Nelson Hernandez, Washington Post, June 15, 2009
The epicenter of trouble at G. James Gholson Middle School used to be the cafeteria.
When a few hundred seventh- and eighth-graders crammed together, they would gain a sense of strength in numbers. The noise was overwhelming. Food fights erupted almost daily. Roughhousing sometimes led to brawls. The school handed out 867 suspensions in the 2006-07 school year, more than 250 for fighting.
The Landover school offered a case study of what Prince George’s County leaders want to change. Many educators agree that suspensions are ineffective in changing behavior. When students return after a suspension, they’re behind in class and often angry, which can provoke them to do something that will get them suspended again. Students who are repeatedly suspended are far more likely to drop out.
Prince George’s schools issued more than 21,700 suspensions in the 2007-08 academic year, involving almost 13,000 students who were kept out of school—many of them more than once, according to state data. The county’s suspension total was more than any other Maryland school system and almost three times the total in neighboring Montgomery County. D.C. public schools—about a third the size of the Prince George’s system—issued more than 2,200 suspensions in 2007-08. To many observers, the Prince George’s tally represented an educational failure because school administrators were forced to sacrifice in part their academic mission in order to keep campuses under control.
{sbip}
Experts say forcing a student to stay out of school can be problematic, particularly when a child goes home to an unstable family situation or is allowed to run the streets.
“You send them home for 10 days, they aren’t going to ‘see the wizard’ [and] come back reformed,” Phil Lee, president of the Kettering Civic Federation, said at a meeting. “They come back angrier.”
{snip}
But the secret to the reduction is standing hours a day, roaming the halls, peeking into classes and ceaselessly keeping students in line. Nowhere is this more evident than the daily battle to have an orderly lunch in the cafeteria. Food fights are now a distant memory.
“5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1,” Parker [Jeffrey J. Parker, principal of Gholson] called out on a microphone as students streamed in one day last week, carrying on hundreds of conversations at once. “Everybody be seated and quiet.”
The din of chatter dimmed ever so slightly. “I’ve already counted down, I’ve already asked you to get quiet,” he said. “Excuse me! We will have a silent lunch if you cannot get quiet when I ask you to!”
The noise decreased a little more. “I mean for you to get quiet, so I’m going to have to show you,” Parker said. He started calling out the names of students who were still talking, making them stand against the wall to calm them down. Soon it was about as quiet as it was going to get, so he started shuttling each table off to the food line.
As lunch got underway, Parker scanned the students from a chair on the stage, calling them out when they started acting up. The children, bundles of energy, were testing rules every moment. A group threw around a crumpled-up love note (confiscated); two boys “took it to the body,” slang for punching each other in the chest as a test of how much pain they can take (Parker stopped them; it can lead to fights); and a boy and a girl clung to each other in a prolonged embrace (and were told to knock it off).
“What’s the problem? What do you keep moving for?” Parker asked a seventh-grader who kept switching seats. “Burnett, Burnett: Don’t throw that orange. Sit down, Knight. Charles: You ready to sit down, son? Sit down and stop playing.”
Parker explained his methods: Usually a word or a guiding hand on the elbow is enough, although he has chased trespassing high school students out of the building a couple of times. The main thing, he said, is being a presence in the school and knowing students by name. Like principals everywhere, he has found that some of the students he knows best are the ones who land in his office most often.
“See those two standing against the wall?” Parker said of a couple of eighth-graders. “The short one? He’s a pistol. He will curse you out. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, like a sailor.”
{snip}
Principal Parker keeps an eye on his charges.
Original article
(Posted on June 16, 2009)
Public School Review, no date
Students by Ethnicity
% American Indian
7%
% Asian
% Hispanic
3%
% Black
95%
% White
1%
Original article
Comments
I’m sure many of the newly introduced discipline methods are harsh. When whites in the South used the same measures, civil rights leaders said no, no, no. I have come to the conclusion that anyone in charge of blacks will wind up adopting most or all of the segregationist, apartheid, Jim Crow or caste systems, even if those in charge are black.
