18 Signs That Life In US PS is Now Essentially Equivalent To Life In US Prisons

[GypsieFamily]

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/18-signs-that-life-in-u-s-public-schools-is-now-essentially-equivalent-to-life-in-u-s-prisons

 

Has anyone else seen this article? I liked the heading, but I felt the article was just picking such extreme examples that it isn't representative. I also thought some of the comments were a bit odd.

 

But then, I'm not actually in the US.

[JessieC]

I agree with your take on it. You could find any institution as big as the public school system and come up with "outrageous" examples like this.

[Impish]

Biased article.

 

And here's the thing...none of this happens in a vaccuum. Schools don't just have police in on a whim, there had to be a build up for it.

 

I think the question should be more about WHY schools are becoming more violent, what's going on with the students. Easy to point fingers at the school's reaction, but seriously, what provoked it to start with?

[stripe]

I read Lockdown High recently and was appalled at the influence she documents of paramilitary style approaches to school children, including advocating full battle style clothing and automatic weaponry and claiming that there are multiple Columbines every day in the US!

 

http://www.amazon.com/Lockdown-High-Schoolhouse-Becomes-Jailhouse/dp/1844676811

 

An excerpt here:

http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4299/report-from-lockdown-high-fear-vs-facts-on-school-safety?nomobile=1

 

Interestingly she thinks there is a motivation for teachers to get 'troublemakers' out because they'll bring down test scores.

[Audrey]

It's been 25 years since I was in a US high school, but when I talk about my high school to my dh, he always says "you mean your prison school." To him, the fact that the whole campus was surrounded by 12 foot chain link, had entry and exit gates that were padlocked and patrolled during school hours, had metal detectors at the entrances, had deans who patrolled during hours, had very specific and strict dress codes where even certain colours could never be worn at school (and these rules extended to our school supplies as well), and had regular "locker runs" with drug sniffing dogs, makes my high school the same as a prison.

 

We also had strict and lengthy procedures for checking in to school if you'd been absent and for checking out if you needed to leave. Even a parent could not get a kid out of school without several pieces of paper and having to verify ID and provide proof for the reason for leaving. It was security overkill -- like a prison.

 

When I look back on it, I think it was just a junior day prison. When I was in it, I didn't know any different, so I didn't think anything of it. I now feel pretty sad to look back on those years knowing that the powers that be normalized things that were not, and should not be, normal in a child's daily experiences.

Edited June 14, 2011 by Audrey

[A.Balaban]

Ultimately, I think violence begets violence. Children learn basic morality and values from their parents. In a system where the parents are absent, and there is either no caregiver, or an inappropriate one... the children do not learn these values. Therefore, as they grow older, they are not entombed in their daily lives, and they do not "live the creed"

 

I think the article is clearly biased, but it is a very interesting title.

[TracyR]

I'll have to read the article. But if you mean that ps are turning into prisons? That sounds about right. Kids walk in through metal detectors, are wanded before entering school. If your talking about the drug searches and drug dogs brought in.And police working in the schools. Umm, yep. Their getting pretty darned close.

[Aelwydd]

It's been 25 years since I was in a US high school, but when I talk about my high school to my dh, he always says "you mean your prison school." To him, the fact that the whole campus was surrounded by 12 foot chain link, had entry and exit gates that were padlocked and patrolled during school hours, had metal detectors at the entrances, had deans who patrolled during hours, had very specific and strict dress codes where even certain colours could never be worn at school (and these rules extended to our school supplies as well), and had regular "locker runs" with drug sniffing dogs, makes my high school the same as a prison.

 

We also had strict and lengthy procedures for checking in to school if you'd been absent and for checking out if you needed to leave. Even a parent could not get a kid out of school without several pieces of paper and having to verify ID and provide proof for the reason for leaving. It was security overkill -- like a prison.

