Is this really the way to go, Houston?

HISD to eliminate librarians and convert libraries into disciplinary centers at NES schools

"I just couldn't imagine that it could happen so quickly. I don't understand why this current administration doesn't see the value of libraries and what they do for literacy and reading," Hall said. "Libraries are much more than just books. It's about helping match the reader to the right book at the right time. By talking to the student, you can find a direction to meet their needs."

Former library spaces at some schools will be converted into rooms where students who misbehave will be relocated to watch lessons virtually, work alone, or in groups with differentiated lessons. Books will remain on shelves and students will still be able to borrow books on a honor code system.

Baby, it's cold outside...

In case anyone missed it, Fayette County Schools are closed tomorrow due to extreme cold. High tomorrow should be 18 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas tonight and in the morning the low should be 5 or 6 degrees with wind chills to minus fifteen. Brrr. Stay warm. Dress in layers. Drip your faucets. Keep your gas tank fairly full - - all that stuff.

We need more of these programmes

Suspension Is Not the Answer: Investing in Students' Mental Health Yields Academic Gains

Unfortunately, "support structures" and "second chances" are severely lacking for many in America today, particularly in minority and low-income communities. The United States has the most prisoners of any developed country in the world, both in terms of raw numbers and by percentage of the population. More citizens are behind bars in the US than in Russia, Mexico, Iran, India and China.

Who makes up America's prison population? Often inmates are adults who endured terrible violence and trauma as children, such as witnessing a parent's murder. A study by The Sentencing Project found that juveniles who received sentences of life in prison reported witnessing violence in their homes 79% of the time, and more than half (54.1%) witnessed weekly violence in their neighborhoods.

Children who are exposed to violence tend to suffer from a range of psychological issues, and often have "difficulties with attachment, regressive behavior, anxiety and depression and conduct problems." Without mental health support services, few are able to cope with the emotional stress in a productive manner on their own. Confused, angry or scared, a student's cries for help are commonly first expressed by acting out in school.

Regrettably, a school's frequent response to a student's "misbehavior" is ineffectual: just when the young person needs support and professional help the most, they are suspended, kicked back to the streets alone and vulnerable. According to the US Department of Education, the number of students who receive some form of academic suspension in America each year could fill 45 Super Bowl stadiums.

Cowards and barbarians

Taliban Militants Attack Pakistan School: More Than 140 People, Mostly Schoolchildren, Are Killed at Military-Run School in Peshawar

Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan and killed at least 141 people, methodically shooting schoolchildren in the head and setting fire to some victims in a horrifying 9-hour rampage.

Shahrukh, a 17-year-old survivor of Tuesday’s attack in Peshawar, said many students were assembled in the school auditorium when the gunmen burst in and started spraying bullets. He was shot in both legs and fell to the ground.

“I saw them set one of our teachers on fire in front of me,” he said.

That's the only way I can describe those who would do this, particularly in the name of God.

Stupid

Colorado girl shaves head for pal with cancer, gets temporarily suspended

Why on earth would this be an issue for the school to have made? It was a nice gesture, there's nothing inherently wrong with the cut, etc. Do they also prevent boys from having shaved heads? And when did it get to be that schools were in the business of creating more and more restrictive rules, sometimes with no legitimate basis, rather than educating children? Seems to me they're teaching kids with this policy that they'd just better conform, even it if it means not showing someone else you care. And they wonder why bullying is getting so bad. If you're different, others learn to close ranks, and enforce the need to conform, often with the result being the person that is different is at fault.

Then there was this

Terry Deary's attack on libraries branded 'ignorant twaddle': Authors, including artistic director of Bath Children's Literature Festival David Almond have criticised Terry Deary's comments that libraries are damaging the book industry

Deary furthered the debate yesterday by telling The Guardian that libraries were 'damaging'.

"Because it's been 150 years [since the Public Libraries Act], we've got this idea that we've got an entitlement to read books for free, at the expense of authors, publishers and council tax payers," he said.

The writer was the seventh most borrowed children's author from UK libraries last year. His books were borrowed more than 500,000 times during 2011/2012.

Under the Public Lending Right scheme, Deary would have received £6,600 – 6.2p per book – through people borrowing his books from a library. The amount he would get if he sold that number of books is £180,000.

But other library supporters have pointed out that families who use libraries are often those who can't afford to buy the books.

