Saving K12 | Reform #1: The Majority of the Class Must Come First

Wherein a veteran teacher calls on school leadership to enact five common-sense reforms to solve K12 schooling's problems.

Parents and school board members: please read these next five pieces and act on them NOW. You have a unique window of opportunity with the Trump administration’s Reinstating Common Sense in School Discipline Executive Order. It supersedes the Obama administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened school leaders with defunding for “disparate impact” based on race as a result of school discipline policies meant to defend the learning environment in classrooms.

You’ve seen the videos of just how bad things can get in American classrooms. If you haven’t, get your head out of the sand and start asking pointed questions of students, parents, and teachers you know personally. Then understand that while the extent of the dysfunction may vary, the lack of classroom discipline disorders learning environments in every school. The headline-grabbing videos may not be paralleled in your suburban neighborhood school; no, in your school it looks like unlimited screen time, apathy, faked learning (and teaching), and grade inflation. These things rob students just as much as violence and chaos do, just in a more pernicious way.

Parents, Board members: you are dealing with people in K12 administration who have been trained for the last 20 years in accordance with the spirit of the “Dear Colleague” letter. It is my contention that these people need to be routed out of education. If they were fully indoctrinated in Education school and by the toxic anti-merit culture rife in public education, they will not change in time to save the kids in our schools right now. If these school leaders are cynically pretending to adhere to social justice directives to further their careers, they have no place around children.

This is my first in a series of common-sense reforms that could turn K12 education around and make American schools the envy of the world rather than the morass of conditioned non-learning into which they have devolved. This starts with parents who will fight to elect School Board members who have the brains and the intestinal fortitude to recognize school superintendents are often manipulating the Board and misrepresenting what is happening in the schools they oversee to the parents entrusting the education of their children.

Gird your loins for battle, people, because this one’s going to look like Stalingrad.

The kids are worth it.

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Reform #1: Remove bad actors from classrooms with extreme prejudice.

I am a boss in the classroom. I have managed classes of kids who don't speak any English and were dropped into a high school having never attended any school before. I have managed felons in classes with 9th graders. I have managed multiple inclusion classrooms bursting with kids with ADHD whose quality of learning had been mostly ignored for 9 years of schooling. I could do it, but it took damn near everything I had to control behavior so I could deliver instruction.

Teachers want to teach. It's enjoyable and, when you're seasoned and effective, it feels like one of the best things you can do for your community. Unfortunately, it requires Herculean effort to become effective in the classroom now. My skill in the classroom has come courtesy of a bookwormish ability to focus, probable-ADD that makes me a constant information-seeking missile, the ODD I inherited from my grandfather, a thrice-busted-down-from-squadron-leader Marine fighter pilot (Oorah!), the huge heart I learned to cultivate from my grandmother, the grinding work ethic I saw in my dad, and the wicked sense of humor (and the mouth) I got from my mom.

Almost no other teacher I know has the combo of weird, nerdy, defiant, wry, and sympathetic that I have, but THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. They shouldn't have to be a one-off nutjob unicorn autodidact to wrangle a class. A mature adult, respectable and courteous, with a specific body of knowledge that she loves deeply and that the community wants her to share with young people should be able to walk into an American classroom and just... teach.

But she can't. She can't because there are a minority, but a significant minority, of children who have been taught that they do not have to follow the rules of school. They have been taught that their shouting out will be tolerated. They have been taught that they can annoy their classmates, either by physically interfering with them during class time or by a near-constant stream of unsolicited commentary that derails everyone's lesson. They have been taught that no one but no one can take their cell phone away. They have been taught that they don't have to listen to the teacher because the teacher will be made to reteach the lesson to them or, at the very least, give them some low-effort make-up assignment so any and all failing students can pass the class at the eleventh hour. They have been taught these lessons so well that other students follow their example instead of the teacher's because those other students see clearly that there will be few to no consequences for ignoring classroom instruction.

Who taught them this? That’s right: the principal.

Principals Are the Linchpin

How can I blame the principal? Principals teach the students they come in contact with. They taught their students:

1. directly when teachers sent poorly-behaved students to them for correction of major disrespect or defiance and principals implied the teacher was in the wrong by failing to apply a consequence, and/or

2. by letting them off the hook when they disrupted the entire class by talking, singing, playing music, moving about the room, etc., and/or

3. by saying nothing during a classroom visitation when a class was not going well and/or

4. by doing nothing to help the teacher get her class under control.

