Post by Origanalist on Jul 3, 2014 6:05:46 GMT -8
Katie Pavlich | Jul 02, 2014
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the July issue of Townhall Magazine.
The Left is famous for championing causes and offering solutions that have very little to do with a problem. This ‘logic’ can be found in the gun control, climate change, Obamacare, government bureaucracy, and even budget debates. But one area it is prevalent that doesn’t get much attention is on the issue of bullying in schools. The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-bullying campaigns in schools. Throwing more money at an issue is a typical liberal response. But it goes deeper than that. Most of the administrators and teachers that run our education system have a liberal, if not far-left, mindset. Claiming they want to solve the bullying issue in schools, they launch social media campaigns, call their celebrity friends, and ask state governments and the feds for more cash to solve the problem.
The truth is that their preferred solution, one-size-fits-all zero-tolerance policies, isn’t working. And President Obama’s drive to get the Department of Education involved in more school discipline issues is only making the problem worse.
THE NUMBERS
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have called on Americans to make anti-bullying a “national priority.” And in the past six years alone, Obama has pledged nearly half a billion dollars for anti-bullying campaigns.
In 2012, Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Re- authorization and Bullying Prevention and Intervention Act, legislation with a price tag of $40 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In 2009, the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students held its first ever Bullying Prevention Summit and has since dumped millions more into anti-bullying programs across the country.
The summit, now an annual event, was held in partnership with the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, the Interior, the Federal Trade Commission, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and the National Council on Disability.
“Bullying is not just a harmless rite of passage, or an inevitable part of growing up,” former-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at the summit in 2012. “It’s a systematic situation that threatens the health and well-being of our young people. It’s destructive to our communities and devastating to our future.”
“No one can afford to be a bystander,” she added.
What in the world do all of these random federal agencies have to do with bullying in schools? Nothing, but it’s an excuse to spend and waste taxpayer money in order to make everyone feel good about the fact that they’re doing something to solve the problem.
ZERO TOLERANCE, ZERO COMMON SENSE
On the local level, where administrations and teachers are trained to enforce zero- tolerance policies with no room for ex- planation or common sense, states with already bursting budgets have dedicated millions of dollars and resources they can’t afford to the same kinds of duplicative programs. Forty-nine states have anti-bullying laws in place that require constant marketing and training.
When New Jersey passed its massive anti-bullying legislation in 2011, there were major concerns about the cost and how the new law would affect students. The legislation is the harshest in the nation on the issue.
“There’s no question about it: We need to do something about bullying,” Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, wrote in a Times of Trenton op-ed at the time. “But we also need to do some- thing about implementation of the new anti-bullying law. It’s costly in terms of time, money and, most important, student self-esteem.”
“Unfortunately, the law is so prescriptive, and the process so lengthy,” Bozza continued, “that it actually works to extend the bullying experience, with the potential to diminish self-esteem in the process, as students continue to relive the incident before the situation is addressed. ... The anti-bullying law also may not be appropriate for our youngest students, such as kindergartners who are just learning how to socialize with their peers. Previously, name-calling or shoving on the playground could be handled on the spot as a teachable moment, with the teacher reinforcing the appropriate behavior. That’s no longer the case. Now it has to be documented, reviewed and resolved by everyone from the teacher to the anti-bullying specialist, principal, superintendent and local board of education.”
The New York Times reported at the time of the law’s implementation that schools were having a tough time managing the resources to comply with hundreds of pages of standards. Not to mention the fact that the new anti- bullying tactics streamlined students straight past the principal’s office and into a police station.
“Under a new state law in New Jersey, lunch-line bullies in the East Hanover schools can be reported to the police by their classmates this fall through anonymous tips to the Crimestoppers hotline. In Elizabeth, children, including kindergartners, will spend six class periods learning, among other things, the difference between telling and tattling. And at North Hunterdon High School, students will be told that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to bullying: if they see it, they have a responsibility to try to stop it,” the Times reported.
Furthermore, the costs of the program in one of America’s most heavily taxed states are enormous, even after major education reforms were signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie. Two hundred of the Garden State’s school districts were forced to spend a minimum of $2 million to implement new programs that were put together by overpaid consultants. This number was double the original budget for the implementation process.
In a survey of teachers, administrators, and school board officials, 90 percent of respondents said the legislation had increased costs and workload.
The law was introduced, passed, and signed as a typical knee-jerk reaction to the suicide of 19-year-old Tyler Clementi, which many claim was a result of repeated bullying.
THE DEFINITION PROBLEM
The very definition of “bullying” has become overly broad, however. StopBullying.gov defines the term as, “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.”
This could be applied to almost any interaction among elementary school children. The reason the number of “bullying” cases is growing is because the term “bullying” is being applied to every instance. Basic childhood actions that were once either ignored, or handled through normal disciplinary channels, have now become a federal case.
PUNISHING THE VICTIM
While big name politicians, political appointees, and legislators tell the country that “no one can afford to be a bystander,” schools are punishing students who step in against real bullies either for themselves or for a friend........
continued at.....http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/07/02/zerotolerance-zombies-n1857404?utm_source=TopBreakingNewsCarousel&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=BreakingNewsCarousel
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the July issue of Townhall Magazine.
