How should students be educated in Urban Middle Schools?

Answer 1

Tough question. The current policy seems to be to add more and more rules. In fact there are so many rules now that hardly anyone can keep up with all the rules, let alone enforce them. Middle school children are so different in their stages of intellectual development. Some students are still elementary babies while others are high school gangsta wannabees. Perhaps fewer rules which can be enforced. Currently the biggest issues are kids who bring MP3 players and cell phones to school. Cell phone possession is considered a major crime in some schools punishable by expulsion. The problem is parents want their children to have the phone so they are able to keep track of their children. Schools also bother students about other trivial issues such as colored hair, shirts with snowmen, and anything else which offends one single person. Add to the scene, neglected and ignored children and things become even worse. It seems that since nearly everyone gets divorced these days many children have little or no parental support in their studies. The parents only come out of the woodwork when they think the schools are picking on their baby. Just because junior doesn't follow the school rules, they should not have the right to put their baby into suspension. Junior doesn't have any rules at home, why should he (or she) have to put up with rules at school? Now mix that all in with all the special education, IEP, 504 plans and etc which do not allow the schools to suspend a special education student more than a certain number of times, or cause them stress, or give them written tests, or expect them to do all this work, and it becomes a muddle. Finish them all off with a long battery of tests which cause the teachers and the school principals to flip out because of the pressure of the testing. Before long it becomes a crisis when a students does not have the aptitude or maturity to face the pressure of high-stakes testing and their attitude goes south in a hurry. If all this testing is so great I fail to see why I see so many articles in local papers on how poorly students perform? I believe students are doing better than ever considering the academic and social pressures these young children now face.