Standing with the Thugs

union thugs

My libertarian leanings lean away from unions quite naturally. But I can’t see the flaw in the above argument for union membership. The only power the average worker has today will be in numbers. In and of ourselves, we are all replaceable. We are becoming more replaceable all the time, as the world grows more mobile and technology encroaches on previously human terrain.

This post is for the many people who have been convinced that unions are protecting shoddy workers and somehow taking advantage of us all, as well as the people who know this image of unions to be false. We can point to a few inept teachers who have kept positions because of union interventions, I’m sure, but what percentage of the whole do they represent? I’d venture to say it’s a tiny percentage. I’d like to assert, in fact, that our teachers are doing an impressive job overall. As recreational reading falls, electronics proliferate, out-of-wedlock births rise, poverty congregates in certain zip codes, and students who speak English as a second language become larger percentages of our schools and classrooms, our test scores ought to be falling, possibly even plummeting. The fact that those scores are stagnant tells us that our teachers are fighting heroically against the tide.

In the meantime, I’ll go back to a puzzle that long-time readers have heard before: I don’t understand how America reached this state of antipathy towards unions. What happened to make us think we did not deserve the benefits that unions provide? Portions of the press make it seem as if unions are siphoning off money from the membership and then somehow cheating the public by getting those members unjustly high wages and benefits that employers cannot afford.

Many people seem to be waiting for the government to fix conditions for workers, but a higher minimum wage will not fix those conditions. More likely, McDonalds will install touchscreens to replace some front counter workers. Other businesses will cut workers’ hours to balance out the cost increase from the wage increase. I’ll still support that higher minimum because I believe we need a more rational minimum wage — one that does not obligate so many parents of my students to work two or more jobs apiece just to survive — but that increased wage will not rescue the American worker.

We can’t wait for the government to save us. The government brought us No Child Left Behind. The government championed the Common Core and PARCC testing, even going so far as to threaten schools and students for opting out of that testing. The U.S. Postal service just delivered a three-month-old flyer to my house advertising Christmas specials, a few days after it delivered my daughter’s birthday card four months after I put it in the mail.

Eduhonesty: Unionizing is tough work. Especially in the beginning, people are threatened with financial losses. People lose jobs. People end up standing on cold street corners, facing abuse from employers and sometimes passersby.

But unions bring decent wages, good healthcare, safety protections, vacation time, a decent retirement and other benefits. We need to speak up for our unions. The few incompetent teachers who have been protected by the union are part of the price for those benefits.

Our unions built the American middle class. They provided wages that could buy houses, boats and cars to average Americans. I’d like to ask readers to take time to vocalize their support for unions (those who support them, anyway) to help outsiders understand. We need to bring perspective and balance to the union story. It’s not about a few teachers who did not do their jobs. It’s about jobs that can provide a real livelihood, a retirement, and fair and just working conditions for Americans.

Let’s stand with the thugs.

 

 

 

Cyberbullying and a teacher’s phone

183I have had some reader pushback in the last few days. Many readers think I am being too harsh on the sixteen-year-old kid who stole his teacher’s phone. I understand that position. Good people go into education, the kinds who want to rescue kids, not sue them. But sometimes I think we give too many chances. At ten, a kid should get extra help and extra chances regularly. By sixteen, though, consequences are in order. O.K., maybe the boy should not be in jail, but he should have to pay one whopper of a fine, enough to teach that boy a lesson and, more importantly, enough to teach a lesson to all the kids around him. In my middle school, we expelled a girl for the remainder of one year for blackmailing another girl with possible online distribution of a photo. It’s all fun and games until somebody says, “Do this or I’ll post your photo.” At that point, we have landed deep inside bullying territory. Students need to understand that.