The enrollment-by-race statistics tell the story: 95 percent black.
What is the answer to the ever-present problem of black obstreperousness and refusal to obey the rules? The educationists already have thrown out the most time-honored and effective one: Spank their rear end until their nose bleeds buttermilk. Now they’re wanting to eliminate out-of-school suspensions — possibly a wise move in a way, since the kind of student who habitually causes trouble will like nothing better than running the streets for several days.
But in-school suspension means some teacher or principal has to watch the miscreants like a hawk. Did we have such problems in the old days when many schools even outside the South were segregated, by housing patterns though not by law?
As a citizen of the People’s Republic of Maryland in neighboring Montgomery County I can tell you that PG (Purely Ghetto) County is well known for its dismal education system along with its high crime rate (right up there with DC and Baltimore). The population is majority black, the government and school system is run by blacks with the usual resulting waste, fraud and general chaos.
Neighboring Montgomery County is still majority White (although just barely) and has what is considered one of the best school systems in the country (a scary thought).
I’ve seen kindergarteners with more self-discipline. Do these teenagers have the mental age of five?!
Funny, when I was in Jr/Sr High School the oldest female teacher would say be quiet and we were. There might be faces made, behind her back, but never to her face. And we didn’t even have police in school. Of course this was 1970-1976 and the school was 99% white. Gosh I miss America!
Looks like a lot of fake Indians at that school.
Pity that 1%.
Any mention of the academic achievement at this so called “school”? No I didnt think so, because it doesnt exist. Just keeping the students from burning the school down is all that can be done.
“When a few hundred seventh- and eighth-graders crammed together, they would gain a sense of strength in numbers. The noise was overwhelming. Food fights erupted almost daily. Roughhousing sometimes led to brawls.”
7th, 8th graders? Try any blacks of any age.
Unless you’ve been around this black school mob, you wouldn’t believe the noise could be this overwhelming. It escalates with each kid trying to shout over another until it’s just black noise.
These kids know they’re untouchable and they know they run the show. They have the mentality and IQ of kids less than half their age. They take great glee in ticking off teachers and any authority figure who tries to maintain order and disrupting other classes in session.
Dealing with blacks is pointless, pointless, pointless.
These black students from PG County know what it takes to behave, they have just been brainwashed by “underprivileged” black and guilty white liberals that they don’t have to behave - that successful education and respectful behavior are “white” traits. I used to teach in a school in a major urban area in MD with a white principal, black vice-principal, an even ratio of white and black teachers. and 99% black students who came right from the ghetto. In school, ghetto behavior was not tolerated, and the students knew it. The students were in line, and the parents were in line because thet knew how bad the other city schools with “lazy, touchy-feely, poor underprivileged babies, I have a PhD in education, the black child learns differently, blah, blah, blah ” administrations were, and they didn’t want their children to end up at one of them.
As far as suspension is concerned, they come back angry at schools like the one in PG County because their holiday is over.
PG County Public Schools make me sick. Their teachers actually gave seminars at private/parochial schools in MD a few years ago on how to effectively teach the black child! PG County Public Schools are notorious for raucous behavior, not just among students, but among teachers. A few years ago, there was some issue there concerning a teacher who slapped another teacher in front of her class. Good practice and behavior start at the top.
My old school district had two junior highs. I went to the one that had more blacks.
No wonder my school was notorious for fights.
One must constantly watch black children in a school setting. The language, disrespect, crudity and total lack of academic achievement are the hallmarks of any predominately black school.
Good for principal Parker. Let the blacks take charge of their own. Instead of blaming Whites for the uncivilized behavior of blacks, Mr. Parker acts like a man, confronts these savage children directly and doesn’t back down. He probably could give Whites a few lessons on handling their children too.
PG county is my favorite county in Maryland!As a resident of Northern Virginia,I just can’t wait to turn on the news and see who got shot,stabbed,raped,carjacked or robbed in PG county tonight!I love it when the reporters stand in front of the police headquarters in Palmer Park talking about the latest mayhem.When it isn’t crime,they go on and on about the lousy schools.Recently decided to close some due to lack of students.Close them all down.
