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Local News & Opinion
05.07 YouthWorks Campaign Needs Support for Summer Jobs Books, Art & Entertainment
05.13 New Buchanan Book: Anglo-American Ascendancy Lost in Unnecessary Wars 04.30 A Litany of Horrors 04.17 Peter Hallward's "Damming the Flood" (Part II) Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Health & Environment
05.12 The World above 350 ppm CO2 04.28 Green Scare State Terrorism 04.21 Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World 04.16 WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT Ref. : Single-Payer FAQ Ref. : Environmental Health News Ref. : Sundance Channel's THE GREEN Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it? Ref. : Global Warming Links Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links Media Watching
05.06 US Media Trivializes Campaign 2008 05.06 Death's Factotum: Michael Gordon and the Times Pour Pentagon Poison into Nation's Ear 05.05 TV News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits 05.05 Color-Coded: Jeremiah Wright and the Real Deal on Race 05.02 The Right's America-Hating Preacher 04.23 Pentagon Pundits 04.22 US News Media's Latest Disgrace 04.18 ABC's Debate Debacle 04.16 Reprising the Genocidal Fury of Thomas Friedman US Politics, Policy & Culture
05.13 Hillary Clinton, John McCain and the "Stupid" Vote 05.13 McCain and the 'Unitary Executive' 05.09 The Democratic Presidential Race: A View from Pennsylvania 05.08 Serving the System: Corporate Control of U.S. Would Continue Under Obama 05.06 A Republican for Barack 05.05 Thinking About Voter Registrations 05.05 'Beware the Terrible Simplifiers' 05.01 U.S. Military Coordinated Day Of Prayer Events With Christian Right Group 04.30 John McCain Won’t Be Looking for the Union Label 04.30 Put Him Out With the Pastor! 04.25 Clinton Courted Racists in the Pennsylvania Primary 04.24 Groundbreaking Book Documents Widespread Election Fraud; Warns Elections Vulnerable to Theft 04.24 Triviamongering in the U.S. presidential race 04.24 Campaign 1988 Lives! 04.23 Hillary Clinton's Monstrous Threat 04.21 Brilliant Disguise: Bush Torture, Obama and The Boss 04.19 The Clintons, Triangulating with China 04.18 American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed 04.18 Are the Clintons Playing Joe McCarthy? 04.17 The Weather Underground 'Theme' US High Crimes & Incompetence
05.12 Armed Truce: Surging Into Slaughter on Sadr City's Jerusalem Street 05.10 Lost E-Mails Obscure 'Plame-gate' 05.09 Fallujah Revisited: Bush, Petraeus Prepare 'Cleansing' of Sadr City 05.09 Shoot, Kill, Lie, Repeat: America's New Moral Universe 05.07 Willing Executioners: America's Bipartisan Atrocity Deepens in Somalia 05.05 The Terror Master: Bush Orders Covert 'Surge' Against Iran, with Dem Support 05.01 American and Israeli War Crimes: Same Atrocities, Different Responses 04.30 Halliburton Bribe Case Haunts Cheney 04.29 Getting Over Scalia 04.29 The Iraq War Morphs Into The Iranian War 04.28 The Torture Election 04.28 The Clock is Ticking for A US Attack on Iran 04.28 The Bush Team's Geneva Hypocrisy 04.25 New Terror War Atrocity: Beheading the Innocent for Bush in Somalia 04.23 Glorious Fruits of the War for Civilization 04.22 VA Tried to Conceal Extent of Attempted Veteran Suicides, Email Shows 04.21 What About the War, Benedict? 04.18 Updating Sami Al-Arian - His Ordeal Continues 04.16 Would Obama Hold Bush Accountable? Economics & Business
05.12 Thinking About Strategies 05.08 Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower 04.28 Thinking About Subtleties 04.23 The Oil Vice 04.22 The US Economy and the Costs of War 04.21 Thinking About Shakiness International
05.12 Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War on Iran 05.05 Sixty Years of Palestinian Displacement, Occupation and Suffering 05.02 Feeding Moloch: Last Barriers to War on Iran Come Down 05.01 The Iranian Chessboard 05.01 Blood Diamonds, Blood Oil and Blood Food 05.01 Denying Palestinians Free Movement in the West Bank 04.30 The Ignored Lessons on the Stupidity of War 04.24 Breaking the Silence - Israeli Soldiers Speak 04.23 What the Iraq War is about We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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SPEAKING OUT:The High Cost of School ViolenceViolence is under-reported because schools don't want to run the risk of being labeled as "persistently dangerous," which would result in funding cuts.
