Bonkers in Arizona: Tucson Schools Propose One Set of Disciplinary Rules for Black & Hispanic Students, Other Rules for Everyone Else
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on September 21, 2009
Tucson schools in Arizona are implementing something revolutionary. And repugnant.
Snippet from Arizona Republic:
Tucson Unified School District board of governors has approved this summer is a race-based system of discipline.
Offenses by students will be judged, and penalties meted out, depending on the student’s hue. Certainly, from the point of view of a public-school administrator, such a policy is beyond insane. TUSD principals and disciplinarians (assuming such creatures still exist) are being asked to set two standards of behavior for their students.
Is this America? This is absolutely nuts, bonkers. I have a feeling this two-tiered disciplinary system will not bode well with Tucson, AZ parents.
Questions: Will the troublemaking children who are of mixed heritage — one-half white, one-half black / one-half Asian, one-half Hispanic / one-half Hispanic, one-half black / one-third white, one-third black, one-third Hispanic — get a modified set of THEIR own disciplinary rules, like a complicated math rubic? Or will they get to choose which of the two sets of rules they should have to follow in Tucson? Or will mixed race students be zeroed out for any “special treatment” if they have any Caucasian lineage?
What if a student is a troublemaker, is two-thirds Native American, one-sixth white, one-sixth black, and one-sixth Iranian? What then? I could go on and on.
I’m not trying to be snarky. The ethnicity math needed here could be so ridiculously complicated (or school officials could bypass accuracy and base this two-tiered discipline on just the physical evidence of skin color… you know, RACIAL PROFILING). The potential of this racially tinged hand grenade exploding in the Tuscon school communities seems pretty imminent.
Attentive black or Hispanic parents should be so insulted by this, they should be charging into the school district and demanding that their children be treated like all other children. Not better, not worse. The SAME.
Fair, equal punishment for the same negative behavior. No race should be singled out as being “special” or “above the rules.” No oned be sanctioned to receive a harsher punishment because of skin color, race, anything beyond the crime itself. After all, this IS America, and such permissible discrimination on our law books thankfully went out decades ago.
But Tucson is bringing back such discrimination in its schools.
From Arizona Republic:
Tucson schools create race-based system of discipline
By Doug MacEachern
September 19, 2009It has been a busy summer for our friends running the Tucson Unified School District.
As always, the annual Institute for Transformative Education summer seminar, hosted by TUSD’s amply funded Mexican/American raza-studies program, was fun. So much racial bitterness to obsess over.
Tim Wise, the ultra-angry Tulane University poli-sci grad who has made a great living finding racism under every doormat, was the featured speaker. Everyone was wowed.
In a year in which hundreds of district teachers received pink slips, meanwhile, TUSD spent thousands on recruiting teachers from out of state.
And it hired a coordinator at $80,000 per annum to lead the effort.
The recruiting was prompted by what is fast becoming the consuming passion of the TUSD governing board and its allies – to establish a corps of teachers that precisely mirrors the racial make-up of its heavily minority student population.
You can argue the efficacy of such issues legitimately, certainly.
On a certain emotional level, it is a good thing for a minority student with few incentives to achieve much academically to see others who have.
But, as always, TUSD’s race-obsessing board of governors is taking racial bean-counting to preposterous extremes.
This summer, the TUSD board adopted a “Post-Unitary Status Plan” that it expects will help the district escape a decades-old federal desegregation order.
The plan includes increasing the number of minority teachers – per the summer hiring spree, which netted 14 special-education teachers and one math-science teacher.
It also includes a vast expansion of the district’s controversial Mexican-American studies program.
Despite the budget-enforced closing of school libraries, the shuttering of arts and music programs and the layoff of teachers and counselors in other disciplines, the Post-Unitary Status Plan calls for a vigorous expansion of the program run by TUSD’s happy band of unrepentant political leftists.
The board’s plan also calls for changes intended (however counterproductive those plans may be) to improving the lot of minority students.
It wants to see more minority students enrolled in advanced-placement programs, for example – a laudable goal, certainly. But consider one significant part of the plan for “improving” the academic status of TUSD’s Black and Hispanic students:
The board is calling for a two-tiered form of student discipline. One for Black and Hispanic students; one for everyone else.
With the goal of creating a “restorative school culture and climate” that conveys a “sense of belonging to all students,” the board is insisting that its schools reduce its suspensions and/or expulsions of minority students to the point that the data reflect “no ethnic/racial disparities.”