Here's a thought: without libraries, many of those 500,000 wouldn't have read his books at all, or told their friends what they thought about them, etc. I haven't read his illustrated series, Horrible Histories, which present unusual and sometimes downright gory scenes from history in a tongue-in-cheek manner, or any of his other books. I believe I shan't (and certainly won't buy them), especially given this, from his Wikipedia article:

Controversy

Deary is an outspoken critic of schools, which he believes serve no function above keeping children off the street. Deary has commented: "I've no interest in schools. They have no relevance in the 21st century. They were a Victorian idea to get kids off the street. Who decided that putting 30 kids with only their age in common in a classroom with one teacher was the best way of educating? At my school there were 52 kids in the class and all I learned was how to pass the 11-plus. Testing is the death of education. Kids should leave school at 11 and go to work. Not down the mines or up chimneys, mind, but working with computers or something relevant. Everything I learned after 11 was a waste of time. Trigonometry, Boyle's law: it's never been of any use to me. They should have been teaching me the life skills I was going to need, such as building relationships, parenting and managing money. I didn't have a clue about any of these things at 18. Schools need to change."

Terry Deary has said of historians: "They are nearly as seedy and devious as politicians..They pick on a particular angle and select the facts to prove their case and make a name for themselves... They don’t write objective history... Eventually you can see through them all. They all come with a twist."

In 2013 Deary spoke out against public libaries as they are unfair to authors and people should not expect things for free. He claims, in contrast to his earlier beliefs on the lack of value in schools, that schooling provides the poor and underpriviledged with sufficent literacy and that he, as a tax-payer, should not subsidise more.

. Wow. No, I see no reason to give him money. In my opinion, he sounds like a complete jerk.

This disturbed me

that anyone would treat a child this way 1) in the name of education, 2) without resorting to other measures, and 3) without parental consent or knowledge, This is not just a way of 'time out'. And this is how just one 5-year-old was treated. According to the opinion piece, thousands of children are disciplined at school using restraints or seclusion rooms, with a high proportion of them children with special needs, and a good proportion of them non-white.

A Terrifying Way to Discipline Children

At school, her mother and I found Rose standing alone on the cement floor of a basement mop closet, illuminated by a single light bulb. There was nothing in the closet for a child — no chair, no books, no crayons, nothing but our daughter standing naked in a pool of urine, looking frightened as she tried to cover herself with her hands. On the floor lay her favorite purple-striped Hanna Andersson outfit and panties.

Rose got dressed and we removed her from the school. We later learned that Rose had been locked in the closet five times that morning. She said that during the last confinement, she needed to use the restroom but didn’t want to wet her outfit. So she disrobed. Rather than help her, the school called us and then covered the narrow door’s small window with a file folder, on which someone had written “Don’t touch!”

We were told that Rose had been in the closet almost daily for three months, for up to an hour at a time. At first, it was for behavior issues, but later for not following directions. Once in the closet, Rose would pound on the door, or scream for help, staff members said, and once her hand was slammed in the doorjamb while being locked inside.

School should be a safe environment; I'm not saying there shouldn't be discipline, but there is a difference between discipline and abuse, and this, in my opinion, crosses the line.

A former student looks at the institutionalised culture of molestation in his school

Prep-School Predators: The Horace Mann School’s Secret History of Sexual Abuse

It's a disturbing look at lives damaged and eyes averted in the long term at a prep school in New York.

That's ridiculous

Homeless Woman Arrested for Sending Son to School

A homeless woman in Connecticut has been arrested for one of the most unthinkable reasons imaginable -- she sent her son to school. Tonya McDowell, 33, was arrested last week and charged with first-degree larceny for stealing $15,686 -- the cost of the public school education for her 6-year-old son.

To make matters worse, the child's babysitter, who provided documentation that said the boy lived at her Norwalk address, was evicted from her public housing unit for her role in his education. McDowell and her son had been bouncing between an acquaintance's home in Bridgeport and a homeless shelter in Norwalk with the boy spending afternoons with the babysitter. The school he attended was in Norwalk School District, which had recently decided to crack down on infiltrators.

Because of course jailing and charging her with a felony is the way to solve the situation. And how is she supposed to give any sort of restitution? The problem seems to stem from her crashing at an address in Bridgeport, but she also goes to the Norwalk emergency shelter and the boy is babysat (or was) in Norwalk. I'm not sure this was so much some form of fraud as trying to do what they could to make the best of an awful situation. And would it be better for the child to be wandering around with her in the daytime and not getting any form of education? This woman needs some sort of help, not the book thrown at her.

I wish this young man and the other students of his school--Asian, black, or whatever--a bright future

Racial violence changes student — and school

PHILADELPHIA — Duong Nghe Ly can't wait to begin his senior year at South Philadelphia High School. A day of violence there last year changed his life, and he wants to learn if his school has been transformed as well.

Last Dec. 3, after years of attacks on Asian immigrant students, something finally snapped.

Fueled by rumors, a group of students roamed the halls searching for Asian victims until one was attacked in a classroom. Later, about 70 students stormed the cafeteria, where several Asians were beaten. About 35 students pushed past a police officer onto the so-called "Asian floor," but were turned back. After school, Asians being escorted home were attacked anyway by a mob of youths.

