AFT Resolution

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

The nation's educational system has been subject to a critical reassessment whose magnitude and implications for the future of our public schools are virtually unprecedented. There is no clear consensus on the whys and wherefores of the educational crisis that has purportedly put this "nation at risk" and there is much controversy over the road to reform. There is, however, at least one major point that commands widespread agreement among educators and citizens alike: lack of discipline in the schools is a serious problem whose solution is vital to the renewal of American education.

The discipline issue is a complex one and needs to be more clearly defined. Unfortunately, recent efforts to portray the public schools as arenas of rampant violence and crime serve only to sensationalize, confuse, and delay thoughtful responses to the issue. Most schools are not characterized by lawlessness. Where in-school violence and crime exist, they should be perceived and pursued as such, reported to the proper outside authorities and handled under the appropriate state laws or local ordinances.

In fact, the greatest discipline problems in the schools are classroom disruptions, lack of respect for teacher authority, verbal abuse of teachers, and inappropriate student behavior in school buildings; teachers are especially concerned about students who are chronically disruptive yet cannot be removed from regular classrooms. Less dramatic than crime and violence in the schools, these discipline problems are nonetheless consequential, for they all prevent learning, the real business of our schools. Recognizing, then, that discipline is an issue not only of authority and order but of student learning, the AFT believes that dealing with the problem is inextricably linked to the current educational reform movement and to preserving support for our democratic tradition of public schools.

Although there is a long history to the perception that the public schools are characterized by poor discipline, that view has become particularly pervasive and consequential over the last decade or so. The Gallup Polls of the last 14 out of 15 years register this problem at the top of the list of public concerns about education, an opinion that holds both for parents of children in school and for individual without direct contact with the public schools. The result of this negative perception--and the fact that only about 25 percent of the American population now has children attending public schools--reduces the prospects for mustering the popular support necessary to maintain and improve public education. And the other result is to increase the likelihood of witnessing more such anti-public school initiatives as tuition tax credits.

Equally disturbing is the impact that the student discipline problem has on the teaching profession. Teachers report "managing disruptive students" as a major professional problem. Lack of student discipline also contributes to what Ernest Boyer has called the "unhealthy condition of the teaching profession." One-third of American teachers are dissatisfied with their jobs, according to Boyer, and one-half of all teachers would not choose the profession if they had the choice to make over again. To reverse this demoralization, we must begin to confront the problems that are causing it, lack of student discipline chief among them.

The nation is also facing a teacher shortage over the next decade. Yet not only is the supply of college students who want to become teachers inadequate to the anticipated demand, research also demonstrates that the quality of that supply, as measured by standardized tests, is diminishing. Retaining teachers in the profession is also a significant problem. After 5 years, 50 percent of the beginning teachers leave the profession and after 10 years, 80 percent have left. Most teachers report that it is not teaching per se that is so disillusioning, but all the things that keep them from teaching, such as taking time out to manage disruptive students. Considering, too, that one of the most robust findings in educational research is that student time on academic tasks is highly correlated with achievement, it once again becomes patently clear that school discipline is inextricably linked to educational improvement.

Given the stakes involved in the school discipline issue--student learning, popular support of public education, and the present and future condition of the teaching profession--the current debate about whether the problem is increasing or decreasing is of no small interest. The AFT approves of the prominence the discipline issue has recently attained, but also believes that the debate has been characterized more by political heat than empirical light. To rectify this situation, the AFT surveyed its 88 largest elementary and secondary school locals on the nature and extent of the discipline problems they face. According to the results of this 1984 survey, most discipline-related problems in the schools have remained at the same levels or have worsened over the last three years. Since these levels were then unacceptable, the situation with student discipline continues to be untenable.

Seventy percent of the locals responding to the AFT survey report a lack of administrative support on the issue of school discipline. Some fear that making an issue out of discipline problems would reflect negatively on teacher competence, while others think that the courts have made school administrators so cautious that their response to student misconduct is too lenient. Many respondents report that school policies and procedures for behavior problems are ineffective or non-existent, and that the result of constant disruptions or the failure of disciplinary actions to improve student behavior is lowered teacher morale. Forty-three percent of the respondents indicated that teachers are hesitant to get involved in student discipline.

A number of interesting questions emerge from these survey results. One concerns the possible relationship between the high proportion (43 percent) of respondents reporting teacher hesitancy in discipline matters and the even higher proportion (70 percent) citing lack of administrative support for teachers. The finding on lack of administrative support is particularly striking since 75 percent of the respondents indicated that there were formal school board policies on student discipline. On the other hand, only 12 percent of the locals reported that their contracts called for joint union-board committees to address the discipline issue, while 14 percent noted that board policy allowed for such committees. Teachers, then, should be more involved in finding solutions to discipline problems.

Another interesting survey finding concerns the perception that courts have made school administrators overly cautious on student discipline. Indeed, school administrators themselves commonly perceive that the courts have limited their authority and hampered their enforcement of discipline. It is important to note, however, that this view appears to lack validity. Very few discipline cases ever reach state or federal courts of record (16 nationally in 1979, 9 in 1980, 10 in 1981, 17 in 1982, and 8 in 1983), and student complainants won only 33 percent of the cases that reached the courts. Thus, part of the hue and cry about excessive court interference appears to be a product of lack of knowledge about what the courts have actually done and a mistaken impression about the extent to which they have limited the school's authority to deal with misconduct.

