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Monday, March 12, 2012

LATimes Criticizes Student Discipline Study

A Los Angeles Times (3/11, 630K) editorial criticizes a USED study on student discipline as incomplete. The agency "missed an opportunity with this report. If schools are doing a poor job of disciplining students, the department should be gathering the evidence and leading the charge against backward methods that are harming youngsters rather than helping - especially considering that this has a disproportionate effect on many at-risk students. And if minority students are being unfairly singled out for punishment, the department neither proved it nor provided much guidance for how to protect them."


 

Advocates For Disabled Students Hope ED Study Will Reduce Use Of Restraints.The Washington Post (3/11, Hefling, 553K) reports, "Tens of thousands of students, most of them disabled, are strapped down or physically restrained in school, and disability advocates hope that a new Education Department report detailing the practice of 'seclusion and restraint' will spur federal action to end it." The ED report "shows that 70 percent of students subjected to the techniques have disabilities." The report also found that Black students are a disproportionate number of those so treated.


 

Administration's Use Of ED Report Faulted.Jason L. Riley writes in the Wall Street Journal (3/10, Subscription Publication, 2.08M), about a new study showing that black students are punished disproportionately to their population in schools. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is quoted saying, "The undeniable truth...is that the everyday education experience for too many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise." Riley says that the Administration seems to have more sympathy for the students creating disruptions than for those who are quietly working. Riley argues that the report offers more evidence of the value of charter schools, which, he says are safer and more orderly.

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