Cyberbullying has become endemic and this particular phone incident is cyberbullying in its purest form. We need to be clear: teachers can be bullied, too. Teachers can be bullied by students, administrators and even superintendents. What should we call taking personal pictures off a phone without permission and then distributing those pictures to students except cyberbullying? The intent was clearly to deliberately embarrass and humiliate that teacher

In my view, one legacy of No Child Left Behind has been increasing, systematic bullying of educators. In some schools, if test scores are not going up, administrators are taking out their frustrations on teachers. Given that those administrators face loss of their own jobs due to poor scores, that behavior may be understandable, but it remains entirely unacceptable. Blaming teachers for problems that stem from home circumstances, lack of recreational reading, and even an influx of students who do not speak English at home has to stop. I have  listened to too many stories in the recent past in which teachers ended up taking the blame for circumstances outside their control.

For one mistake, leaving her phone in a classroom while she watched a hallway during a passing period, this woman lost her job. Somehow, I think those years of lesson planning, teaching, grading and home phone calls ought to count enough to earn her at most a reprimand, but that superintendent’s reaction went completely over the top.

The Superintendent’s comments about the so-called “delinquency of a minor”? The culprit is a sixteen-year-old boy. Those are not his first nude photos, not by years. I’m sure they are not his most explicit either. Older adults often do not understand the effects of living in the internet age, but if that Superintendent does not understand what I just wrote, then I’d say he’s  too old for his job.

She should not have to quit. He should retire, instead.

P.S. If I keep substituting and blogging while also trying to write, this book will never get done. I am going to step away from daily posting for awhile. Or try to, anyway. I’ll be around, but not so often.

You can’t shoot down an airplane with a bow and arrows

527
For the year 2013, the U.S. government estimates 5.1% of whites dropped out of high school, 7.3% of blacks, and 11.7% of Hispanics. Any kid who is not living in a closed bomb shelter understands how tough America’s job market has become. Why are these students leaving school?

I would like to suggest that many students are leaving because of fictions created by educational leaders, starting with the idea that students can leap huge chasms in their background learning levels if only we push hard enough. When schools shifted to a virtually completely test-based model of success, as part of meeting No Child Left Behind (NCLB) expectations, daily instruction adapted to match questions expected to be encountered on that test. And a great many students began to regularly fail English and math tests now pitched years above their test-documented levels of academic understanding.

Last year, I was required to give my bilingual students exactly the same tests and quizzes as the regular classes in their grade. I had some input into the quizzes, but none into the unit tests, which were prepared by a now-bankrupt outside consulting firm on the East coast. Special education teachers were also required to give identical tests and quizzes. Materials presented were essentially undifferentiated. It didn’t matter if you were a life-time special education student, a new arrival from Honduras, or the kid with the highest state test scores in the grade. You received the same tests and quizzes as everybody else. Then teachers shared data. Failing students were entered in red. My bilingual classes were often a sea of red, especially if a quiz or test had too many story problems. The special education teacher found herself in the same situation.

Eduhonesty: If a performance spreadsheet shows a sea of failure, student after student who did not meet the target, school leaders need to at least consider the possibility that the problem may not be with either the teacher or the students. When handed a quiver of arrows, the fact that I can’t shoot down a passing Boeing 747 does not prove that I am a poor shot.

Regularly failing math and English classes is an excellent predictor for dropping out of high school. When we create instruction likely to precipitate that failure, we should not be surprised that our more “rigorous” approach does not seem to be helping the dropout rate. That Hispanic dropout rate does not surprise me at all now; I have been required to administer so many unreadable tests to my students that I would expect nothing else.

*(https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_219.70.asp)

A few more details on South Carolina

phone
From http://www.ibtimes.com/south-carolina-student-who-stole-distributed-teachers-nude-photos-hit-felony-charges-2331441: The

“He opened up my gallery for pictures and he found inappropriate pictures of myself and he took pictures from his cell phone of that and then he told the whole class that he would send them to whoever wanted them,” the teacher, Leigh Anne Arthur, told the local affiliate WSPA last week. “The student who actually took my phone and took my pictures turned around and told me your day of reckoning is coming.”

Eduhonesty: I consider felony charges appropriate. Yes, we make dumb mistakes at 16. My decision to finance a drug deal for a dealer friend at 16 would not have led to a slap on the hand, however. My decision to hit my boyfriend with a baseball bat would not have led to a few days school suspension. I am sorry to say that I have heard a few “just a dumb kid” remarks. No, this boy cannot be called a dumb kid. He’s a felon.