The AFT believes that it is time to stand up for the rights of students to learn in an orderly school environment, free from disruptive behavior and unnecessary interruptions. It is time to stop asking schools to be more tolerant of violence and disruption than society is. While the AFT is concerned that the needs of students with discipline problems are identified and met, often the rights of such students have been so carefully guarded that the vast majority of public school children have their own rights to a good education abrogated. The law and the courts are clear on the responsibility and the duty of the schools to maintain order and discipline and to foster a good learning environment. With that responsibility must come the authority to exercise it.

The AFT has consistently supported stronger requirements for student discipline in the belief that improving school and classroom order is inextricably linked to improving public education. The context of the current educational reform movement provides an especially propitious opportunity to make the school discipline issue an essential part of any agenda to renew public education. At the same time, efforts to address this issue have to ensure support for teachers and protect the teacher's role from becoming overburdened with rules, regulations, and paperwork. And certainly the issue deserves a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach than simply urging a return to "old-fashioned discipline." If our nation is indeed at risk, and if the discipline issue is implicated in that threat, then the AFT believes that the issue deserves national attention.

Therefore, the AFT supports the following policy:

RESOLVED, that the AFT calls for a major effort to solve the problems of the lack of student discipline that prevent effective teaching and learning in many American schools; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT believes that the following points must be addressed in this effort:

1. Commitment to the development and enforcement of realistic and fair school discipline codes. Much as citizens must know and observe the laws of the land, students should know and be accountable to the rules of the school community. While there is evidence on the ineffectiveness of some discipline codes, there is also substantial proof that certain codes foster an orderly school environment. This involves the development of policies and codes of student conduct that command a shared sense of fairness and whose penalties are realistically matched to offenses. Once in place, there needs to be firm, fair, and consistent enforcement of these policies and codes. Effective discipline policies are characterized by:

the active involvement of teachers, parents, and students in the development of school discipline codes;

clear and direct articulation of these codes to staff, students and parents;

fair and consistent enforcement of these codes, including, where appropriate, the involvement of teachers, students, and parents;

strong administrative support for teachers and other instructional personnel.

2. Provisions to encourage and promote student success in the educational process. Since a frequent cause of disruptive behavior in students is their academic failure and ensuing frustration, measures to provide for early identification of students with learning problems and the appropriate assistance to prevent academic failure are necessary. These include:

pre-school or early childhood education programs to identify children who have learning problems and who therefore may be potential behavior problems;

remedial programs for children with learning and/or behavior problems in the early grades;

early placement, when appropriate, of students into educationally sound alternative programs

designed to address needs that cannot be met in conventional classroom settings, and

smaller class sizes, which enable teachers to give more attention and support to individual students.

3. The development of alternative programs for students with chronic behavior problems. There is a great need for the development of effective alternatives to suspension and expulsion to help schools deal with students with chronic discipline problems. Such alternatives might include in-school suspension programs, time-out rooms, the use of student ombudsmen, student courts, and peer counseling. In most cases, local districts and schools lack the funds to develop and implement such programs and would require federal and state assistance. Dealing with students who are not functioning successfully in traditional classroom settings involves:

an examination of the full continuum of alternatives to suspension and expulsion;

the development of procedures to remove chronically disruptive students from the classroom;

the implementation of educationally sound alternative programs and trained personnel to staff such programs, and

funds for the development, implementation, and evaluation of such alternatives.

4. Stronger inservice and preservice education on discipline for teachers and administrators. Though poor discipline is perceived as a major problem in the schools and a sound body of knowledge on classroom management is available, few administrators and teachers have had adequate training in these areas. Rectifying this situation would include:

preservice and inservice coursework in behavior and classroom management for all teachers and administrators;

better professional preparation of teachers and administrators through direct, guided classroom experience, including methods to provide an understanding of the diverse experiences and needs of students from different racial, ethnic or language groups or socioeconomic backgrounds;

internship programs for beginning teachers that include assistance in classroom management and preventive discipline strategies;

more inservice training and professional development activities for teachers and administrators on fostering effective discipline programs, classroom management, and other discipline-related matters; and

intervention programs to assist teachers experiencing difficulty with classroom and behavior management

5. Access to legal assistance and information. There needs to be greater attention given to developing and disseminating information relating to legal issues in school discipline and teacher and student rights, including:

funding and support for courses or training programs for teachers, administrators, students, and parents on the legal issues involved in school discipline, teacher right, and student rights;

guaranteeing access to legal information and advice to teachers, administrators, and other school personnel.

6. Greater teacher involvement with the discipline issue. Cooperative approaches to the solution of discipline problems through collective bargaining and other collaborative processes need to be emphasized, including:

bargaining of contract provisions that deal with problems of lack of student discipline and responses to them that will give teachers the authority to remove disruptive students from their classrooms, when necessary, and under the terms of district school discipline codes;

the development of joint union-board committees to work on solutions to the problems of student discipline;

cooperative decision-making and joint problem-solving approaches to improving discipline on both the district and the school levels.

technical assistance from the AFT on contract proposals and agreements and other approaches to resolving discipline problems.

7. Further research and research dissemination in the area of discipline and classroom management. There is a growing body of knowledge related to professional practice and school discipline that has emerged in the last decade. Continued efforts in this direction should include:

funds for research on professional practice in the areas of behavior and classroom management and discipline;

an intensive effort to disseminate the research on professional practice, including continued support and development for programs such as the AFT Educational Research and Dissemination program which assists teachers in becoming users of educational research and active participants in the educational research process.

(1984)