From the section of the 52-page plan titled “Restorative School Culture and Climate,” subhead, “Discipline”:
“School data that show disparities in suspension/expulsion rates will be examined in detail for root causes. Special attention will be dedicated to data regarding African-American and Hispanic students.”
The board approved creating an “Equity Team” that will oversee the plan to ensure “a commitment to social justice for all students.”
The happy-face edu-speak notwithstanding, what the Tucson Unified School District board of governors has approved this summer is a race-based system of discipline.
Offenses by students will be judged, and penalties meted out, depending on the student’s hue.
Certainly, from the point of view of a public-school administrator, such a policy is beyond insane.
TUSD principals and disciplinarians (assuming such creatures still exist) are being asked to set two standards of behavior for their students.
Some behavior will be met with strict penalties; some will not. It all depends on the color of the student’s skin.
It is an invitation to chaos.
The students of the Tucson Public School District certainly deserve more.
They deserve a chance to excel academically.
Instead, they get this. Genuine apartheid.
From the article, let me repeat: “School data that show disparities in suspension/expulsion rates will be examined in detail for root causes. Special attention will be dedicated to data regarding African-American and Hispanic students.” Could it be that this disparity is because more of these minority students are indeed causing the greatest percentage of problems in the classroom? Not that it is indicative of racism on the part of teachers, but because of a disproportionate disrespect for authority, for challenging school rules, and ignoring other students’ rights to learn?
Before the “racism card” is whipped out AGAIN, I want to say this: if redheaded children, or male children, or kids with glasses were determined to have a higher incidence of suspension and expulsion in the schools, the last thing any thinking person would suggest is to give those troublemakers their own watered-down disciplinary rules to follow.
The intentions of school officials seem sincere, but the outcome is destined to fail and create potentially greater rifts among minorities. This is most assuredly the wrong “solution” for this problem. Based on this proposal, the black students who beat up the white boy on the Belleville, Illinois bus would get a lighter, or non-existent disciplinary action from their school district than if white students had attacked a black student. This is sending the wrong message from the schools… I’m not the only one who sees that. (Naturally, criminal charges would be the same regardless of race, which could be a shock to ethnic bullies when they graduate and go out into the “real world”).
Rewarding a child’s behavior, whether it’s good or bad, will usually foster more of the same behavior.
Just ask Pavlov’s dog.
UPDATE, September 29, 2009:
Recommended reading from Michelle Malkin: Indoctrination Watch: How your tax dollars are training students to be union organizers
Additional related reading:
Michelle Malkin: Race-based discipline in Tucson schools and A teachable moment: Racial thuggery in St. Louis; Updated and Why parents don’t trust the Educator-in-Chief and his comrades and I repeat: It’s not the speech, it’s the subtext
Are you Freaking Stupid?: Race-based discipline in Tucson schools. Lesser punishments if you are black or Hispanic.
Caroline Rushing, Human Events: White Guilt Awareness Day
Steven Crowder, Big Hollywood: Lonewolf Diaries: The Obama Era is Over
The Daily Gut: Monday’s Gregalogue: Aversive Racism
FOX News: Pledge of Confusion? Schools Wrestle With Flag Policy in Classroom
Gateway Pundit: Calling Al Sharpton… Vicious Racist Attack On Bus in St. Louis Region (Video) and Belleville Attacker Flashed Gang Signs After Beating Kid On Bus
STL Today: Prosecutor claims Belleville bus attacker flashed gang signs
Just Americans Making Ethical Statements Weblog: New “Pledge” Policy being Pursued: A “Miranda”-type Warning
Howard Kurtz, Washington Post: Et Tu, Lefty? Allies Critical Of President – Waffling on Health Care Riles His Loyal Pundits
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Basic training in the military does not see color or race.
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I hope the non-minority parents sue the_______out of the school board. If a white child is suspended for certain behavior and a minority child is not, that’s unequal treatment, prejudicial toward the non-minority child. If minority girls didn’t start having babies at 13-14 and leaving them to grow up uncivilized because they are too young to know anything about child-rearing, and the children grow up with no positive model in the home, no one should be surprised at the lack of discipline demonstrated by these children. As a teacher, I can verify that minority children reared in a home with mother and father, strong supporters, achieve as well and behave as well as white children. Stop blaming the school and start requiring accountability of the parent(s). The Tucson B of E is as p.c. silly as UK schools have become.
I agree with everything you wrote Carolyn. Good job.