One year later, this is still happening. When I agreed to go to the media last year, I had no idea that my story about having been assaulted in the Baltimore City middle school would go as far as it did in the local news. One year and two weeks later, another art teacher has been assaulted—and this time, it was caught on video, and her story is making national news. So now the "proof" is there, and yet still, the administrators are blaming the teacher for the attack. Neither my story nor Ms. Berry's story is surprising to anyone who has ever taught in Baltimore City Public Schools. While there are many more teachers speaking to the media about the state of our schools, there are still countless teachers afraid to come forward and tell their stories. This problem is so large, and involves so many people. There is a culture of acceptance towards violence in the city's public schools. Administrators, faculty, and staff shake their heads in disbelief, but do nothing to change the broader picture. Staff members look the other way when violent incidents such as rioting and fighting happen. "It's just the way things are" is a common phrase spoken in the hallways. Student-on-student fights happen daily, and now student-on-teacher assaults are happening more often. Principals purposely mis-categorize violent incidents in schools, filing paperwork that re-names the incident as a less serious event. Schools don't want to run the risk of being labeled as "persistently dangerous," which would result in funding cuts for the school. A small percentage of our schools' children are persistently disruptive and violent. These few children are being given permission to run amok, and then the larger percentage of the school's population follows suit and joins in the melee. Administrators walk through hallways, and kids who are cutting class and being destructive or disruptive are being told to spit out their gum, pull up their pants, and tuck in their shirts. Never mind the chaos in the hallway—gum chewing is not allowed, and that's an easier "situation" to solve. Principals are overwhelmed, and struggling to grab hold of the situation in any way they are able. Teachers struggle to finish one lesson from their lesson plans, while disruptive behavior goes unresolved. Teachers send their students to the principal and assistant principal for disciplining, and the students are sent back to the classroom holding hand-written notes that read, "Ms. ___, there is no one in the office to deal with this student right now. Please do not send any more students to the office today." The disruptions in the classroom, therefore, continue and lessons remain unfinished. Turn-over rate in our schools' faculty, staff, and administrators is very high. Teacher training programs like Teach for America and Baltimore City Teaching Residency are popping up everywhere, in an attempt to recruit young, energetic, and idealistic teachers. These young teachers are "trained" to be educators in a matter of weeks, and are promised a free master's degree in education at Johns Hopkins University. The drop-out rate of these programs is sky-high. Male and female teachers alike are in distress; some are even being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, while some others are turning to alcohol, all because of the shell-shocked sense of hopelessness and helplessness being experienced in a chaotic environment that has been described by many as a "war zone." How can we sit by, and let an entire city's population of children go uneducated? How can we accept this culture of violence as "just the way it is"?
These are our schools, where our children go to learn. How can any child learn in an environment like this?! How can we sit by, and let an entire city's population of children go uneducated? How can we accept this culture of violence as "just the way it is"? We need to collectively decide that enough is enough, and make a conscious effort to stop accepting this. Until we do, our city (and others) will continue to lose great teachers, and our children will continue to be on the receiving end of the biggest injustice in this nation. The writer formerly taught art in a Baltimore City middle school.
Copyright © 2008 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on April 14, 2008. |
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