Principals need to remember their primary duty is to safeguard the learning of the majority of the class, not try to fix an adolescent that cannot be rehabilitated by an armchair psychologist with an MA in Education at the cost of the learning of 30+ other children.

No, the principal's job is very simple. It is to support teachers in creating the conditions conducive to learning in their classrooms. Like it or not, a big part of that is the correction and, if necessary, removal of bad actors to protect the learning environment for the majority who control their own behavior in a safe, structured, productive classroom.

What Measures Can Principals Take?

Site principals can effect this in a few ways.

First of all, when a teacher sends a student out of class, he should be detained outside the principal's office. The student should be brought into his office and told to remain silent while the principal calls the students' guardian. The phone call should go something like this, and should be brief. "Your son was disruptive in his math class. His disruption detracted from the learning of 30 other students. He has been removed from the class and will not be permitted to make up the work he missed today as a consequence of his refusal to be quiet so that his classmates and he could receive instruction. He will be serving a one-hour detention after school today and will not be able to attend practice or club activities today. If he must be removed again, he will spend the day in on-campus suspension OCS. If he has to be removed again following the day in OCS, he will be sent home for the remainder of the school day and the entirety of the next day. If he disrupts again, he will be suspended at home for two days. Again and it'll be a 5-day suspension. After that, expulsion will be recommended. I'll be sending him to his next class as soon as this period ends. Thank you for your time. If you'd like to discuss this further, please schedule a meeting at your earliest convenience."

As long as teachers have documented student disruption of the classroom in accordance with published school policy, principals can do this. Except in California which has made it illegal to suspend a student from K-12th grade for defiance, school principals should absolutely be willing to do this, no matter how disruptive it is to their Calendar. (California teachers: you have the legal right to suspend a student from your class for two days and most of you have bulletproof tenure. The principals will only help you with this if you show them the law so look it up and print it out: California Education Code 48910. Alternate option for gun-shy California Principals: call removal a Tier III intervention and keep an aide in the front office to support the student as he completes the class work).

In every other state, you can absolutely suspend students for disruption and defiance. When principals deny this support they usually--and often accurately-- claim the teacher failed to do the requisite paperwork to create the trail of evidence administration needs to justify a suspension. They'll say, "I'd love to support you, but we have to have the documentation to prevent lawsuits."

I admit that all too often, a teacher -- who has been told to “build relationships” -- will wait too long to attempt to curb student misbehavior. Finally, something so egregious happens that she feels she must remove a student from the room. The rules are inconsistent across classrooms and enforcement of the rules that do exist are lax so many teachers fail to do this because it feels pointless to spend an afternoon on paperwork that probably won't amount to a hill of beans in the long-run. But we have to do it, teachers. I am making the following recommendations based on intimate knowledge of the system and with a mind to not only creating classrooms in which teaching and learning are enjoyable again, but also to minimize the school's liability in the face of litigious, entitled parents who have seen most admin buckle if the parent pushes hard enough. Often admin gives in because they lack the paper trail to make the case for suspension.

In order to make this all work, schools must implement a set of rules and hold teachers across all classrooms accountable for their consistent enforcement. (Principals, take note. Keep the rules simple and help teachers enforce them and you'll have a model school in no time.)

SLANT should be that expectation. In every room, students should be (mostly):

1. Sitting up

2. Listening

3. Answering (and asking) questions

4. Note-taking (Nodding for lower elementary)

5. Tracking the teacher with their eyes (no screens during instruction)

A lot of teachers claim not to like these rules. They think structure is anathema to creativity and that creativity should take primacy in learning. Most teachers, though, remain poorly educated as to how learning works and so don't understand how clear rules and structured daily work facilitate learning for every student. Once you make rules clear to students, they're easy to follow and easy to enforce, which makes class much easier to teach. You may also note that following these rules would mean that having a cell phone out of the backpack is an immediate infraction, curbing digital distractions too.