Almost all the attackers were black — but few observers believe the violence was due to racial hatred. Instead, they cite isolation of different groups within the school, certain students' warped "gangster" values, and for some, simmering resentments over perceived benefits for Asian students.

As poor ethnically Chinese growing up in Vietnam, Ly and his family faced an uphill battle. His parents spent years and carefully saved money to come to this country legally, working long hours to make sure he and his brother got an education, something they never were able to do. Attacks on Asian students have been a problem for years, but in this largely immigrant population, it was considered better to keep your head down and your mouth closed. That changed last year. Ly, like many other students, responded with a boycott. Steps are being made to more fully integrate the students, and the new principal--a black Philly native who seems to really understand the forces at work there--is trying to change the conditions that led to the violence.

I wish Ly and his family the best of luck. They represent the pursuit of the American dream in action and I hope they attain it, making all the sacrifice worthwhile. And in the meantime, I hope his senior year will be much better both for Asians and for the other ethnicities as well.

School contraband used to be switchblades and marijuana

Now it's Jolly Ranchers.

Jolly Rancher lands Brazos ISD third-grader in detention for a week

Um...I know we're trying to improve our children's diet and lessen childhood obesity, but this seems a little over the top.

There are those who want a world where women and girls cannot thrive

Afghan schoolgirls fall ill in suspected gas attack

Afghan schoolgirls poisoned by Taliban?: 'A smell like a flower reached my nose,' says hospitalized girl

Utter callousness and stupidity

Primary schoolchildren in tears after they are told they will be removed from families as part of Holocaust 'game'

A teacher decided to do a roleplaying exercise to teach her eleven-year-olds how it might have been for Jewish children during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the kids didn't know it was a roleplay, for the teacher neither informed students or parents about the intended programme.

One girl said her classmates began crying when Mrs McGlynn told them she had a letter from the Scottish Executive saying nine children had to be separated from their classmates.

She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, 'due to lack of sunlight in their mother's womb', and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.

The mother added: 'When I asked why on earth they thought it was appropriate to deliver a role play situation to the children in this way, Mrs Stewart informed me that they didn't inform the children beforehand.

'This was because they wanted the children to experience an "accurate emotional response" to this scenario in order for it to be reflected in their story writing.

'Mrs Stewart then invited me to come up to the school and see the excellent work that had been produced as a result of the exercise.

'I declined and my position and opinion on the method used to extract emotive story writing from the children was cruel, barbaric, traumatic and totally, totally unethical.

'My daughter and indeed no child needs to feel the terror, fear, panic, segregation and horror that a child of the Holocaust experienced during one of the worst atrocities in history to be able to empathise with them in order to produce good story writing.'

Well said. It reminds me of the Jane Elliot's controversial 'blue-eyed/brown-eyed' exercise, which was used as an example of unethical use of human subjects in sociology class, along with the Milgram experiment. Ironically, had the teacher in the British case been a scientific researcher, her exercise would never had made it past an institutional review board (IRB) because it violates the first point of the Nuremberg Code--that informed consent of the subject must be obtained. The Nuremberg Code was, itself, set up as a response to Nazi human experimentation methods during the Holocaust to prevent exploitation and harm to the experimental subjects.

Interestingly, several commentators on the story mentioned that children today are coddled and that the children shouldn't have been so upset. But they are missing a crucial issue--trust. I don't think the parents are wrong to be upset. There's a difference between coddling a youngster and sheltering him or her from the realities of the world and betraying the trust that school is a 'safe place' in which to learn. I do not believe the teacher in this case thought out the emotional distress that this would produce coming from a trusted adult.

Interestingly, despite the ethical issues surrounding the Elliot and Milgram exercises, the majority of participants in each case looked back on them as positive experiences. Perhaps these children will as well. But considering the manipulation of emotions involved, I can't help but think that there are psychological explanations for the overwhelming support the subjects gave, perhaps a refusal to believe that anyone in a trusted position would abuse their power through manipulation. But in my opinion, that is what was done in all three of these cases.

Those drills matter (and courage does, too)

Teacher describes how he stopped shooting

During emergency drills at Deer Creek Middle School, teacher David Benke used to tell his students that if anything ever happened, he wanted to be able to 'do something about it.'

When he saw a man shooting at students as they were leaving the Littleton, Colorado, school on Tuesday, 'What was going through my mind,' Benke said, 'was that I promised.'

Benke tackled the gunman, who had shot and wounded two students, and with the help of another teacher and some bus drivers, was able to hold him until police arrived.

'I noticed that he was working a bolt-action rifle,' he said. 'I noticed that and realized that I had time to get him before he could chamber another round.'

The gunman did manage to hit two students, but neither died and they are expected to recover from their injuries. It was a scary situation that could have been far worse. The last bell had rung and students were streaming out of their classes to the buses.