Well, as for the comments about the 1 percent whites, and the ebony indians, the statistics seem to add up to 106 percent so I guess they are letting “mixed” race students count as two or more categories.
I put mixed in quotes because I briefly had the misfortune of having a “Indian” secretary who in appearance and behavior/mannerisms/personality seemed 100 percent black but swore that she was a real life native american indian, part of a tribe somewhere and everything.
I don’t think it this attitude is even really a black thing, lot of white people make dubious claims of being part Indian, it seems a very popular thing…
With whites, it seems to be motivated by a desire to be exotic and not plain boring white, but with blacks, I suspect the reason for this phenomenon might be that a large minority of them are not in contact with their biological fathers so rumors about cherokee grandfathers on the father’s side would be impossible to prove or disprove.
God I feel sorry for that 1% of White students.
Recently a black columnist in the NY Daily News claimed the high crime rate among black teens could be reduced if they were given constant adult supervision: teachers in the morning, cops when they walk home from school and parents after school.
I thought of sending him an email asking what other ethnic group has children who need 24 hour surveillance akin to a maximum security prison in order for them to behave.
“Sbuffalonative” is quite right. Among their many other peculiarities, Blacks are by far the loudest race on the planet! They basically shout where Whites or others simply talk - they seem to have no sense of realization that shouting and yelling, specifically in public, in such a fashion is simply not civilized behavior.
“I’ve seen kindergarteners with more self-discipline. Do these teenagers have the mental age of five?!”
If you have kids you’ll know that any teenager can seem like their five when they don’t get their way :)
Glad to see this principal’s methods are working, maybe they can make something out of their lives. It would be better if the discipline started in Kindergarten; its necessary to ensure success throughout life.
Good, they found something that works for them. The picture says it all: a masculine black man to keep the teens in line. Schools for boys once upon a time had male teachers for exactly this reason: to be a positive role model and keep the rowdy boys intimidated enough so that they could behave and learn.
I guarantee you every teacher (of any color) and every black mother is happy with this new system. I also guarantee you that sooner or later some white liberal fusspot will see this and start a crusade to stop these disciplinary measures.
>>>Black students just won’t behave themselves unless they are watched every minute.
But our liberals just don’t get it. Can you imagine how well White students would do, in a 100% WHITE learning environment?
In our state the schools get funding based on how many students are in school on a daily basis.So for financial reasons the schools leadership keeps disruptive students in school.They can’t see that this destroys the morale of the teachers.They have to waste time and money on the unruly.They continue to make excuses for their behavior.They attempt to instill disapline but because they is no real threat the students will not take it seriously.They have no self disapline so their future looks grand.Maybe if they are lucky a future at Mc Donalds awaits them!
It would certainly be interesting to track Principal Parker’s career track as an edjukrat. Maybe start a betting pool. Does he get indicted for choking the living poop out of one of his charges or does he make it to a promotion to the central office before such an event occurs?
These kids will be unemployable when they graduate. They are not smart enough to do the work and they cannot follow instructions. They better start learning a trade like, “how to file fake civil rights lawsuits” or “selling drugs” so they can get their bread, man.
I have to say that I believe the problem is not race per se, but culture. From what I know, black culture among U.S. native black people is largely anti-intellectual, pro-victimhood and blatantly anti-authority (the latter two fueled by the “Civil Rights” race hustlers and poverty pimps). If the problem is with “black” people, then why do blacks from the Carribean and parts of Africa, etc. do so much better when they move here than U.S. born blacks? Would the Evil White Man keep only his own black brothers and sisters down while leaving the black immigrants alone?
Photos of Japanese school children arriving early to clean the http://www.sover.net/~johnd/cleaning.html
“Blacks are by far the loudest race on the planet! They basically shout where Whites or others simply talk - they seem to have no sense of realization that shouting and yelling, specifically in public, in such a fashion is simply not civilized behavior.”