He stole his teacher’s phone. I like how news sources keep saying, “allegedly stole.” How much proof do we need? He quickly shared her nude personal pictures with fellow students. Fortunately, the police, at least, appear to be taking his actions seriously. The “alleged perpetrator” has been charged with violating the state’s computer crime act and aggravated voyeurism.

I suppose part of my outrage stems from the fact that I can see myself in this woman’s shoes. A student stole my phone last year, which I believe fell out of a shallow pocket as I walked into school. I’ll never be sure. I do have a password and no one got in to see my innocuous photos. (I also retrieved the phone. That geo-locator function on the phone is amazing. The helpfulness of the local police department was refreshing, too.) No one did me any damage and despite my phone spending a night in a snowbank, thanks to a heavy case and the fact that snow kept passersby from using one side of the street, that phone is charging behind me even now.

Leigh Anne Arthur will know to password protect her phones from now on. I learned from my daughter, one of whose superpowers appears to be, “Donates phones to thieving strangers.” She set up my password protection as soon as I got the phone. But some people out in the world are still regrettably trusting. They should not be blamed for this.

I hope these crimes will cost the “alleged perpetrator” a fair chunk of change, and I would not object to a short jail stint. He tried to scare and humiliate a woman on a whim. He cost that woman her job on a whim. What he did was despicable.

Groucho Marx and why my hammer keeps whacking away at the testing nail

basement mess
My students last year were victims of attempts to standardize education to meet test targets. In my case, we are talking about groups of bilingual students, but the special education teacher across the hall was required to give exactly the same East Coast tests and related, team-created quizzes. All mathematics classes in the seventh grade were administering those same tests and quizzes at about the same time, or at most a day or two late.

To meet Common Core expectations, my Deputy Superintendent had bought us a shiny new book that my students mostly could not read. (Actually, I don’t believe a single one of them could read that book.) The book he chose was not the book that his own committee of math teachers had recommended, but he liked it’s “rigor,” so he overrode the committee members’ votes, despite the book being pitched years above the average student reading level in his school. Meanwhile, my Assistant Principal kept wandering into my classroom and finding reasons to dampen my enthusiasm for the day.

I am reminded of that great song stanza sung by Groucho Marx in the film “Horsefeathers,” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHash5takWU.

I don’t know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I’m against it!
No matter what it is
Or who commenced it
I’m against it!

Whatever I was doing, he could be counted upon to complain. When my students had not been given the same opening activity as the one-size-fits-all, 7th-grade lesson plan, he complained. When I explained they did not know that math, he trotted out his standard line: “No excuses.”

Whatever it was, he was against it. Whatever I said, he came back, “No excuses.” Many U.S. charter schools typically use the “No Excuses” approach. “No Excuses” charter schools have demonstrated significant improvement in math scores and reading scores, so the adoption of this approach could be understood, except for the fact that the inability to do a certain mathematical procedure is relevant when deciding whether or not to use that procedure as an opening, independent activity. Teachers use short, opening activities during the first few minutes of class to get students settled while they take attendance and deal with administrative matters.

For that matter, the ability to read a test’s questions truly should be considered a relevant consideration when deciding to administer that test. I believe students should be able to read the tests they receive, but my Assistant Principal did not seem to agree. He also got upset if students could not explain how to do the math they could not do, even when those students were testing at a first grade level in English language learning.

I have had a wild ride out here for the last decade as I tried to keep up with new data requirements, new educational fashions, burgeoning meetings, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Response to Intervention (RtI), Race to the Top, the Common Core, PARCC, Rising Star, Type 3 evaluations, the Charlotte Danielson Rubric, the firing of my district’s school board by the state and the mandatory replacement of my school’s administration as part of a School Improvement Grant (SIG).

Eduhonesty: So glad to have a nice, half day of subbing planned for tomorrow afternoon. I so hope to never see that Assistant Principal’s face again. I’ll extend my sympathies to the staff in his new school district — apparently he left early during this school year — and so glad not to have to attend meetings, often multiple meetings, for all five days of the week.

