The California Senate is now considering a piece of legislation that would ban schools from being able to suspend unruly students — you know the type, the hard cases who disrupt class, get into fights, and refuse to submit to authority — stating that, essentially, suspensions are racist because they disproportionately impact black male students. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. This is utter horse manure. And you know what? You’re absolutely correct. This is a case of taking behavioral issues and turning them into a race issue.
According to TheBlaze, the proposed ban on accountability for kids who run amok in school would be applied to both charter schools and public schools alike, for grades 1 through 12.
“State Sen. Nancy Skinner (D) introduced SB-274 on Feb. 1, which was referred to the Committee on Education on Thursday,” the report revealed. “The bill would prevent students in grades 1 through 12 from being suspended for ‘disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully defying the valid authority of supervisors, teachers, administrators, school officials, or other school personnel engaged in the performance of their duties.'”
“In addition to giving a pass to disruptive and unruly students set on interrupting classes and making it difficult for other students to learn, Skinner’s bill also prohibits the suspension or expulsion of students who are ‘truant, tardy, or otherwise absent from school activities,'” TheBlaze stated.
The bill says, “California law concerning youth, their development, and punishment for their behaviors has been evolving,” making the rather absurd suggestion that expecting less accountability and responsibility from students has been a mark of steady progress.
Skinner’s legislation has also claimed that non-white students and non-heterosexual ones “are more likely to be suspended for behavior deemed to be a willfully defiant offense even when harmless.”
Here’s more from the report:
Noting how in the 2019-2020 school year, black students composed 5.4% of public school students in the state, but accounted for 15% of students who were suspended, the California Department of Education concluded worse behavior was not to blame, but “harsher treatment for minor offenses such as talking in class and other nonviolent behavior.”
Concerning a similar suggestion made in a 2019 report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Gail Heriot, a member of the commission, said there was no evidence to support this sweeping assertion and that “there is abundant evidence to the contrary.”
“When one looks at aggregate statistics concerning which students are sent to the principal’s office by their teachers, there are strong differences,” Heriot went on to write on the subject. “Denying those differences amounts to an accusation that teachers are getting it not just wrong, but very wrong. It is a slap in the face to teachers.”
Vice President of Education Policy and Government Affairs at the California Policy Center, Lance Christensen, is in agreement that failing to provide discipline to unruly students is only going to make the problem worse.
“When these bills take away the tools for dealing with those who are willfully defiant, all they do is just move the violence to a higher level and escalate the violence,” Christensen commented. “[Y]ou cannot just throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of a discipline policy that works.”
Christensen then spoke with Epoch Times saying that “if a kid is willfully defiant, the race or the color of their skin shouldn’t matter at all.”
Skinner’s bill then makes mention of how a school suspension can place additional economic strain on a household due to having to provide child care and other expenses for the student being home during the school day.
This is a no-brainer, guys. Kids need discipline. They have to know there are consequences for their actions. You can’t allow them to act bad, to violate the rules, and then skate by. This creates an attitude that will be carried out into the real world, encouraging criminal behavior. The last thing America needs is a spike in the criminal population.