Seclusion and Restraint: How Some Public Schools Allow Abuse in Classrooms

Detroit Public Schools’ students recently won the award of the worst math scores in the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ 40-year history. Couple the disheartening standardized test scores with the nation’s lowest graduation rate, according to NPR, and you have a public school system that has utterly failed its students.

To further complicate the issue, Detroit Public schools are currently fighting an internal battle with Emergency Finance Manager Robert Bobb. Detroit public school teachers, administrators, parents, and school board members are upset about Bobb’s recently issued directive, outlining that all students in the district take an additional standardized test this year.

The issue of whether students should have to take this new test – on top of the STARS (Standardized Testing and Reporting), MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program), PSAT, SAT, and ACT tests that they already take – is part of a larger battle for control of academic decisions between the Detroit school board and Bobb.

This video offers a look at one of the Detroit Public Schools buildings.

Why Do Detroit Schoolchildren Need a New Standardized Test?

Steve Wasko, DPS Executive Director of Public Relations, says that the new standardized test Bobb has ordered – the Quarterly Benchmark Assessment, or QBA – will be used to assess how effective the current curriculum is in helping students to meet benchmarks and achieve adequate academic progress.

Amidst historical snowfall, school districts across America are struggling to decide how to make up the classroom time that has been lost to snowstorms.

Although many school districts have a built-in number of “inclement weather make-up days,” the unexpectedly brutal snowstorms of the past few weeks have exceeded the pre-allocated snow days. Additionally, many school administrators are worried that a large number of missed days is needed to adequately prepare students for spring’s impending standardized tests. In the coming weeks, school boards and school districts in various states will be meeting to consider how best to address this problem.

This video reports on how New York City schools will handle snow days during the 2022-23 school year.

Proposed Solutions to Snow Days

The options that school districts have thus far proposed to make up the missed days include:

Adding Days to the End of the Year

Various school districts are planning to make up the missed days by extending the last day of school in June past its planned date. In an online poll of Des Moines, Iowa residents addressing the question of how to make up the unusually high number of snow days experienced this year, the fourth most popular option (out of six choices) was adding days to the end of the school year.

Lengthening the School Day

Alexandria, Virginia’s superintendent has issued a letter to parents,

As Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools during the years from 2001 to 2009, Arne Duncan enacted major changes. Now, Duncan has taken the national stage as President Obama’s Education Secretary.

Education policy experts agree that the best way to understand how American public education may change under Duncan’s guidance is to look at Duncan’s performance as CEO of the Chicago public education system. A recent New Yorker profile of Duncan highlighted the many reforms that Duncan championed during his tenure as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, which included:

• “The turnaround” and shutting down under-performing schools – The New Yorker article describes the turnaround as Duncan’s “signature move” as Chicago Schools’ CEO. Duncan’s “turnarounds” in Chicago involved shutting down schools that had persistent records of low performance on measures such as standardized test scores and high school graduation rates. The students whose schools were shut down would often be transferred to newly opened charter schools.

• Opening new charter schools – Opening new charter schools was another of Duncan’s most significant undertakings as CEO of Chicago schools. The program that he championed, called Renaissance 2010, consisted of a network of charter, contract, and performance schools opened in the wake of the closures of low-performing schools.

• Using data to track student performance – As the Chicago schools CEO, Duncan pushed for public schools to collect more data on student and teacher performance and to use the data to guide decision-making.
• Drawing on resources outside the education community

The homeschooling ranks are growing in the United States, with the number of children homeschooled growing from 850,000 in 1999 to more than 1.5 million in 2007, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Students who are homeschooled are usually taught the same subjects as their peers who attend public schools. Homeschooled students struggle with algebra, write up book reports, and learn to conjugate Spanish verbs – just like their public-schooled friends.

However, one aspect of the public school experience that homeschooled students cannot enjoy is participating in team sports. In recent months, parents of homeschooled children in several states began pushing to change school district rules, advocating for their children to be a part of their local public schools' sports teams. The movement has sparked debate on both sides of the issue, proving that not all parents or school districts are “team” players.

This video explains how to put your homeschooler in the public school's sports program.

Why Some School Boards Are Reluctant to Allow Homeschoolers on Their Teams

Homeschooled students can't meet academic eligibility requirements

In Illinois, the school district 301 board recently heard arguments for and against establishing a rule that would allow homeschoolers to join public school teams. According to the Courier News, one board member objected to the proposal, arguing that it would not