The Erosion of School Discipline in Illinois

Be honest, you have been a public place and seen a child misbehaving and thought "that kid needs his butt busted."  At least you have read or seen a news story of kids behaving badly and thought, "what is wrong with these kids today?"  I know you have told your kids stories or reminisced with friends about getting spankings or swatted at school.  All in an effort to tell your kids what it used to be like or to let them know how good they have it.  At any rate I think the discussion has been worn out about discipline and how it should be done.

In Illinois paddling (corporal punishment) was banned in 1993.  We were part of a wave of states doing so after advocacy groups pushed for legislation in several states.  Despite the research support against corporal punishment, 19 states still allow it.  Of those 19, 10 states are southern states and not shockingly enough one is Texas.  That tells me that this is a regional preference.  These parts of the country seem accept that this is part of their culture or they would change it.  To add more hurt to the advocacy groups, there is US Supreme Court precedence on the issue ruling that corporal punishment is not a matter of cruel or unusual punishment nor is it a denial of the student's due process rights.  Regardless of where you stand on the issue, swatting has survived in portions of the country just not in Illinois.

Illinois has recently passed another law restricting student discipline.  SB 100 was born out of an effort from Chicago parents and students called Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE).  The group cites data that shows that students of color are suspended at a disproportional rate compared to white students.  The result is a law that places restrictions on the suspensions of students and requires schools to take more steps to correct problematic behavior.  You know, what parents used to do.  I absolutely applaud the effort of people coming together for meaningful change.  It should happen more often.  On the other hand, based on my own administrative experiences, I have to ask is this a state problem or a Chicago problem?  Should this have been a victory for parents and students of Chicago Public Schools instead of statute for an entire state.  This civil rights issue may not be as prevalent in other parts of the state.

Paddling has found a way to live on in a few states based on local preference or culture.  SB100 , what I think should have been a local initiative, is yet another example of change happening to schools instead of schools being the catalyst for their own change.  Out of curiosity I checked the voting record of my local legislators on SB100.  My senator didn't vote on the measure and his two corresponding representatives both voted yes.  Right now administrators are losing their minds and seeing the worse in the law.  Fellow admins, the sky is not falling but the signs of erosion are there.  I wonder if our legislators could see this law as a burden to mandate heavy schools or if it was part of another political game that they could champion later.

The bottom line is that we as professionals in the education field have support when it comes to legislation that might happens to us.  Vision 20/20 is an excellent example of taking back our schools through legislation.  As I wrote before, this is how we take back the schoolhouse.  The Illinois principals Association is great about legislative information but do you scroll past it or take the time to engage with it.  The next time you see an Advocacy in Action email show up, take a look.  Had I done so maybe I could have engaged my two legislators that didn't vote the way I would like them to on SB100.  We are important instruments of our own change in Springfield and as such we can slow down or even stop the erosion of our school's futures.  I'm not saying we can bring back paddling but we can at least prevent what might not be good for kids or schools.