 

When I look back on it, I think it was just a junior day prison. When I was in it, I didn't know any different, so I didn't think anything of it. I now feel pretty sad to look back on those years knowing that the powers that be normalized things that were not, and should not be, normal in a child's daily experiences.

 

I don't know where you went to hs, Audrey, but it sounds like your hs was in a "bad" area. I can't figure out why you'd have a ban on certain colors (unless it was gang-related) and chain-link fences, and so on, otherwise. I graduated in 1995, and my high school in NC had none of that. Here in DFW, there are a crapload of high schools, and I think the only ones who have metal dectectors might be the ones in gang-ridden neighborhoods.

 

I think some ps can be like prisons. But then, some private religious schools, and some very strict families I have known would have qualified as a kind of prison to me, as well. Environmental controls and surveillance can take various forms.

[GypsieFamily]

Audrey, that sounds like a horrible experience.

Are metal-detectors in schools common in the US? I've never heard of an Aussie school with metal-detectors.

[regentrude]

Biased article with extreme examples. All these, of course, are not acceptable occurrences - but NOT daily life in the average public school.

[stripe]

I don't know where you went to hs, Audrey, but it sounds like your hs was in a "bad" area.

 

My entire school district had metal detectors. Students came from all over the city, as well. It was not in a 'bad area.'

 

Most of the big school shootings that attract a lot of attention have involved suburban, white-majority schools, such as Columbine, anyway.

[MBM]

Are metal-detectors in schools common in the US? I've never heard of an Aussie school with metal-detectors.

 

No, but some areas have them.

 

My kids have gone to several public schools in Chicago and the Chicago area, so I'm aware of at least a few schools. I think my kids have had way more freedom at their high schools than I had, and I had a lot at my former high school. If just depends on the area and school.

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I have a big problem with the article. It takes 18 examples of extreme things that have happened over a span of years in a very large country and put them all together as representative of the entire school system. Many of these things were protested vehemently and were not upheld by the legal system. And those that were upheld were not all done in the same school district. The US public schools do have their problems (as do those in other countries btw) but this article is not the way to prove it.

[Hannah C.]

I graduated from a big public high school in 2007. I think the examples given in the article are extreme. However, I realized a long time ago that being a student at a public school basically means you give up quite a few rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, including the right to free speech.

 

My high school had roving metal detectors - they did surprise classroom checks. I never had to walk through a metal detector in the 3 years I went to school there.

[Audrey]

I don't know where you went to hs, Audrey, but it sounds like your hs was in a "bad" area. I can't figure out why you'd have a ban on certain colors (unless it was gang-related) and chain-link fences, and so on, otherwise. I graduated in 1995, and my high school in NC had none of that. Here in DFW, there are a crapload of high schools, and I think the only ones who have metal dectectors might be the ones in gang-ridden neighborhoods.

 

I think some ps can be like prisons. But then, some private religious schools, and some very strict families I have known would have qualified as a kind of prison to me, as well. Environmental controls and surveillance can take various forms.

 

 

A large popular county in S. Fl. ;) As far as I can recall, all the other schools I knew in our county had similar set-ups and rules. It seemed like the norm. I wouldn't have said my school was in a "bad area" per se. We had kids from all socio-economic classes, yet it was still predominantly a white, middle class populace. The surrounding neighbourhoods were very mainstream. It was not an inner city school (although it may now be since the area has had several population explosions since I left there).

Edited June 14, 2011 by Audrey

[Audrey]

Audrey, that sounds like a horrible experience.

Are metal-detectors in schools common in the US? I've never heard of an Aussie school with metal-detectors.

 

 

Well... to be fair... at the time it just seemed normal. I actually liked high school, on the whole. I wasn't a kid who made trouble, so I probably sailed through all of that without noticing it too much.

 

It is only in retrospect that I think something was very wrong about it.

[Aelwydd]

My entire school district had metal detectors. Students came from all over the city, as well. It was not in a 'bad area.'

 

Most of the big school shootings that attract a lot of attention have involved suburban, white-majority schools, such as Columbine, anyway.