I used to date a black woman. Sometimes when her mother and her would talk it would sound like they were kind of mad at each other. Not that they were loud exactly, or even ‘ghetto’, just the tone. They weren’t really mad at each other. I would have to say it was a ‘racial difference’. It was my ears, or simply the way ‘they’ talk.
“If the problem is with “black” people, then why do blacks from the Carribean and parts of Africa, etc. do so much better when they move here than U.S. born blacks?”
That’s like asking, why are the white people I see at Martha’s Vineyard so much better behaved than the whites I see in Southie (South Bahstun)?
Plane tickets are expensive. America is expensive. The self selected immigrants you meet are the cream of the crop from their countries.
It is an almost impossible task to maintain any semblance of order or decorum in any situation, school, work, prison or otherwise once black’s become more than 20% of the group. This is true even with black’s in charge. Just go back 20 years or so and remember what happened to Joe Clark as the principal of an almost 100% black HS in Patterson NJ. Just imagine what it must be like for a non black to be put in charge in one of these situation’s.
}}}Many educators agree that suspensions are ineffective in changing behavior.{{{
Not surprisingly, these anonymous “educators” have turned the idea on its head. Suspensions, like prisons, were intended to remove the influence of the troublemakers so that the rest of us might live in peace. The alternative is a democratic crackdown on everyone, and the result is a general defining down of deviancy.
Anyway, the anti-suspension movement has long been couched in racial terms (“Suspension rates for black students out of line, says NAACP”), so it’s interesting to find that a 95% black school admits to a history of suspending unruly and violent children.
Maybe the suspension rates are highest for the most unruly and violent people.
A few thoughts…
1) I calculated the percentages of that school and it came to 106%? I think that school is about as good as its students.
2) How would you like to be that 1% of students that are White? How do you think they are treated by the blacks there? I hate to think about it. I really do.
3) I agree with some of the posters here. Blacks are an extremely LOUD people. Even when they are not angry or upset. It seems to be an almost childlike or immature feature or characteristic of them. They are just LOUD period. Especially black women.
Pathetic. He counts, he begs, he pleads, and eventually surrenders when it gets “as quiet as it’s going to get”. This is discipline?
Yes, I know. He’s not allowed to touch the poor dears.
Pathetic.
Black adults have the mentality of small children, so why would anyone expect more from Black children?
The Blacks instill in their kids a belief that everything is owed them, since their Race was abused over 150 years ago.
Black parent(s) teach their kids Sloth,and direspect for others, and themselves.
They are a Race that constantly has their hands out for what they think is coming to them, without doing a bit of work to justify anything that they get.
These children learn what their Mothers, and Fathers, when their Fathers are around, do, and how they interact with various people, and Authority figures, such as Police Officers.
The lack of courtesy, respect, and discipline in Black children is the direct result of what is not taught by Black parents, in their homes.
in response to AJ. your secretary is probably black. no
Blacks from the Caribbean and elswhere do well because they see America’s OPPORTUNITIES and don’t have the ENTITLEMENT mentality that has infected American blacks. Where American blacks see oppression, blacks from other cultures see opportunity and generally make something of themselves. The african and caribbean blacks that I know want NOTHING to do with American blacks. The foreign blacks that come here also have a much greater respect for education than do American blacks. A child of one of my african black friends came home with a “C” on the report card. That was NOT acceptable to his parents; appropriate action was then taken. Contrast that with American blacks who will criticize their smart American black classmates for “acting white”.
I agree that Caribbean blacks have a better attitude, but I bet there is something about their history, of which I’m ignorant-I bet somehow their circumstances selected for intelligence. This might be grist for Mr. Taylor’s mill-the few times I’ve tried to research a matter that JT wrote about, he left me in the dust. Is there something about the way blacks came to the Caribbean that selected for intelligence, more so than to mailand north or south Americas?-db
Principal Parker keeps an eye on his charges.