PBS News Hour: Harsh Punishment for Misbehavior in Texas Schools

[alp227]

In the latest installment of our "American Graduate" series, Tom Bearden reports on the strict disciplinary policies in place in Texas schools. Misbehavior that in another era might have resulted in a trip to the principal's office now leads to fines, citations, even criminal records in some cases in Texas. (Transcript)

Of course, the story began with the most recent controversy over excessive punishment of schoolchildren, the Houston-area student Diane Tran who spent a day in jail for missing class. Tran's parents abandoned her, so she worked multiple jobs to support her siblings in addition to going to honor classes at school.

[longship]

1. The Texas solution...

Bring back the electric chair for truency. And yes, this solution is final.

[Live and Learn]

2. Seems they are working to make criminal records meaningless. nt

[marble falls]

3. They're working to create a criminalized low wage drone class. Texas has ....

privatized more jail systems down to the county level than anywhere else in the US, where Sheriffs are paid to keep the jails full.

[anon-y-moose]

4. where's texass, Is that a state or something...

[mia]

5. We wouldn't need harsh punishments if students were expected to behave from day one.

If only parents did their jobs....

&sns=fb

[chervilant]

6. Money

is the reason more students are receiving citations. There's money to be made, sending all those reprobates into the Texas penal/profit system.

AND, public education in Texas is a joke. In fact, public education nationwide is disintegrating faster than a plate of sugar on a rainy day.

The Corporate Megalomaniacs who've usurped our media, our politics and our global economy do not want a Hoi Polloi with critical thinking skills. They are destroying our system of public education, and the current administration is complicit in this destruction.

[Dustlawyer]

7. Take a good look at Texas, this is where the rest of the country is heading.

This is the Republican dream. Un-educated workers doing minimum wage (until they get rid of the minimum) jobs. Harsh punishment for stepping out of line, dumbass Governors who are perrinially elected ... I used to be proud of our state until it was co-opted by these right wing S.O.B.'s! Our crooked Supreme Court rules in favor of corporations 87% of the time! Do not let another state suffer this fate!

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. I hope people realize this is nuts. For all of its short comings - the old fashioned approach of

when I went to school including at times corporal punishment was far less harmful and undoubtedly far more affective than this.