The Left is famous for championing causes and offering solutions that have very little to do with a problem. This ‘logic’ can be found in the gun control, climate change, Obamacare, government bureaucracy, and even budget debates. But one area it is prevalent that doesn’t get much attention is on the issue of bullying in schools. The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on anti-bullying campaigns in schools. Throwing more money at an issue is a typical liberal response. But it goes deeper than that. Most of the administrators and teachers that run our education system have a liberal, if not far-left, mindset. Claiming they want to solve the bullying issue in schools, they launch social media campaigns, call their celebrity friends, and ask state governments and the feds for more cash to solve the problem.
The truth is that their preferred solution, one-size-fits-all zero-tolerance policies, isn’t working. And President Obama’s drive to get the Department of Education involved in more school discipline issues is only making the problem worse.
THE NUMBERS
President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have called on Americans to make anti-bullying a “national priority.” And in the past six years alone, Obama has pledged nearly half a billion dollars for anti-bullying campaigns.
In 2012, Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Re- authorization and Bullying Prevention and Intervention Act, legislation with a price tag of $40 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In 2009, the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Healthy Students held its first ever Bullying Prevention Summit and has since dumped millions more into anti-bullying programs across the country.
The summit, now an annual event, was held in partnership with the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, the Interior, the Federal Trade Commission, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and the National Council on Disability.
“Bullying is not just a harmless rite of passage, or an inevitable part of growing up,” former-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at the summit in 2012. “It’s a systematic situation that threatens the health and well-being of our young people. It’s destructive to our communities and devastating to our future.”
“No one can afford to be a bystander,” she added.
What in the world do all of these random federal agencies have to do with bullying in schools? Nothing, but it’s an excuse to spend and waste taxpayer money in order to make everyone feel good about the fact that they’re doing something to solve the problem.
ZERO TOLERANCE, ZERO COMMON SENSE
On the local level, where administrations and teachers are trained to enforce zero- tolerance policies with no room for ex- planation or common sense, states with already bursting budgets have dedicated millions of dollars and resources they can’t afford to the same kinds of duplicative programs. Forty-nine states have anti-bullying laws in place that require constant marketing and training.
When New Jersey passed its massive anti-bullying legislation in 2011, there were major concerns about the cost and how the new law would affect students. The legislation is the harshest in the nation on the issue.
“There’s no question about it: We need to do something about bullying,” Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, wrote in a Times of Trenton op-ed at the time. “But we also need to do some- thing about implementation of the new anti-bullying law. It’s costly in terms of time, money and, most important, student self-esteem.”
“Unfortunately, the law is so prescriptive, and the process so lengthy,” Bozza continued, “that it actually works to extend the bullying experience, with the potential to diminish self-esteem in the process, as students continue to relive the incident before the situation is addressed. ... The anti-bullying law also may not be appropriate for our youngest students, such as kindergartners who are just learning how to socialize with their peers. Previously, name-calling or shoving on the playground could be handled on the spot as a teachable moment, with the teacher reinforcing the appropriate behavior. That’s no longer the case. Now it has to be documented, reviewed and resolved by everyone from the teacher to the anti-bullying specialist, principal, superintendent and local board of education.”
The New York Times reported at the time of the law’s implementation that schools were having a tough time managing the resources to comply with hundreds of pages of standards. Not to mention the fact that the new anti- bullying tactics streamlined students straight past the principal’s office and into a police station.
“Under a new state law in New Jersey, lunch-line bullies in the East Hanover schools can be reported to the police by their classmates this fall through anonymous tips to the Crimestoppers hotline. In Elizabeth, children, including kindergartners, will spend six class periods learning, among other things, the difference between telling and tattling. And at North Hunterdon High School, students will be told that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to bullying: if they see it, they have a responsibility to try to stop it,” the Times reported.
Furthermore, the costs of the program in one of America’s most heavily taxed states are enormous, even after major education reforms were signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie. Two hundred of the Garden State’s school districts were forced to spend a minimum of $2 million to implement new programs that were put together by overpaid consultants. This number was double the original budget for the implementation process.
In a survey of teachers, administrators, and school board officials, 90 percent of respondents said the legislation had increased costs and workload.
The law was introduced, passed, and signed as a typical knee-jerk reaction to the suicide of 19-year-old Tyler Clementi, which many claim was a result of repeated bullying.
THE DEFINITION PROBLEM
The very definition of “bullying” has become overly broad, however. StopBullying.gov defines the term as, “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.”
This could be applied to almost any interaction among elementary school children. The reason the number of “bullying” cases is growing is because the term “bullying” is being applied to every instance. Basic childhood actions that were once either ignored, or handled through normal disciplinary channels, have now become a federal case.
PUNISHING THE VICTIM
While big name politicians, political appointees, and legislators tell the country that “no one can afford to be a bystander,” schools are punishing students who step in against real bullies either for themselves or for a friend........
continued at.....http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/07/02/zerotolerance-zombies-n1857404?utm_source=TopBreakingNewsCarousel&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=BreakingNewsCarousel