 

Yes, white-majority school shootings attract the most attention, but most shootings still occur in areas where gang and drug activity is very high.

 

I've lived in northern VA (just south of DC), NC, PA, and TX. I have relatives in CA, and NJ, and visited their schools. I still have never seen a high school outfitted by metal detectors, barbed-wire fences, and such strict rules on the color of clothing except in areas like LA, and in dangerous parts of Dallas. I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. There are a couple of massive high schools near me, all of them rated 5A, and serve thousands of kids. Despite the fact that drugs are a huge problem in this area, and there is gang-related violence in both cities, these high schools still, in fact, look and function like high schools, and not like prisons.

 

I'm not saying that districts which employ such measures do not exist. What I am saying is I reject that such schools personify, or represent the majority of high schools across the U.S.

 

I'm as critical of this country as anybody, in regards to its educational standards, its health care, its crime, and its culture. However, the article is not a fair nor accurate representation of American high schools, at least not at this point. It seems to be taking a few outliers and using these to generalize about the entire population.

[Aelwydd]

A large popular county in S. Fl. ;) As far as I can recall, all the other schools I knew in our county had similar set-ups and rules. It seemed like the norm. I wouldn't have said my school was in a "bad area" per se.

 

S. Florida has a chronic problem with gang-related violence and other crime, especially around Miami. It's very similar to certain cities here in Texas. I'm not really surprised that your district had to take extreme measures to try to protect its students from spillover violence. We have schools in the Fort Worth school district that, not too long ago, had serious issues with gangs, even though many of the schools involved were in middle-class neighborhoods.

 

It's not really an issue of how "white" a given area is. It's the crime index, gang activity, and pervasiveness of illegal drugs. Illegal drug abuse is epidemic in this area.

[Audrey]

I still have never seen a high school outfitted by metal detectors, barbed-wire fences, and such strict rules on the color of clothing except in areas like LA, and in dangerous parts of Dallas.

 

 

I just want to clarify -- because it sort of reads like you're taking what I said about my school that I described above -- I never said there were barbed-wire fences at my school. I said there were 12-foot chain link fences. They did not have barbed wire.

[Aelwydd]

I just want to clarify -- because it sort of reads like you're taking what I said about my school that I described above -- I never said there were barbed-wire fences at my school. I said there were 12-foot chain link fences. They did not have barbed wire.

 

 

My mistake. Better than barbed-wire, but still kinda of...scary.

[In The Great White North]

The examples in the articles are extreme because they are the ones that made headlines.

 

The original premise, however, is true: a child in public school does have fewer rights than the average citizen. There are threads on these forums every few weeks with examples from school systems all over the country.

[Carrie12345]

I live in the woods in a tourist destination. There are more deer than people. Our region is considered semi-rural.

 

But our high schools have police officers inside, and mobile security patrolling the campuses. It's not unusual (as I recently discovered) for students to be walking around with ankle bracelets under their pants legs. Gangs and drugs are a serious problem.

 

And this is in a district that (for now) has its own "alternative" school besides our "regular" high schools.

[Chris in VA]

We live in Fairfax County, one of, if not THE, "best school systems" in the US.

Gangs are all over. Drugs are all over. Our nearest 3 high schools do not have metal detectors or drug sniffing dogs.

But I see those as extreme measures to keep the kids safe. That's a different motivation than their use in prison.

Honestly, if those things were keeping drugs and gangs out of schools, I'd say fine with it.

But they are not.

 

I don't think it's the school's fault for wanting to protect the kids, even from themselves. It's the larger society, and it may be necessary in some places, in order to group kids together to educate them. The model of education may actually call for those measures.

 

Sucks, doesn't it?

[Hunter's Moon]

I never realized it was strange to have metal detectors. The middle schools around here do too. Not the elementary, though. Then again, we are in a "gang-ridden" area.

