Professional Article No.2 American Educator Magazine Winter 1998

The article "Beyond Assumptions" page 32.

This article focuses on school discipline based on a study of twenty five thousand eighth graders across the nation. Much of the information cited was from a recent report called "Order in the Classroom: Violence, Discipline, and Student Achievement," from the Educational Testing Service. The report used longitudinal student data and information about policies in the schools the students attended. Some of the conclusions of the study were confirmation of what we already know but there were also some surprises. The report presented evidence that there is a link between school disorder and student achievement. Not a surprise to most of us. Some conclusions were: 1) Security measures that restrict student movement reduce nonserious offenses. 2) Security measures do not have much effect on serious offenses, such as drugs and violence. 3) Tough discipline codes reduce serious offenses. 4) Zero tolerance toward gangs does not seem to be effective. 5) Small schools do not always reduce delinquency. The study was an attempt to prove which discipline policies seem to work and which ones do not. I feel teachers need the support of parents and administrators in order to have meaningful discipline in their classrooms. When a student disobeys the rules there is often a strong protest from the parents. The study didn't address this problem at all.

-- Anonymous, March 06, 1999