Putting student safety first

Description:

A student in Boston public schools recently knocked her principal unconscious during school hours. A girl was recently sexually assaulted in a Loudon County, Virginia, school, and administrators falsely denied knowledge of its occurrence. What is causing an increase in school violence and how can administrators use their resources to improve school safety and students’ lives?

In this episode, Naomi and Ian are joined by Max Eden, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Max explains that the push for restorative justice in schools—trying to even out disparate rates of discipline by race or disability—has actually led to school administrators not disciplining students at all. They ignore important factors like family structure, poverty, and neighborhood crime, which are highly correlated with different rates of behavioral infractions in school. Max believes that we are at the beginning of a broader public recognition of the dangerous impact of restorative justice policies and the need for parents to exercise more oversight over their kids’ school environments.

Resources:

Boston Public Schools principal unconscious for ‘at least’ 4 minutes after beating: police report | Sean Phillip Cotter | Boston Herald

Restorative justice cannot combat the tide of school violence | Naomi Schaefer Riley | Deseret News

Youngkin makes the GOP the parents’ party | Max Eden | The Wall Street Journal

Show Notes:

• 03:15 | Are parents noticing the lack of school discipline?

• 05:30 | The limits of public policy when only viewing the world through race

• 10:10 | The importance of parental involvement in schools

• 13:35 | How do you have a productive conversation with school administrators and those on the ground who disagree with you on this issue?

• 16:35 | Is there a way to elevate student’s voices who now feel they are in a more dangerous learning environment?

• 18:50 | How can we rehabilitate kids using a different approach?