I'll be honest, if I have a kid who's a constant disruption, I'm only going to go hard on one thing: Notes. And I'm going to incentivize taking notes with lots of practice assignments and small quizzes that make those notes valuable; we don't just take notes in my class to keep students from getting in trouble -- kids are expected to go back to their notes to successfully complete assignments and to study for assessments. (FYI, I teach grammar/comp, i.e., the math of English, and Literature, but I have also used this in Economics, History, and yearbook.) I go into detail about notes in the third installment in this series, but know this: if you don't properly incentivize note-taking by using the notes again later in the class, it's going to be hard to get buy-in from the worst offenders. It may be hard to get buy-in even if you do because of equitable grading policies implemented by school/District administration. But we have to get back to what works in middle and high schools and what we're doing now, mostly, does not. If it did, EduTwitter, Teacher TikTok, and Insta would be much less spicy.

What Teachers MUST Do

Kids are going to break these rules, especially in the chaotic school in which, unfortunately, many teachers now find themselves. All teachers need a crucial teaching tool to get on top of this. Luckily, it's available at your local DollarTree: a clipboard with student rosters printed out and whatever disciplinary forms are used by the school underneath those rosters.

Okay, so what should a teacher do when a kid breaks a rule?

1. Look at him, wait a couple of beats so he knows you're looking at him, then say, "Hey, ____. Please take notes quietly so we can complete today's instruction without distractions. I'm writing all the notes on the board to take out the guesswork. You'll need them later this period and again tomorrow." If you get the song and dance that he has no pencil and no paper, you'll probably have to give him both -- at least in California we do. It's worth it. Do it and don't comment; just make sure you get the pencil back at the end of the period.

2. If he doesn't comply with your direct request, and when he disrupts again because he's not doing what you asked, it's time to use the clipboard. Find his name, record the date and put two checks next to it. You warned him once already, now do it again. Let students see you doing it, but don't comment on the checks or make a show of it. "_____, you need notes and we need a focused classroom so everyone can get the information they need. Please write what I'm writing." Control your response to whatever disrespectful gestures/comments he makes if he starts to take notes. (I'm not good at this but with the very poorly behaved kids, I can manage.)

3. If/when he disrupts again, don't stop the class. Just pick up the clipboard, put a third checkmark on it for the day, then flip to a disciplinary form, and write his name on the top, then put the clipboard back down on the desk. Again, don't hide this, but don't comment on it. Your silence as you do this speaks louder than any words you could use.

4. If he continues disrupting other students, you can do one of two things, depending on your site. Tell him to wait in the hall, and that you'll come talk to him as soon as instruction is complete OR tell him to move to the back of the room and wait there until you're finished -- I'd have a table and chair there for this reason. While this will minimize the effect of MOST bad behavior, I do realize there are some tough kids who will double-down. This is why you need documentation: a kid like that is the one who can steal hours and hours of instructional time over the year and you need to be a fierce defender of that time for the kids who want to learn. The class needs him to change or be gone, one or the other.

5. When you are done with instruction and your students are working independently, fill out the disciplinary form completely. This is where you would have a very minimal conversation with the kid. Always start the same way, "I have to protect the learning environment. When you chat or fiddle with your pencil or make other noises or actions, it means I have to stop teaching so that kids who have a harder time learning than you do can follow me and get the information and support they need. As soon as you decide not to distract your classmates, we will have no problems." Then hand him the slip.

6. Follow your site's direction for proper use and recording of the form. If you teach middle or high school, you may not have time to get the report into your Student Information System, and that's why the roster is crucial -- you need to record the incident before you leave for the day. Record all disciplinary infractions in the Student Information System, email all involved parents and CC the principal. Be as neutral as possible in these emails. Always start with the following sentence: "In order for all students to learn, disruptions to instruction must be kept to a minimum. Your child disrupted the class three times. He was given two warnings and redirected to do what the rest of the class was doing both times. I am emailing to let you know that he disrupted the class a third time after those warnings and was given a [disciplinary form/consequence] as a result. Thank you for your continued support."

I've taught some very poorly disciplined kids in some very rough places. Early in my career, I was assigned to teach a class where I was sat down and informed that I would be teaching an older convicted felon placed in the 9th grade English classroom. Along with this young man, the class roster contained multiple students who were frequently arrested for gang-related crimes -- they were rarely charged, but sometimes detained. I think I was 23. Out of desperation a few weeks into the second quarter, I pulled the recidivists aside and told them I was moving them all to the back of the class and putting the kids who did the work at the front of it. I told them that I had the same expectations for them as I had for the other students and that I wanted them to learn, but that as long as they were quiet enough that I could teach the kids in the front who were actively trying, we would have no conflict.