But thankfully the gunman, who may be schizophrenic or otherwise mentally ill, as his father says he hears voices, did not have an automatic weapon. The teacher tackled him and then others helped hold him down and got the gun away from him. The school is a couple of miles from Colombine High, also in Littleton, and this had been something their system had prepared for ever since that tragedy. Here's to drills, and training, and brave teachers and staff. When the assistant principal, Becky Brown, who'd helped by getting the gun away, was interviewed about why she went towards the gunshots rather than away, said: 'Those kids are my kids, and it's important, and my teachers, we're like family.' That pretty much sums it up. These are caretakers of our children, and they have the right stuff.

You know, in my day they had this thing called detention

Queens girl Alexa Gonzalez hauled out of school in handcuffs after getting caught doodling on desk

Alexa is the latest in a string of city students who have been cuffed for minor infractions. In 2007, 13-year-old Chelsea Fraser was placed under arrest for writing "okay" on her desk at Intermediate School 201. And in 2008, 5-year-old Dennis Rivera was cuffed and sent to a psych ward after throwing a fit in his kindergarten.

The girl wrote on her desk with an erasable marker. At most she should have had to remove the marks and perhaps had detention. Instead she was arrested and detained for hours, was suspended, and now has an 8-hour community service punishment to fulfill.

In a similar story of overkill, also in New York City, Laura Timoney fumes after son Patrick, 9, is busted for bringing 2-inch-long toy gun to PS 52

Patrick and a friend were playing with Lego figures in the school cafeteria on Tuesday when he pulled out the faux machine gun and stuck it in the hands of his plastic police officer.

His friend's LEGO figure had an axe in his hand, apparently less threatening. The mother received a call from the school and the boy was almost suspended. The mother thinks the principal over-reacted, and I think so, too. It was a two-inch toy that fit in a LEGO hand, and could not in any way be mistaken for a real gun. The boy's father is a retired police officer himself. The boy had to promise not to bring the gun back to school. He's avowed not to bring any toy to school again.

There are things schools should have zero tolerance on--drugs, real guns, bullying, threatening violence--but there's a big dose of common sense needed as well. Kids get suspended these days for giving a classmate with cramps an ibuprofen, or doodling on a desk. It seems the focus on learning is blurring in the school systems, something we cannot afford to have happen in an era of texting with its loss of writing skills and short attention spans. Schools increasingly seem to be playing babysitter (and in their defence, parents seem to encourage this at times), teaching how to beat a test so funding isn't cut, that sort of thing. I've met people in education who are disgusted with today's schooling. That's not to say there are not good teachers, principals, librarians, and programmes out there. But there's a lot of stupid silliness, too, and these stories count.

How do you define 'Jew'?

Who Is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question

The basic test in Judaism for who is Jewish isn't what you believe, or what you practice--it's whether your mother is Jewish. This is a long-standing practice, but the different denominations of Judaism (yes, there are, for those who didn't know) approach the question differently. So then you get into the question of 'how Jewish is the mother?' At the heart of this matter is can an Orthodox school exclude a child because the mother, who is a convert to Judaism, converted in a more liberal synagogue than the school recognises, a matter that in the United States, would probably fall into the area of a private decision by a religious school, but in Britain becomes an issue because it, like many other religious schools, receive public funding. The parents who sued lost the first round, but an appellate court ruled that the child was not being excluded on religious grounds (as in practice) but rather on ethnic grounds (his mother's non-Jewish ethnicity). It will no doubt go up the chain.

It's an interesting question. Religions are entitled to their beliefs, but throw the public funding issue in and it becomes more complicated.

But here's the thing--unlike Christianity, Judaism isn't based on belief, but rather observation of laws, as well as ethnic identity. So you can't define an admissions policy based on beliefs, and ethnicity is out in this case. So it would have to be practice. There are lots of Jews, however, who would argue that eating a ham sandwich doesn't make you less Jewish. And as the article states, you have to be creative about figuring out which children went to synagogue given that Orthodox and Conservative Jews don't write on the Sabbath. So the whole thing opens a can of worms involving the British government, the school, and the various denominations and its leaders all trying to find some correct meaning for the word 'Jew'. It's making people question the very meaning of Jewishness, and who has the right to determine it. As a liberal rabbi put it, 'The Orthodox definition of Jewish excludes 40 percent of the Jewish community in this country.' Who has the right to exclude? How inclusive can you be without making the label meaningless?

I will say one thing; part of the point of education is to get people to think about these sorts of issues, so in a way the school is fulfilling its mission--but not like it expected to.

So sad, even after five years

Russians recall Beslan school tragedy: ‘We live with this every day of our lives,’ says mother of slain son

Militants herded over 1,000 people into the building on the first day of school, and 334 people died, the majority children.

And in the that's just bizarre category

Body of Intruder Found in Ductwork on Roof of Arizona Elementary School