extra resources, extra attention, extra everything with little to NO bang for the buck.
The bottom line for either camp: blacks are a net drain. The deniers think money will help. The race realists see the futility of pouring money into a black hole (pun intended).
Posted by sbuffalonative at 11:31 PM on August 13
All schools are struggling under the weight of minorities. The tax paying whites pay the burden for the ill fated attempts to educate those that cannot be educated. The illegals from the south don’t want to learn our language. The young blacks (bags), well all they want to do is kill and prey on each other. Pretty much a giant waste of money.
Posted by at 11:41 PM on August 13
It is interesting that in spite of the rampant absenteeism and the fact that security is named several times to imply that they have a major impact upon curriculum, the author suggests that more tax funded social workers would have a positive effect upon the overall situation. Can’t see the trees on account of the forrest.
Posted by dunejack at 11:46 PM on August 13
Reasons why the Cleveland cannot control the student body resulting in a $337,000 study:
The Cleveland school district is overwhelmed by students’ mental-health needs and has few ways to identify youngsters who could turn violent, a new study says. The reasons are:
1) limited number of counselors available*
2) Staff and students often from very different background*
3) two many white teachers*
4) poverty and chaos in the neighborhood
5) lead poisoning in the community*
6) chronic underfunding*
7) only 85 psychologists /one for every 692 students
8) slow in tracking widespread absenteeism and tardiness, even
though the number of students who missed more than 15 days in
year was well above 90 percent at two high schools*.
9) truant officers forced to do too much paperwork*
10) layoffs several years ago gutted the ranks of social workers*
11) need of more professional behavior from security staff*
12) security officers lacked training and suffered from low
morale*
Posted by at 11:54 PM on August 13
Odysseus: Trade school is not for losers and dropouts. Trade school is for intelligent people who have better things to do than sit in an office pretending to do something useful. If you want to study history and literature, learn a trade. When you walk off the job at 3:30, you are free to use your mind as you please, unlike those poor souls who must worry about whether they filled out all the pointless forms correctly or who they may have offended that day. Honest labor leaves you with a clear conscience and a clear mind.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 12:25 AM on August 14
The student body was positively schizophrenic in my high school: wiggers, stoners, honors students, band geeks, jocks, nerds, Bible-beaters, and lots of pregnant teens. I suppose that’s what you get when the student population is expected to be tolerant and multicultural: no one had a clue how to be white. Even I was clueless, as I didn’t notice race at all unless it was black or asian; I didn’t know what a “hispanic” was, because I didn’t know such a thing existed!
There were almost no blacks at all, except for one mulatto girl who got pregnant in junior year- no shock there. As I look at my senior class picture, I see mostly white, with a lot of artificial tan on the girls; if not white, then usually Middle-Eastern, or South Asian. And the German foreign exchange girl, Beate; that was one of the few times that my last name turned out to be a blessing. We became friends right away because we were both German, and in a school that was about 40% Slavic it was important to know who your friends were.
Posted by Anglokraut at 12:49 AM on August 14
Odysseus: Trade school is not for losers and dropouts. Trade school is for intelligent people who have better things to do than sit in an office pretending to do something useful. If you want to study history and literature, learn a trade. When you walk off the job at 3:30, you are free to use your mind as you please, unlike those poor souls who must worry about whether they filled out all the pointless forms correctly or who they may have offended that day. Honest labor leaves you with a clear conscience and a clear mind.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 12:25 AM on August 14
Right you are schoolteacher. My college education is in engineering, but during that career I decided on a trade school and used my G.I. bill further. The change was allowed because what I do now was technical and in an engineering field (Power generation systems and Power plant construction) and I love my job. I pretty much make the rules and when I leave work I do indeed sleep well, and I don’t work with blacks anymore. I have worked with them in this field and they are totally incapable of understanding the things with which we work. My company here in Iraq was recently reminded that it had not made sufficient efforts to hire women and (minorities) we know what that means don’t we. We have very capable women working with us but, mercifully, no blacks.
