Schools and Delinquency
q Schooling in a Class Society
q Schools perpetuate inequality
q Note the quote by Ellwood Cubberly:
q Our city schools will soon be forced to give up the exceedingly democratic idea that all are equal, and our society devoid of classes...and to begin specialization of educational effort along many lines in an attempt to adapt the school to the needs of these many classes
q public schools of the South - “separate but equal”
q Schools act as social control agencies
q Hence, compulsory school laws
Schools and factories
q “mass education” was set up largely to train a mostly rural workforce for manufacturing plants in the cities
q kindergarten, extracurricular activities, home room, and organized playgrounds, etc. taught cooperation and discipline, which would fit well into the factory system
q Many factories had their own “company schools”
Corporate Influence
n Industrial programs for the management of workers became models for the type of activities adopted by the public school.
n In some cases actual programs, like home economics, were transferred from factory education activities to the public schools to produce workers with the correct social attitudes and skills
n school system evolved "to meet the needs of capitalist employers for a disciplined labor force, and to provide a mechanism for social control”
n Leaders of the business world “encouraged schools to adopt a corporate model of organization and called for the education system to more explicitly prepare workers for the labor market through testing, vocational guidance, and vocational education.”
n To get an idea about this, let’s take time to go to a web site - http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/index.htm
Schools & Delinquency
n Reforms in public schooling were closely related to the problem of juvenile delinquency
n IQ testing started with the Alfred Binet test in 1916
n Henry Goddard - intelligence testing was the key to reducing delinquency
n Claimed that the public schools could be used as “clearing houses” to pick out “potential delinquents,” especially the category he called the low intelligent, “defective delinquent.”
Schools as “Day Prisons” and “Zero Tolerance” Policies
n Day Prisons
n Many high schools now have many of the same features as prisons – principal as a kind of “warden”
n a feeder system for the prison
n Random searches for drugs
n police on campuses, cameras, etc.
n High fences, rules about leaving during school hours
n Minority students most likely to attend these schools
n Goose Creek example – sent in SWAT, but found no drugs
Sex Offenders & Zero Tolerance
n As I have often said, America is obsessed with sex and has been since colonial days
n Here are some recent news stories to consider:
n Teenage Sex Offenders? - two recent cases
How Safe are Schools?
n Violence started declining prior to Columbine
n Exception-based policies dominate
n Kids are safest while in school – even without police being there
n Fear dominates – even while crimes on school campuses decline
n FBI profile of “signs for potential shooters” include:
n “having parental troubles, disliking popular students, experiencing a failed romance, and listening to songs with violent lyrics” – which probably applies to 90%!!
n A national report concluded that “Serious violent crime appears to be prevalent in only a minority of the Nation’s public schools.”
n In 1999, about 8 percent of students nationwide reported being threatened or injured with a weapon at school, about the same percentage as in 1993
n In spite of this, fear remains that “it could happen anywhere” – well, in fact it rarely happens anywhere
School Crime
n Latest Justice Department study shows that between 1993 and 2003
n the percentage of high school students who reported being in a fight anywhere declined from 42 percent to 33 percent.
n In 2003, only 5 percent reported being victims of nonfatal crimes, while 4 percent reported being victims of theft, and only 1 percent reported being victims of a violent crime
School Suspensions & Expulsions
n Black students (esp. males) far more likely to be suspended or expelled
n Even though they are about equally as likely as their white counterparts to commit delinquent acts
n Zero tolerance laws make it a lot easier to expel students
n Being expelled leads to further delinquency and gang involvement
Reinforcing Class and Racial Inequalities
n Follow the money!!
n Money spent on schools are based on property taxes, so that the richer the community the more money is spent
n Examples abound and are noted in the text
n See the study by Kozol and comparison between Lowell and Wellesley (near Boston)
n school districts with the highest percentage of minority students received less funding than those with the lowest percentage
Dropping Out
n Kozol's study
n 60% dropout rate in Chicago’s poorest schools
n Some have higher rates – 76% of those who began at Andersen Elementary and 86% of those who started at Woodsen
n Surrounding social/economic context obviously important
n Note the city of East St. Louis
Tracking
n Placing students into different classes or groups based upon perceived intellectual ability, mostly through standardized tests.
n Such tracking goes on in at least 80 percent of the secondary schools and 60 percent of all elementary schools in the country
Five consequences of tracking
n students in lower tracks become discouraged and often give up because they are labeled as “low-ability” and a self-fulfilling prophecy sets in
n students in upper tracks begin to see themselves as superior, while those in the bottom tracks see themselves as inferior
n students placed in the lower tracks are, in effect, “tracked to fail.” And they fail at a far greater rate than students in higher tracks.
n fewer than 10 percent of children slotted in these special tracks will graduate from school
n such tracking is linked to both class and race, as a disproportionate number of lower class and minority students are placed into the lower tracks
n tracking has been found to have very little educational value and a Carnegie Foundation report suggested it be abandoned
n One recent study concluded that we may be teaching children in the lower tracks those behaviors that will guarantee they fit well into the lowest levels of the class system, while simultaneously teaching those in the upper tracks to take their place within the world of big business and the professions
n “Pygmalion effect” – read this carefully in the text
School Failure and Delinquency
n Falling Behind and Dropping Out
n grades, falling behind in school, attending inferior schools, being suspended or expelled and even tracking are all strongly related to higher rates of delinquency.
n Dropping out is a process where there are typically various stages one goes through, including hanging out with other students who are in that same process
Harvard University Study
n Just over half of blacks and Hispanics graduate from high school, in contrast to three-fourths of whites and Asians
n One researcher found that high dropout rates were concentrated in just a few hundred high schools, which he called “dropout factories”
Factors related to dropping out
n youth are more likely to drop out of school if they:
n are doing poorly academically, especially those in lower academic streams (the most important factor)
n have lower levels of self-esteem and a poor sense of control over their lives
n are less interested in school and experience feelings of alienation
n work excessive hours in part-time employment; and/ or are frequently truant, and generally have a poor attitude towards school.
n As for gender, males are more likely to dropout than females; for race, racial minorities are more likely to dropout than whites
Gangs in Schools
n Given that young people spend so much time within the school system and that this system produces so much failure, it is not at all surprising to find gangs prevalent
n Note the study by Padilla
n Also not surprising, gangs are mostly found in the poorest school districts
n Compare Rancho High with any high school in the far western end of Las Vegas