Chewing gum in class? That'll be detention AND a fine

[downtown]

A school network where I used to teach recently made the news in Chicago for a somewhat controversial discipline strategy, where students (or their families) are charged actual fines for misbehavior. Students can also be held back a grade for discipline related issues, even if their grades are satisfactory.

A Chicago charter school franchise often touted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pocketed some $387,000 in fees over three years by issuing demerits for “minor infractions” ranging from not sitting up straight to openly carrying “flaming hot” chips, parents and students charged Monday.

The list of forbidden conduct at the Noble Street Charter Network is “as long as my arm’’ but adds up to a “dehumanizing discipline system that looks a lot more like a reform school than a college prep,’’ Julie Woestehoff of Parents United for Responsible Education charged at a news conference Monday.

At Noble Street schools, four demerits within two weeks triggers a three-hour detention costing $5. More than 12 detentions lands students in a behavior modification class costing $140.

Twenty-five to 36 detentions in one school year: two discipline classes, carrying a $280 pricetag. More than 36 detentions? Kids have to repeat the grade.

The stringent disciplinary code that Noble Street officials say many parents find attractive netted up to 10 Noble campuses $386,745 over the last three school years, according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act by Parents United, the Advancement Project civil rights group and a student group called VOYCE.

The biggest windfall, the FOIA showed, was garnered at Noble’s Rowe-Clark Campus, which raked in $28,935 last school year alone amid an enrollment of 538.

Noble Street officials said they merely charge a “fee” — not a “fine’’ — to partially cover the cost of supervising detention or behavior classes.

Full article can be found here: http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityha...other-infractions-costly-at-some-schools.html

So here is the tl;dr scoop:
There are about a dozen of these schools in Chicago...they're public charter schools, so anybody can enroll, but they can also kick anybody out. Discipline at these schools is *really* strict...not making eye contact with the teacher, wearing the wrong color belt, or having snack foods are some of the "minor" infractions that can get you demerits, let alone more traditional infractions like talking or fighting. Getting 4 demerits in a 2 week period gives you a detention, and a bill. The more demerits you get, the more detentions you have to pay for. If kids reach a certain demerit benchmark, they cannot progress to the next grade, no matter what their academic performance is. I had at least one student in that situation.

The school says that it's unfair to add extra hours for teaching staff without paying them (and if you have to stay after school, a teacher does too!), AND that without providing a monetary incentive to show up, parents and kids don't always take detention seriously. Others think that this nickel and dimes already very poor kids, and sends the wrong message. Plus, hypothetically, it would hurt poorer families worse than more wealthy families (although there aren't many kids with money going to Nobel schools)

The schools are academically stronger than their neighborhood schools, and I actually really liked doing work there....but systems like this also have a "weeding out" effect.

What do you think? Should schools be able to charge fines for misbehavior?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I think this would discourage low-income families from enrolling there. It would be like "well, we can't afford the fines if they mess up." Especially if the point of this is to provide better education to families that are not so rich. So I picked the second pole option.

 

[bhsup]

Absolutely not. Public schools, whether traditional or charter like these, should never place unanticipated additional financial strain on families. Some can surely afford it fine, but some can't. $140 for one family may just mean "sorry honey, but you need to just wear your winter coat inside. We had to pay for Junior's disciplinary fee, so we can't afford to heat higher than 45 degrees this month."

I don't know exactly how it was done behind the scenes, but in my way back machine I call high school, pretty much every teacher had to serve detention duty more than once over the course of the school year. Seems a pretty easy thing to add to a contract when hiring: "You will stay after at least 10 days out of the school year for 1 hour to supervise detention" or something like that. And regarding the cost for that time, well that's just the cost of running a school. Kids WILL misbehave.

 

[Kyriakos]

Reminds me of


Link to video.

 

[Leoreth]

I think the punishment should happen inside of the education system, i.e. the usual measures of lowering grades, detention, repeating classes, expulsion from school.

That said, if the fine is strictly limited to small amounts (like 1-5$), it might be a good tool to get the parents' attention. Otherwise it's really ripe for abuse.

 

[Antilogic]

While I like the idea of holding back children due to disciplinary issues, I'm not sold on the fees thing. It's not like the children understand the economics, etc. of this, so it's really aimed more at the parents and as an alternative source of revenue for the schools.

So I should pick the not-sure option, but I wanted to be the first to say it would hurt Obama politically.

 

[warpus]

What do you think? Should schools be able to charge fines for misbehavior?

Private schools sure, public ones nope. That's my take on it anyway.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I can't believe Obama allows this. People, this is what happens when you put a socialist in charge! Things like this! /sarcasm

 

[Ajidica]

Since it is a charter school, I'm willing to give it a bit more leeway than traditional public schools. That said, some of the fees do seem a bit excessive. I would be interested in seeing how well minor fees work in promoting good behavior (in the $1-5 range), but the higher disciplinary fees seems a bit much.