Posted by Skip at 2:12 AM on August 14
Alex,
For future reference, many of us would be very interested in reading the specifics of your experiences as a substitute teacher. If you have some spare time, please write it up for future posting, or for future submission to the Amren magazine.
Posted by Reader-1 at 2:29 AM on August 14
I see so many kids being home schooled now, quite often the kids of liberal parents.
Make no mistake, the money for the new minority storehouses (AKA, the public school system) is dissappearing at exactly the same rate that said storehouses fill up with the new thug generation.
I predict that the public school system will collapse like a house of cards in ten years or less. Since only the most insanely marxist of liberals would abuse their kids by keeping them in the nut house, home schooling will be the norm, along with new sorts of informal private schooling. It’s going to be funny. I can’t see even our bloodless, horrible government being able to extract money from whites to fund the diverse new nations of bedlam in these…schools.
Who will weigh in with a bet?
When will the public school system go belly up?
2 years?
5 years?
10 years?
Posted by at 2:39 AM on August 14
The Cleveland school district is overwhelmed by students’ mental-health needs and has few ways to identify youngsters who could turn violent, a new study says.
How about looking closely at them, determining their color, then! if that color is discerned to be other than white, the probability that they will become violent is very high. How much should I charge the school district for that summation??
Posted by Skip at 6:37 AM on August 14
Inner city black schools cannot be run like white schools due to the behavior and learning abilities of the majority of the black students. This must first be admitted. Inner city black schools must be run taking the nature and abilities of most of the students into account. As such, it must be run like a semi-reform school. Firstly, these schools must be segregated by sex. In the boy’s schools, the teachers and administration are all black males, no females as it is too dangerous and the black boys, most of whom don’t know their fathers, need a male role model. The girl’s schools must be all black women. No whites because whites cannot discipline or keep order due to the race card and blacks understand blacks better. Secondly, all students must wear badges, uniforms and must pass through metal detectors on entrance to the schools. Thirdly, security staff are posted throughout the schools just like prison guards and all teachers have a “panic button” they can push. If a student gets out of line, the guards physically remove and restrain them for the police if necessary. Any dangerous student is kicked out permanently and sent to a juvenile detention facilty. Fourth, the school lessons are lowered to the mental level of the students where they just drum the very basics, reading, writing and math etc. and prepare them for some lower level trade. The few students who are college material can be bussed out to a suburban school but the rest, just keep it simple and basic. Fifth, all of these schools are surrounded by 10 foot brick walls and locked gates to keep anyone off of school grounds or protect kids from drive-bys. This wall also surrounds the employee’s parking lot to keep the cars from getting stolen and all employees are escorted to their cars. Sadly, this is the only way these inner city schools can be handled, like semi-reform schools.
Posted by at 8:59 AM on August 14
You don’t ‘help’ violent students. You remove them or punish them. You ‘help’ the successful or well behaved student. Could this be where the trouble begins from in the first place?
Posted by at 10:55 AM on August 14
I believe a gentleman named Joe Clark developed an effective method of dealing with precisely this sort of student years ago in a similarly challenging urban environment. It involved a baseball bat, high standards of discipline, and zero tolerance for the troublemakers.
It takes some teachers years to understand that you can’t MAKE your students care about learning. It is a shame that far fewer remember that you CAN make most of them them respect and fear you enough to let the small core of motivated students learn in peace. Those that refuse to learn, should be kicked out.
Remember the guiding philosophy: First, do no harm. Productive students should never be impacted by efforts to “save” the unproductive. Any school policy which does not follow this guideline is doomed to failure for all involved.
Posted by Visine at 12:44 PM on August 14
New Dictionary Addition: Potentialy Violent Students, aka blacks and illegals who drain the US School systems coffers with their periodic attendance.