 

The year I went into 9th, the whole district switched to a uniform. All elementary kids in white polos and khaki pants, all middle school kids in navy blue polos and khaki pants, and all high school kids in whatever color their school was assigned. You could wear button up shirts with a collar, though, also. You had to wear a belt and tuck it in, but after the first year, they didn't really follow that. Only black sweaters with a collar that either button or zippered. No hood at all.

 

We still had a few kids walk into school with guns (drug related) and still had many kids doing drugs and drinking in the bathrooms. We also had gang related fights in the cafeteria and other places.

 

I wouldn't say it was a prison though. It was necessary (well, for the most part). There were also stricter rules on fighting when a new principal took over when I was in 10th. Any fighting that was caused by you, automatically expelled. No questions. If you were defending yourself, that was one thing, but if you instigated or threw the first punch, goodbye! The fights didn't stop though. They were nuts too. Doors ripped off hinges, one teacher got her nose broken, a few vice principals always got hit in the process of breaking up fights. Never a boring day....

[Carrie12345]

Similar here. The teen NYC ghetto residents have moved out, following their relatives to live near the prisons or just to expand their trade area. Large consolidated high schools have to spend a lot of money on the 10% that are disruptors - money that used to be spent for teachers, AP classes and for clubs/sports/activities is now spent on remedial, sped, lawyers, security, and alternative. The entire character of our high school changes after Sept, when the majority of nonparticipants have been moved to alternative. After that, the character changes every day when the busses leave...during after school activities and sports, the school looks like the majority of nonghetto schools - thriving with school related activity rather than criminal activity.

 

One of the effects of consolidation will be how this experience shapes the policy making in the future. All that is happening here is that community is being destroyed by flunkouts from the nearest major city.

 

That's pretty much it. I just spoke to an '89 graduate from our district. There was 1 high school then, and her class was around 300. Today, there are 2 high schools (plus an alternate, which is closing) with classes around 500.

I hate that I get lumped in with the "city folk" that the "natives" always rant about, but it's a genuine issue.

[Princess Peach]

I think one could easily write an article saying that all homeschoolers are whacked and cite 18 extreme examples to corroborate such a hypothesis. It's a biased article and I disagree with the premise.

[twoforjoy]

Just to throw in another POV on this article and the parallel being problematic, the situation in US prisons right now is atrocious: prisons are massively overcrowded and underfunded, and many states are being forced to change their policies because of the many human rights violations taking place because of that. I think that to compare the experience of public schools to that of prisons is to ignore the very real plight of prisoners right now, many of whom are being held in deplorable conditions.

[FaithManor]

In Michigan, mostly the U.P. but there are two that I know of in the lower peninsula, we still have 20/k-8 one-room schoolhouses operated by the state in districts where young children would have to ride ridiculously long bus routes to get to school. These "unconsolidated", rural schools out perform on the state standardized tests year after year after year and the teachers readily admit they do not teach to the test - of course, I still hate the process of education being defined by bubble tests, but oh well that is their measuring stick.

 

When a teacher retires from one of these schools, there are thousands of applicants for the job. Small classes, multiple skill levels to teach but only a few students in each one, lots of parent and community involvement, the worst crime is usually using someone else's pencil without permission, limited discipline problems, and lots of one to one attention. The 8th grade graduates from these schools are commonly the top 10% of the graduating class of the consolidated high schools they end up attending. They have an amazing foundation in their basic skills. Usually the kids do not lack in exposure to an array of opportunities. They can still play AYSO soccer and Little League Baseball. It's not uncommon for local, accomplished muscians in the area or retired band directors to volunteer to teach band and choir and with the school being so small, they get a lot of attention on their instruments...these kids are more than ready for big high school band. School plays, you name it...they do it. But, the difference is not only the much needed attention, but also that the community has fought for their school and the right to keep it open. That means they pay close attention to what happens in their school and they have a deeper sense of investment in it - every year the state board of education wants to close these schools. Every year they have to fight for them and it shows then in the quality of the education.