 

[Zelig]

I find the concept of detention outside of school hours bizarre - it's completely outside the jurisdiction of discipline that a public school should have.

I don't really understand the concept of "public charter school" - so I'm not sure how to respond to the overall question.

Do they receive taxpayer money? If yes, they shouldn't be allowed to charge any fees to students, for any purpose.

If no, they can do whatever they want.

I think this would discourage low-income families from enrolling there.

They don't have to pay the fine, they can just drop out.

 

[sophie]

I don't really understand the concept of "public charter school" - so I'm not sure how to respond to the overall question.

Do they receive taxpayer money? If yes, they shouldn't be allowed to charge any fees to students, for any purpose.

On a very very basic level, Charter schools are essentially a public school which operates outside of the jurisdiction of the local school district. They receive the same government funding that public schools do (I don't think they charge tuition), but they set their own standards and curricula. Charter schools run on the range of really good (some of the schools highlighted on the documentary "Waiting for Superman" come to mind), to really, really bad (such as the ones near my home town).

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Why not?! If the student don't respect the school's rules, make the parents pay for their failure. All within reason and limits to prevent abuse of course.

 

[kramerfan86]

I only support this if parents and students can fine teachers for mediocre teaching abilities and effort.

 

[downtown]

While I like the idea of holding back children due to disciplinary issues, I'm not sold on the fees thing. It's not like the children understand the economics, etc. of this, so it's really aimed more at the parents and as an alternative source of revenue for the schools.

So I should pick the not-sure option, but I wanted to be the first to say it would hurt Obama politically.

This might not have been clear in the OP, but the Nobel St schools are only high schools. The students herea re 14-18, which I think would be old enough to understand. I think this would be pretty stupid for say, 3rd graders.

I don't really understand the concept of "public charter school" - so I'm not sure how to respond to the overall question.

Typical public schools are governed by elected school boards, and serve students in a particular neighborhood. These are called district schools.

A charter school is a public school (they cannot charge tuition) that is not governed by a school board. They usually have an unelected CEO, or board of directors. They can have selective enrollment, and are aloud to make their own rules for operations. They're usually non-unionized as well.

All kinds of American public schools, both charter and district, can impose nominal fees for certain services, as long as it isn't tuition.

Do they receive taxpayer money? If yes, they shouldn't be allowed to charge any fees to students, for any purpose.

Yes they do, although the vast majority of US public schools do as well, for something or another.

They don't have to pay the fine, they can just drop out.

Or just enroll in their local district school, which has to take them.

 

[downtown]

I don't know exactly how it was done behind the scenes, but in my way back machine I call high school, pretty much every teacher had to serve detention duty more than once over the course of the school year. Seems a pretty easy thing to add to a contract when hiring: "You will stay after at least 10 days out of the school year for 1 hour to supervise detention" or something like that. And regarding the cost for that time, well that's just the cost of running a school. Kids WILL misbehave.

I think the problem here is that there are too many detentions to work a typical rotation cycle. When I taught in Louisiana, teachers had to sign on to running one detention a month...and we only did it once a week. There are detentions running just about every day at these schools, and even without a union contract, requiring that much overtime wont happen without compensating the staff.

The harsh discipline style at Noble really does seem to work though.

 

[Zelig]

All kinds of American public schools, both charter and district, can impose nominal fees for certain services, as long as it isn't tuition.

Yeah, public schools do here as well, but they shouldn't.

Also, AFAIK, every time anyone's bothered going to court over it (in Canada), they've ruled that schools aren't able to withhold "core" services from anyone who chooses not to pay fees.

 

[Antilogic]

This might not have been clear in the OP, but the Nobel St schools are only high schools. The students herea re 14-18, which I think would be old enough to understand. I think this would be pretty stupid for say, 3rd graders.

That makes more sense then. I don't know why I assumed they would have been much younger, but that was the first thing I thought of.

 

[CaptainF]

Da amurrican edukayshun sistem iz a joak.

 

[downtown]

Since it is a charter school, I'm willing to give it a bit more leeway than traditional public schools. That said, some of the fees do seem a bit excessive. I would be interested in seeing how well minor fees work in promoting good behavior (in the $1-5 range), but the higher disciplinary fees seems a bit much.

For what it's worth, a detention is only about 5 bucks. The big ticket items come after a student has picked up over 24 detentions. That would be indicate a major behavior problem over a prolonged period of time.

 

[CaptainF]

Schools just keep getting crappier and more boring, since all they do nowadays is teach kids to pass a test.

Kids are starting to realize this, and are becoming less willing to put up with this sort of idiocy. Thus, the schools have to force kids to be there with punitive measures that border on the Orwellian.

I say we drop these pretexts of "educating" children to "think for themselves". Bring on the orange jumpsuits and ankle chains!