Posted by at 3:55 PM on August 14
What a bunch of morons. They will never “connect” with these black students because they falsely assume that these students have (genetically reinforced) cultural ane ethical preferences similar to those of white majority.
They probably never heared of thisngs like “wilding” (the joyous mob pursuit and slaughter of a helpless individual) that is a part of core African culture. (See http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011175.html for more details.)
Posted by A Reader at 9:08 PM on August 14
What a bunch of morons. They will never “connect” with these black students because they falsely assume that these students have (genetically reinforced) cultural ane ethical preferences similar to those of white majority.
They probably never heared of thisngs like “wilding” (the joyous mob pursuit and slaughter of a helpless individual) that is a part of core African culture. (See http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011175.html for more details.)
Posted by A Reader at 9:15 PM on August 14
“…The study, which cost $337,000…”
Of course, the so-called education experts, who work in isolated ivory-towered universities or research faclities, far from inner-city classrooms, have come up with the same tired solutions: more White teacher training, more cultural awareness and understanding from White teachers, smaller classes, and, as always, more money, more money, more money.
I have a feeling the researchers well know what the problem is, but to say so openly is career suicide as James Watson recently learned: low black IQs of 85 combined with high testosterone levels produce aggressive, low functioning students only educable to a minimal degree.
Alex:
I too would be interested in reading about your experiences as substitutes often have the best, most interesting stories.
When I worked in a black school:
I had a brick thrown at me through an open door and caught a kid urinating in the heater vents in full view of dozens of on-lookers. I also had to write up a kid for obviously fondling himself continually in class. My classroom was broken into three times in one year, the computers and electronic equipment stolen repeatedly—the cops told me all the break-ins were inside jobs. The after-hours cleaning staff, of course, was entirely black.
In the days before direct deposit, DH’s paycheck was stolen from the office manager’s desk and cashed at the local check cashing joint on the corner, which advertises: “No ID necessary to cash checks!” It was a nightmare to replace the check.
There are many more aberrant things that happened but I’ve consciously blocked them out—the experience was overall a nightmare and one of the happiest days of my life was when my transfer finally came through (took years, as White teachers are needed for racial balance).
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 10:38 PM on August 14
Well, if you want to see”whtie teachers struggling to connect with black students”, then I suggest you watch the beginning of Lean on Me when that white teacher tries to break up a fight between a black and white student
Posted by at 12:14 PM on August 15
Shoolteacher
I agree with you and I didn’t say trade school is for losers, I wrote “but encourage trade schools for those who are not academically inclined”, meaning trade schools should be advertised alternatives for those willing and capable youths for whom the University is not for them. I should have elaborated this point, I know, but there are in fact too many people in the over glorified universities and not enough in useful trades that can be financially very rewarding. The losers I mean are the lazy do-nothings, simple dropouts and/or classroom disrupters (other than the true autistic) destined probably to join gangs and a life of crime. These we should stop agonizing over and stop catering to. Protect and recognize the strivers instead!
Posted by Odysseus at 12:17 PM on August 15
“However, with time, since lead paint was banned in 1978, it’s going to be harder and harder to blame it with a straight face. After all, how many children nowadays live in houses with 30 year old paint?
Posted by Question Diversity at 7:10 PM on August 13”
The children of people who never paint their houses. And those would be……? Well, black people, if I’m to judge by driving through the black neighborhoods in my own city. They don’t put a lot of effort into maintaining their homes.
You are right - all this stuff about lead paint is a canard. In all the years that Cleveland was a white city - and in those same years, lead-based paint was legal and common-place - the schools were fine. There were no metal detectors, no off-duty cops in the hallways, no lockdowns.
Posted by S.L. Cain at 3:13 PM on August 17
solution - prison. they’re destined for it anyway. this is the brilliance of idiot bush’s ‘no child left behind’. ruins everyone else’s education. my kids will be homeschooled.
Posted by at 12:58 PM on August 20