Sara Latshaw, an employee of the ACLU of NW Florida, wrote a viewpoint that appeared in the PNJ this Sunday. In it, she chastises me for having the wrong plan on discipline; she regurgitates the same liberal talking points that I've heard over and over about school discipline, according to her, "leading the students on a pipeline to prison"
First things first: The idea of a school to prison pipeline is a ridiculous myth! It is a lie. It should be labeled correctly for what it is--a HOME to PRISON PIPELINE! blaming educators, administrators, deans and counselors that care about all kids for the horrible choices some students and their parents make is a cop-out and it places blame on the wrong people. It all starts at home and everybody knows it. If you live in a dysfunctional home, and you have a challenged upbringing, we are standing by to help you with all sorts of resources if you just reach out and take them. Being stuck in Poverty does not make students misbehave and become abusive predators--their deficient home-lives do. So if you are living in a tough situation--let us help you!
But if you chose to use that as an excuse to destroy learning environments for students and teachers that are doing their jobs, that excuse holds no water with rational thinking individuals. It's called personal responsibility, you have to chose to conform to school site expectations, otherwise it is your fault, and nobody else's.
And it is sad when students make horrible choices and end up getting in trouble at school; if bad behavior escalates such students may very well end up in prison. But I say again as loudly as I can-this is 100% up to the student and his parents to decide whether to do right, or do wrong.
If anything, as I correctly pointed out in my viewpoint about smashing the prison pipeline, we may be guilty of being too lenient on students in school---leading disruptive students to the false conclusion