P.S. Feeling like taking a wacky journey into the past? How about an episode of Dick Cavett with Groucho Marx as a guest? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VckmK-ZCpAU&ebc=ANyPxKowJJs52WnXEn1PvVTbhbxEG4FeDjkYJFZCAzlX-GairhMVMbtYE8g8zYm6aVAHGHRgHUQBgSnz61V18XJIpM2nsyi8eg

Corrupting a minor?

kipling bag2Most of you probably know this story from http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_29592649/teacher-south-carolina-loses-job-after-student-takes-her-phone-shares-nude-photo?source=rss (and a wide variety of other sources):

For newbies especially — get something like the small shoulder bag above to keep your phone in throughout the day.

“Teacher in South Carolina loses job after student takes her phone, shares nude photo”
By The Associated Press Posted: 03/04/2016 12:01:00 AM

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A high school teacher says she forgives the teenager who took her cellphone, found a nude picture and shared it on social media, even though she lost her job and was harassed as a result. School authorities still blame the teacher, however, and have yet to discipline any students, pending a police investigation.

Union County School District Superintendent David Eubanks, who forced Leigh Anne Arthur to resign or be fired, said Thursday that it’s her fault for leaving students unattended during a four-minute break between classes.

From Associated Press, By MEG KINNARD, March 3, 2016 5:35 PM:

(Leigh Anne) Arthur, 33, told police on Feb. 18 that while she stepped out of her classroom, a 16-year-old boy took her unlocked smartphone from her desk, opened the photos application and found a nude selfie she had taken for her husband as a Valentine’s present.

Then, using his own phone, the boy took a picture of the image and shared it. Soon, multiple students were sharing it on social media, and someone left copies, along with a harassing note, in Arthur’s mailbox.

I especially liked the part where the kid spoke to her afterwards and told her, “Your day of reckoning is coming.”

Meanwhile, Superintendent David Eubanks says the school has concern that Arthur could be contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I read the word “corrupting” in one source.

The 16-year-old student responsible has been charged with distributing pictures of a teacher from the teacher’s cellphone, according to the Union Public Safety Department. Specifically, this Union High School teenager is charged with computer crimes and aggravated voyeurism.

Eduhonesty: Leigh Anne is a good woman. I don’t know that I would forgive the young man. He’s not a tiny, mischievous second grader who decided to hide the eraser. This kid took a phone that did not belong to him, deliberately went into her photos, and then decided to share what he found with the world. I am glad he has been charged.

While I agree with the teacher that this boy should not serve jail time, if I were her, I would sue the boy and his parents for the loss of my livelihood. He is directly responsible for her job loss and he accomplished that through criminal action. I hope the young man ends up having to pay for this mess. I think it would be perfectly fair if he had to fork over his college fund.

I also think that idiot superintendent should resign. Contributing to the delinquency of a minor? The boy who stole that phone has had access to the internet for most of his life. I’m pretty sure he could write a chapter or two for the Kama Sutra by now. Does he think sixteen-year-old boys spend all their time playing Clash of Clans? Has he ever supervised internet use in a high school? I have. Technology departments in school districts today often spend a fair amount of time blocking web sites, gaming and porn sites in particular. Did that poor, young “minor” gawp at the photos he found? Did he click out of those photos? No, he swiftly took a screenshot and started circulating the shots. Those are hardly the actions of an innocent kid.

This story makes me angry. I always had to stand in those hallways to make sure students were behaving during passing periods. I might also have had to duck into another classroom to share materials or check meeting times or the like. I’ll grant that Leigh Anne was naïve to leave her phone like that. Expensive, small, easily-stolen items should always be kept on a teacher’s person. But Leigh Anne’s crime was a regrettable surfeit of faith in human nature and common sense.

I am sorry to say she will be wiser now.

A quick testing note

2014-10-06 21.23.29
Ideas can get lost in the forest in long posts. Here’s a short idea worth consideration. As far as testing goes, first you have to care. The problem with megatesting is sometimes students quit caring because all those fails hurt too much. Testing days actually are very easy for the teacher, but they are a trip in a leaky lifeboat for kids, especially young kids. After the first failure or two, a child may try to catch up, but I believe there comes a time when some kids decide the game is over, even if they still have another ten years to occupy various desks.

