CHAPTER 2 OBSTACLES TO HELPING

      Many of the developments and initiatives that have come down the pike in education in the last twenty to thirty years have made it much harder for educators to fulfill the role of helper.

Zero-tolerance policies are exhibit A. Those policies turned potential helpers into disciplinary robots and caused them to respond to concerning behaviors with algorithms rather than rational thought, as adversaries rather than as partners, with consequences rather than compassion and collaboration. Although some school systems have abandoned those policies, they're still alive and well in many places. Perhaps this explains why, in the United States, we still expel over twenty-five thousand students from public school annually, suspend (in and out of school) more than five million times a year (probably an underestimate), dole out countless dozens of millions of detentions and discipline referrals every year, use restraint and seclusion procedures close to one hundred thousand times a year, still apply corporal punishment over ninety thousand times a year (in nineteen states), and arrest kids at school or refer them to law enforcement two hundred fifty thousand times annually. Most of these punitive and exclusionary disciplinary actions are applied disproportionately to Black and Brown children.

      “My population is 95 percent African American and Hispanic, 80 to 85 percent male, and between 25 and 50 percent special education. The fact that we have criminalized discipline in our school system—especially with students who have certain profiles—helps explain why we lose these students. School becomes a puzzle they cannot solve. There is a huge drop in suspensions after the tenth grade only because many of my students never get past their sophomore year.”

      —ALEX, FORMER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

      This goes without saying, but if a school isn't using punitive, exclusionary disciplinary strategies, then it won't be disproportional in the application of these strategies.

      One of the most important doctrines governing interventions for students who receive special education in US public schools is the principle of the least restrictive environment. A similar doctrine—the least toxic response—should be applied to interventions for students with concerning behaviors. Detention, suspension, expulsion, paddling, and restraint and seclusion fall into the most toxic response category.

      Doesn't a suspension at least give the teachers and the well-behaved students a break from students with concerning behaviors? Sure, for about three days. Then she's back, and with all of the same problems that caused the concerning behaviors that prompted the suspension in the first place. Along with, eventually, an attitude, which is what most of us would have if caregivers who were supposed to be helping continued to apply interventions that not only weren't helping but had the primary effect of pushing us away.

      “Suspending kids doesn't help build a relationship with them; it says, ‘We don't want you here.’”

      —CAROL, PRINCIPAL

We've already touched briefly on exhibit B: high-stakes testing. When we tell teachers that their job performance and security will be based on how their students do well on high-stakes tests, we cause them to devote themselves to ensuring that students do well on high-stakes tests. Any perceived roadblocks must be removed. Where does this leave the students who are disrupting the class, interfering with the learning of their classmates, and consuming an inordinate amount of time? It leaves them removed. When they're removed, they lose learning, fall further behind, and, over time, become alienated and disenfranchised.

      Classroom teachers have historically been among the most important socialization agents for children in our society. But when we force teachers to become disciplinary and test-prep robots, we make being a helper more difficult.

      Using psychiatric diagnoses as the gatekeeper for services, placement, and funding also makes it harder to help. Many kids with concerning behaviors don't meet diagnostic criteria for any particular psychiatric disorder but badly need help. They don't receive the help we already know they need because they don't fit into a specific diagnostic bucket. And those diagnoses—which are just long lists of concerning behaviors thought to cluster together—are actually distracting, because they cause us to focus on behaviors rather than on the lagging skills and unsolved problems that are contributing to those behaviors.

      The special education referral process often makes things harder. For many classroom teachers, a psychoeducational evaluation often feels like the only option for obtaining additional information about a student's difficulties. But the evaluation process can take a long time, and it is often geared toward determining only whether a student qualifies for special services, so the teachers are often disappointed in and underwhelmed by the information they receive. And such evaluations frequently don't pinpoint the specific expectations a student is having difficulty meeting.

And last, but definitely not least, the schedule makes it harder to help. School schedules were largely designed for academics, and if academic learning was the only activity going on in schools, we'd be good to go. But because there's a whole lot going in schools besides academics, that leaves classroom teachers with little time for a whole lot—perhaps, especially, helping the kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.

      By the way, the shifting sands have not only affected the field of education. Many of the societal shifts that have occurred over the past forty to fifty years have worked to the disadvantage of kids in general and kids with concerning behaviors in particular. As an example, it now takes two incomes to maintain the lifestyle that one income previously supported. As another example, the rate of kids living in single-parent homes has doubled in the last fifty years, so a lot of kids don't have the level of contact and interaction with their parents that they might have had three or four decades ago.

      Yes, there are many obstacles to helping students with