October 14, 2023

James Q. Wilson’s and George L. Kelling’s “broken windows” theory of policing is relatively simple: If a society shows that it has no interest in policing little crimes, it creates an environment that is a perfect petri dish for big crimes. In California, a new law will have the practical effect of breaking windows in schools across the state. That’s because the state now makes it impossible for schools to rid themselves of students who disrupt the classroom or openly defy the teacher.

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From the Epoch Times:

It will be illegal for California public schools to suspend students for disrupting class or defying teachers—known as willful defiance suspensions—starting July 1, 2024.

“With Governor Newsom’s signing of SB 274, California is putting the needs of students first,” bill author Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) said in a statement a day after the governor’s signing Oct. 8. “No more kicking kids out of school for minor disruptions. Students belong in school where they can succeed.”

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SB 274—an extension of the author’s previous legislation from 2019 that banned willful defiance suspensions for TK–5 students permanently and for grades 6–8 until 2025—now broadens such policy to include all public-school grades from TK–12 across the state, with a sunset date of July 1, 2029.

[snip]

Under the new law, teachers can remove a student from class for unruly behavior, but the youth would not be suspended from school. Instead, school administrators would be responsible for evaluating and implementing suitable in-school interventions or support for the student, according to the senator’s office.

Additionally, the bill prohibits the suspension or expulsion of students due to tardiness or truancy.

It’s hard to imagine a more foolish law. We know by looking at what happened in Minnesota, which embarked on a similar scheme, how this will end: In violence and educational breakdown.

Back in 2016, in an article that’s since been removed from its original site in the Star Tribune, Kathy Kersten wrote about what happened in St. Paul schools when they stopped allowing teachers to discipline disruptive students in the name of equity: