As adults, we see it pretty clearly. We get it. Kids need to value their education. They need to take responsibility for it. They need to be held accountable for their actions when they create big problems that get in the way of other kids getting to learn.
We get it because we as adults can see the value of owning your own education. The flip side of that is people who aren't adults just don't always see it.
An impassioned speaker at September's Board Meeting pointed out that in all the debate about teacher accountability, discussion about student accountability was being lost. (You can see the Board Meeting and all of the speakers at this link. The speaker reminded the audience that the famous 1989 movie "Lean on Me" was based on a true story, and that the story had at its heart student accountability. So why isn't student accountability being talked about more today?
That's a good question. I suspect it's not due to a lack of desire for it. I think it's because it's hard to tackle from a policy standpoint.
You can kick a kid out of school for certain felonies. But you can’t kick a kid out of school for being a bad student. In 2012, the law doesn’t let you.
(Well... you can't if you are a public school; you can if you are a charter school or private school. But that's a discussion for a different post!)
Bottom line, we want to educate our kids. We want them to succeed. We try to craft our laws to reflect that. We are still working out how to do that.
