Readers of classic Superman comics recall the Bizarro World, where everything was backwards.  Many consider comics art, and art reflects life. The Bizarro World lives again in Portland’s schools, as The Free Beacon reports:

A new collective bargaining agreement between Portland Public Schools and its unionized teachers requires school officials to consider a disruptive student's race, gender identity, and sexual orientation when crafting that student's disciplinary plan.

When a student exhibits ‘continuous disruptive behavior,’ the agreement says, school officials must develop a ‘support plan’ for the student, which can include disciplinary measures such as detention. That plan ‘must take into consideration the impact of issues related to the student's trauma, race, gender identity/presentation, sexual orientation … and restorative justice as appropriate for the student,’ according to the agreement. The new disciplinary policy also eliminates mandatory suspensions for students who threaten or harm others—now, those students may only be removed from their classroom, not from school altogether.

Returning, momentarily, to the real world, let’s examine some of the assumptions and terms used in this enlightened policy. The policy assumes the offending student is a victim. They’ve suffered “trauma,” because of their “race, gender identity/presentation” and “sexual orientation.” It also mandates “restorative justice,” which in practice means little or no—usually no—consequences for their misbehavior or crimes. The application of “restorative justice” usually entails a sort of Marxist struggle session where the student’s eternal victimization is reinforced. The Parkland killer—the principal was an Obama acolyte--was a beneficiary of repeated “restorative justice.” 

The policy change reflects a broader effort at both the federal and local levels to develop race-conscious disciplinary rules for public school students. Earlier this year, for example, the Biden administration released a memo urging schools to refrain from suspending students for truancy, arguing that ‘significant disparities by race … have persisted in the application of student discipline.’ School districts in Washington and Illinois, meanwhile, have adopted disciplinary policies that aim to provide a ‘culturally responsive’ and ‘restorative approach’ to student discipline.

The overall social justice goal is eliminating actual, if not posterior-covering, discipline for favored minority/eternal victim students, an issue I’ve often covered at my home blog. Why would any sane educator want to eliminate discipline? Disparate impact. The mere fact black students break school rules and commit crimes in numbers far greater than their numbers in a school population can’t have anything to do with culture, upbringing or their own desires and behaviors, but must be the result of white supremacy, systemic racism, which can only be addressed not by holding them accountable for their behavior, but by “restorative justice.” The administrative benefit of “restorative justice” is making a school’s misbehavior and crime statistics plummet, giving the illusion the school is under control.

The district's decision to change its disciplinary procedures for students comes after Portland-area students experienced an uptick in fights and behavioral problems after returning to the classroom for the 2021 school year. The district responded by working to build up its ‘restorative justice practices,’ which district official Char Hutson said aim to shift away ‘from this punitive way of how we respond’ to student discipline.

In Portland the only socially just way to deal with an increase in “fights and behavioral problems” is to cover up fights and behavior problems. This is why so many teachers are leaving the profession, often bruised and bloodied.

Unless adults are unquestionably in charge of any school, little or no learning will take place. A single minimally disruptive student rules any class, determining whether any learning will occur. Actively disruptive students destroy any chance for learning.

Criminal students quickly establish an underground authority in their schools, and often, entirely take over. They rob, steal, extort, assault fellow students and teachers, deal and use drugs and inevitably escalate their depredations.

The “broken windows” policing principle applies to schools. Police officers know if one broken window on a building is not quickly replaced, every window will soon be broken.  Ignoring small crimes encourages worse crimes. Allowing students to be rude to teachers, to swear at them, to disrupt their teaching in any way encourages bad actors. If they can get away with swearing at and insulting teachers, they’ll escalate to assault and worse.  

Knowing the Future Felons Of America are in charge, kids who want to learn will either withdraw from public schools, or they’ll take to carrying weapons to protect themselves, both rational responses to anarchy. Teachers, knowing carrying weapons or so much as touching students will send them to jail, quit out of self-preservation.

Why would any sane educator want to eliminate discipline? Sane educators wouldn’t, which speaks volumes about Portland.

Mike McDaniel is a retired police officer and high school and college English teacher.

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