On Tuesday at about noon, Baltimore County Public Schools board of education member Ann Miller shared on her public Facebook page a story from Breitbart News about problems with school discipline.
Breitbart, of course, is the alt-right news site that was previously led by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon.
Miller wrote:
BCPS has the signs of following the same guidelines through Restorative Practices and other means. MSDE has passed regulations which require all local school systems in MD to adopt the federal guidelines on discipline with the goal of closing disparities in discipline (not behaviors) based on race and special needs status.
See BCPS Policy 5560:
“The Superintendent shall limit the duration of the exclusion to the shortest period practicable and assign the student to an alternative program where the student will be provided with comparable educational services and appropriate behavioral support services to promote successful return to the student’s regular academic program.”
Many took issue with her source.
As of Tuesday evening, her post had more than 80 comments, with many people getting into online battles with each other.
Miller is an appointee of Gov. Larry Hogan and a former blogger for Red Maryland. She has written in opposition of transgender rights, Common Core, same-sex marriage and other hot-button issues. She was also a frequent critic of former Superintendent Dallas Dance, who was recently indicted for failing to disclose outside income. Even some Democrats have said that while they don’t agree with her views on most things, they are glad she is raising questions on the school board and not acting as a rubber stamp.
Miller was not immediately available for comment Tuesday evening. Her Facebook post can be viewed here.
People should be more angry that BCPS continues to implement the foolish school (anti-) discipline policies that have done so much damage to City schools. These policies are based on a false premise and unsupported by reason or evidence. Excellence in education requires a safe & non-disruptive learning environment. When you remove real consequences of anti-social behavior and make it extremely difficult (through quotas, bureaucratic barriers and threats of bias) to remove a chronically disruptive student from the classroom, you undermine the potential for excellence in a large cohort of students. At the same time, kids whose disruptive behavioral creates problems for their classmates are told that they will face no consequences, an unhelpful lesson for everyone. The proponents of these policies need political correctness or empty screams of “racism” to shut down valid discussion. Because their policy can not be defended with evidence or reason. They disingenuously take a fact- there is a disparate rate of school suspensions by race. Then they deliberately ignore the myriad explanatory factors like single parent families, broken home environments, and deep poverty. They ignore that evidence in order to validate their ideologically pre-determined conclusion of “systemic discrimination”. The implication is that teachers and administrators are inherently biased and can not be trusted to discipline students. Zero tolerance policies may lead to injustice. But these sort of “zero intolerance” policies towards disruptive behavior lead to worse injustice. The sad irony is that although this policy’s proponents pose virtuously on the side of justice, they… Read more »