While I would love to report that those boys turned themselves around, they didn't, although they might have if I'd had any administrative support. Yes, I know the odds of that were slim, but if administration had followed the discipline policy at the time and followed up on the reports I logged and detentions I assigned, those boys would have been suspended and possibly expelled, which might have forced them (and their parents) to change. It also would've meant my students in the class, mostly English Learners, would've received a lot more instruction. We can't even count the cost of what the behaved students lost in terms of instruction and support because I was forced to allocate scarce instructional minutes to manage bad actors.

The Hard, Necessary Thing

Principals already have the legal cover (except in California, where the TEACHERS have it) to remove disruptive students from class. If we teachers are logging disciplinary infractions across all classes, principals will have more than enough evidence to start removing kids from rooms where they are limiting other students' academic growth which, ideally, will result in those students learning to control their behavior better and remain in the classroom to receive instruction themselves.

Principals: I know what you're thinking. You're about to come up with some reason you can't do this. Here's the thing: I actually have some sympathy for you because you've been trained in a very particular way over the course of your career. In my experience, principals are taught to lick a finger and stick it up in the air to test which way the political winds are blowing, not to read the law and determine all the options they can utilize to make classrooms efficient and joyful places for students and teachers. You're getting the message, somehow, somewhere, that you shouldn't do much, if anything, to curb the behavior of poorly behaved kids. If that message is coming from higher ups, you have an ethical duty to act in opposition to it. Site administrators are the linchpin on student behavior; consistency from you can overcome poor practice in the classroom. However, if a principal won't back a conscientious teacher all the way to the point of student removal, there is little hope for public schools to do the job taxpayers fund to the tune of nearly $860 billion (2021-22 school year).

I am begging you, and millions of parents who need the schools to work are also begging you: look up at that list of what teachers have to do and what students have to put up with to get one bad kid on your radar in compliance with District policy, policy usually driven by state regulations.

You have the power and legal authority to arrange resources to protect the healthy function of the learning environment for the great mass of children at your site.

I know the Pareto principle, and I know you are very familiar with it as well. You will no doubt have to fight some students and some parents who will take up outsized amounts of your time, tantruming and threatening. If they can't see that their child needs correction, that he needs these same rules to be applied to him so he can learn, that he needs the adults in his life to enforce rules and hold him accountable for following them so that he can grow into a good, thoughtful man, then you can't help that family anyway. Shift your focus to those you CAN help: the rest of his classmates. Don't they deserve someone fighting on their side?

Please keep those 30 kids on the other side of the behavior equation uppermost in your mind. I urge you to think specifically about the 4 or 5 kids that one incorrigible kid emboldens, kids who, if that single student wasn't present, would have a shot at real academic growth, but who are yanked off-course, daily, by a child who is enabled both at home and by weak school policy and practice.

And here's the HUGE bonus: once you wrangle these kids, you can work on the quality of instruction across the site. No longer will a teacher be able to (rightly or wrongly) say, "No one can teach when the classroom can't be controlled."

Once you, the principal, get the worst disruptors under control (or off-site), you can hold teachers accountable for implementing solid instructional practices. You cannot do this in any other order, despite every admin ever repeating that good Tier I instruction will prevent bad behaviors -- it doesn't without clear and firm consequences. There's that Pareto principle again: you're most likely to effect meaningful change by adjusting incentives for the minority, not by trying to move the majority.

When classrooms are safe and calm places to learn, teachers are able to focus on instruction.

And that's where the real, meaningful reform can begin. Once the classroom is no longer hijacked by kids enabled to follow their every impulse, a principal can get a fair accounting of a teacher's skill level. A principal can then make well-informed decisions around support, coaching, and training for their teaching staff, which is the maximal point of leverage schools control when it comes to overall student success. Instead of throwing resources away on students who have learned there's no reason to change under the current paradigm you will be able to allocate resources more democratically to effect outsized academic gains for every student on campus.

Isn't that why you signed up to be a principal in the first place?

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