Why Has Charter School Violence Spiked at Double the Rate of Public Schools?

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-has-charter-school-violence-spiked-at-double-the-rate-of-public-schools/

Taking state data, which includes “violent” incidents not involving the police, Families for Excellent Schools asserts that between 2014 and 2015 schools suffered a 23 percent uptick in violence. The public action was meant to undermine New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who recently claimed school violence has gone down, thanks to his administration’s softer disciplinary approach.

A Nation analysis of the charter school group’s data, however, suggests the move may backfire, since the numbers also show that charter schools themselves reported a far higher spike in incidents of school violence, 54 percent, more than double that of the public school average between the 2014 and 2015 school years.

Breaking the data down further, The Nation also found that while NYC public schools, perhaps responding to the district’s disciplinary reforms, actually dropped in nonviolent offenses like “criminal mischief” and “other disruptive incidents” at -6 percent and -23 percent, respectively, charter schools had a 65 percent surge in reported incidents of “criminal mischief” and a 33 percent surge in “other disruptive incidents.” Notably, charter schools also had far higher reported surges in drug and weapons possession incidents, at 53 percent and 27 percent respectively, whereas public schools only had 5 percent and 9 percent jumps for the same categories.


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“In my experience, what would often happen is that charter school students would be so rigidly controlled that the kids would periodically blow up,” says Shufelt. “At PS 30, some of our kids would have meltdowns, usually because of problems at home, but I never saw kids melt down in the way they did in charter schools. They were just so despairing, feeling like they could not do this. I was told by two custodians, they had never had so much vomit to clean up from kindergarten and elementary classes.”

[tech3149]

1. In a brutally competetive environment people tend to be brutal

I like competition, it can be a great motivator to do more than you thought you could. But trying to be the winner exacts a cost. Many times we don't understand the extent of those costs until much later.
In my HS days I was on the course for an engineering degree but my senior year was a turning point. I finally had a social life. A group of people that exposed me to life experiences that I would have never known had I stayed on the course I thought I wanted.

During my racing days I spent more time helping my competitors than I spent on my own equipment.
During that time I found that people who compete to win offer nothing to the rest of us but pain and hardship.
I can count most of the people I competed against as friends and supporting spirits.
Competition should never be destructive.

[Igel]

3. In my experience, most of the violence is based on competition.

Not for grades.

For dignity, for respect. In response to name calling, threats to sexual primacy over a girl (or boy). Some ethnic group taking over a table at lunch. Ethnic slurs. A push that was perceived as offensive, with a perceived need to restore honor--with the perceptions not necessarily those of the person who was pushed. "Did you see how that ____ pushed you? You gonna let him get away with that?"

Public displays of contempt and anger are approved of. Hey, can't hide our feelings. And they're culturally appropriate to young men 13 and older who are as far as they're concerned adults in everything but rights, knowledge, wisdom, experience, legal privileges, etc., etc. The only thing they're "adult" concerning is sperm production, but for them that's all that matters. This has a very strong correlation with SES, btw.

Yeah, there's competition. But charter schools come in several species. One is where parents put problem kids where there are rigorous behavioral norms--they show up angry, bitter, resentful, oppressed, at ages 15 and 16 they spout nonsense they've been taught by angry, bitter, resentful oppressed adults and their music. That's a serious culture clash.

For this, a lot of the increase in school violence tracks fairly closely the violence seen in low SES communities in the last couple of years. But we have to think of schools as isolated, separate. It's a foolish thing, but somebody has to do it to maintain karmic balance in the universe. I guess.

Another is warehousing. Where parents put problem kids so they can sit, drool, and get As for wiping their own asses to 75% mastery level at least 80% of the time. They graduate few because a lot of those kids transfer back to public school with glowing grades a month before the end of the school year. In time to miserably fail the final, putting teachers in horrible positions--have a large fail rate for students they didn't teach or simply pass them, knowing that their degree is pretty much worthless? That's if the course grade of A that transferred in doesn't average out with a final grade of 25/100 to above 70. It often does.

A third is where the geeks and nerds go to excel. Immersion Japanese, focus on STEM or performing or visual arts, etc.

[MisterP]

2. high turnover, bad management, a system set up to profit not teach, kids not learning ...

[raptivity]

4. raptivity ans

 A few weeks after The New York Times released a controversial video of a Success Academy Charter School teacher lashing out at a student, New York City’s deep-pocketed charter school advocates are looking to shift the public narrative on who is committing violence in city schools. Over the last few weeks, Families for Excellent Schools, a charter school lobbying and advocacy group with close ties to Success Academy, has placed TV ads, held a press conference, and taken to social media, claiming New York City public schools are in a violent “state of emergency.” The charter school campaign appears to be a response to the public backlash that Success Academy has received for its controversial disciplinary approach.

[eridani]

5. Didn't know that. Welcome to DU n/t