 

Consolidated schools become too large to control. Thus, some are just like prisons with students having few rights and being herded like cattle in order to attempt to control the masses.

 

As for the article, yeah it's biased. But on the other hand, one thing we can take away from it is that as a nation we should be ashamed, totally humiliated, that these extremes are a reality for some children in our publically funded education system. Seriously, it's sick and twisted that this is what some children have to endure this every day year after year.

 

My dh went to Jane Addam's middle school in Seattle. The last time we drove by it, about 18 years ago, it still looked exactly like the prison dh remembered. When he went there, it had barbed wire fencing on top of the chain link, padlocked doors, and security guards; most of the windows were boarded up. He said it did not appear to have changed. The worse thing was that when he attended, the crime rate was very small. It wasn't made into a public school prison out of some sort of desperate necessity. One of the math teachers told her class that it was a "social experiment" designed by some educaton board somewhere to see if students became more docile in confinement. Whether or not that was true or the teacher was a crackpot spouting off nonsense, he'll never know, but he became very, very clinically depressed within the walls of that school and become so introverted that he stopped speaking in all of his classes except music. At the end of 8th grade, his teachers wanted him committed to special ed without any testing. Dh's parents got jobs in another state, moved, and enrolled him in Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale which was, I think at the time, a pretty good school for the student who applied himself. He graduated with a 3.88 taking all honors classes for four years. I suspect that the big change was being educated in a building that did not have guards, barbed wire fencing, and all but one window boarded up in each classroom!

 

Sigh, in America we do things to children in the name of education, that would be considered appalling to do to adults.

 

Faith

[clarkacademy]

Can anyone really blame the public schools? I mean I'm sorry I hate to say this but my oldest goes to ps and I want the metal detectors, the drug dogs, the locker searches. I want it all in hopes of it may keep my baby girl safe. I don't want a kids temper tantrums and issues messing up her learning. I guess I am selfish that way, I want her to succeed.

 

Maybe if more parents raised their kids right and no one was behaving this badly they wouldn't need all the stuff people are so mad about. I mean the whole not bringing your lunch is out there but I'm sorry some of it I can't blame them. Kids are getting worse and their are no real consequences anymore.

 

School is a privelige in a sense you have no right to ruin it for the ones there to learn. I hate public school but for my oldest I want anything to make it better for her. I don't want her in a prison but I don't want the fact that little Jonnys momma didn't love him issues causing him to bring a gun to school and shoot everyone either.

[stripe]

Yes, white-majority school shootings attract the most attention, but most shootings still occur in areas where gang and drug activity is very high.

Right but i'm not refering to a single incident where one person is shot. I am referring to mass shootings. These are what the paramilitary types are interested in, or so they claim.

 

I'm not saying that districts which employ such measures do not exist. What I am saying is I reject that such schools personify, or represent the majority of high schools across the U.S.

I found Lockdown High to be much more articulate and much better researched than the article referenced, and I highly recommend it. Or at least the author's shorter article.

http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4299/report-from-lockdown-high-fear-vs-facts-on-school-safety?nomobile=1

It gave a much clearer picture of the extent of this and who's benefiting and who's losing.

 

Btw part of the reason for the big fences is or was to keep crazy adults OUT.

[SailorMom]

Well - they actually aren't that extreme.

*I mean - my son's middle and high school have cameras in the bathrooms.

*In middle school - 6-8th grade - they are not allowed to talk during lunch and are not allowed to leave the cafeteria until dismissed.... this is middle school people!

*Students here have been suspended for bringing plastic knives (butter knives) to lunch to spread cheese on crackers and cut apples

*There is a police officer at the school at all times, thier phones can be searched, drug tests are given to anyone who is suspected of use, and lockers can be opened with no "probable cause" at all

 

 

We live in a very nice area with some of the best reated schools in the state (our middle school is ranked 6th in Florida, and our high school is 11th (I think))