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Joanne Jacobs
Jun 13, 20182 min read
‘Teachers feel threatened but aren’t backed up’
Gang graffiti on a fence in suburban Long Island, where police blame MS-13 for 30 murders in the last two years. Photo: Sarah...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jun 12, 20183 min read
Lax discipline, bullying, chaos and death
A “once safe and supportive” New York City school “fell into chaos as new administrators implemented a supposedly more positive approach...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jun 10, 20182 min read
Raising self-regulating kids
Children — and their parents and teachers face a “crisis of self-regulation,” argues Katherine Reynolds Lewis in The Good News About Bad...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 14, 20181 min read
Glitter jars, bean bags and progress
At a Columbus, Ohio school in a high-poverty neighborhood, teachers use different strategies to help children learn to calm themselves,...
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Joanne Jacobs
May 13, 20182 min read
AFT, NEA play politics with teacher safety
Teachers across the country are complaining that new, softer discipline policies aren’t working, writes Max Eden, a senior fellow at the...
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Joanne Jacobs
Apr 12, 20183 min read
De Vos: Schools are less safe
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is under pressure to rescind — or to preserve — what’s known as the “Obama-era guidance” on school...
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Joanne Jacobs
Apr 12, 20181 min read
Parents, stop coddling your kids
Students and parents disrespect teachers, complained Julie Marburger in a Facebook post that went viral. She teaches sixth grade in a...
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Joanne Jacobs
Apr 1, 20181 min read
Students — but not teachers — are safer
Students feel safer in school, according to a Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2017, an annual federal report that analyzed 2015-16...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 29, 20182 min read
Safety last?
When he brought a knife to San Diego’s Lincoln High School, the student’s special education team decided he wasn’t responsible because it...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 19, 20182 min read
After jail, back to school
Broward County’s school system has built a prison-to-school pipeline, writes Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations. “Thousands of other...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 16, 20181 min read
He sat in class — and got suspended
While other students walked out of school to protest gun violence, Jacob Shoemaker sat in class alone. The Hilliard Davidson High senior...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 7, 20182 min read
Discipline reform: Did it go too far?
Discipline reform may have contributed to the violence at Douglas High School, writes Erika Sanzi, who blogs on Good School Hunting, on...
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Joanne Jacobs
Mar 6, 20182 min read
Hugs and guns to keep kids safe
Pamela Revels “dispenses hugs and smiles” at schools around Auburn, Alabama, reports the New York Times in a story about school resource...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 25, 20182 min read
‘It was never enough to get him arrested’
Parkland, Florida students and teachers are returning to Stoneman Douglas High this week, though not to the freshman building where a...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 13, 20182 min read
Principal pays kids not to fight
At a high-poverty, low-performing K-8 school in Philadelphia, eighth graders don’t get into fights any more. Their principal promised...
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Joanne Jacobs
Feb 5, 20181 min read
Orderly classrooms help disadvantaged kids
Orderly classrooms help disadvantaged students become achievers, writes Greg Ashman, who teaches in Australia. He cites an OECD working...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jan 21, 20182 min read
Reforming school discipline: Too fast?
Is school discipline reform moving too fast? asks Wayne D’Orio in The Atlantic. In the Highline district south of Seattle, suspensions...
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Joanne Jacobs
Dec 10, 20172 min read
New suspension policy does little in Philly
Philadelphia’s discipline reforms, which limited suspensions, improved attendance but not achievement for previously suspended students...
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Joanne Jacobs
Nov 28, 20172 min read
Soft discipline is bigotry of low expectations
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appears to be gearing up to rescind Obama-era discipline policies. A 2014 “Dear Colleague” letter warned...
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Joanne Jacobs
Nov 27, 20171 min read
Feds could narrow civil rights investigations
The U.S. Education Department is considering a proposal to narrow civil rights investigations to focus on individual complaints rather...
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