We can see this when we play board games. Certain kids with only a few Monopoly deeds will keep playing. Either they are O.K. with losing or they are hoping for some future miracle. Maybe the two kids with all the deeds will wipe each other out, for example. But a lot of kids simply quit. They may throw the dice in a desultory manner and keep moving around the board. They may pass monopoly money back and forth. Despite these gestures, though, they are mostly watching the TV in the background or talking to friends. They are no longer part of the game.

When we give too many tests where low scores are inevitable, I am certain we convince groups of students to check out of the learning game. Electronic distractions make this exit from learning easier than ever before. Why play if you cannot win?

If I was trying to figure out why so many kids are graduating from high school unable to complete a community college program for x-ray technicians, I’d scrutinize these inappropriate tests early on in my research process.

The April 1st showdown

isf“Chicago teachers set April 1 for ‘showdown’ with schools” the article is titled.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The head of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) said on Friday that the district will hold off on a controversial cost-cutting move affecting teachers’ pension payments to allow for the labor contract process to play out.

But that move will not stop the Chicago Teachers Union from taking action that could involve a strike on April 1.

Union President Karen Lewis told reporters that everything, including a strike over unfair labor practices, was on the table for what she called an April 1 “showdown” with the nation’s third-largest public school system.

The cash-strapped district last month gave the union 30 days’ notice that it aims to save $65 million by reducing its contribution to teachers’ pension payments by 7 percent – a move condemned by the union, which in December overwhelmingly authorized a future strike.

While contending a teachers’ strike was not legally possible until mid-May, CPS Chief Executive Forrest Claypool told reporters on Friday that the plan to end the so-called pension pickup was on hold until an independent arbiter completes a fact-finding report on April 18. That report is part of a process to reach a new contract with the teachers’ union after the prior contract expired last year.

“We do not think it’s appropriate to exercise our rights right now because we’re still in negotiations,” Claypool said, referring to the pension payment plan.

CPS is struggling with a $1.1 billion structural budget deficit, caused largely by escalating annual pension payments that will reach $676 million this fiscal year.

Eduhonesty: I honestly don’t know what to think about this one. Hello, CPS? You have no money. You are trying to float a bond issue that is nearly a billion dollars that YOU DO NOT HAVE. Some concessions will have to be made.

Illinois and the Chicago Public Schools have been floating bond after bond with progressively higher interest rates in order to survive for one more day/month/year. The rates get higher as the risk gets higher. We have reached the point where Chicago Public Schools bonds are junk bonds, so risky that the schools have to guarantee a painful and disadvantageous rate of interest even in order to go to market — if they can go to market. The schools still are not sure they can float that bond issue. Governor Rauner is trying to shut the CPS bond deal down. If CPA can’t sell those bonds, as far as I can tell, they will be effectively bankrupt.

If this were a rich state, CPS could realistically appeal to the state for a rescue. But the state is broke. The state has not been paying various creditors, while social services are being shut down all over Illinois. I suspect we may be running short of bullets. I had a good laugh a couple of years ago when the state found itself unable to buy bullets for the Department of Corrections because the bullet makers refused to sell to the state of Illinois unless they were paid in advance. If readers are thinking that’s no laughing matter, they are right. I am a reader of zombie and apocalypse fiction, however, and I take my humor where I find it. If I were a naturally cheerier person, this might be a blog offering fashion tips for aging harridans instead of the education chronicle it has become.

Eduhonesty: That showdown will come. I suspect the world will be watching. Certainly, Chicago will make national news nightly for sometime. As the dialogs unfold, I will do my best to stand with the teachers, the foot soldiers of education, who give up their nights and weekends for kids, year after year. Everyone hates a pay cut. Many people are living near the edge of their paychecks as it is and they will have to scramble to manage any effective cut in pay.

But I will also remember the end of the Soviet Union. We did not bring down the Soviet Union with tanks and clever intelligence. Instead, we forced them to spend themselves into bankruptcy.

Money is real. You can’t simply print more, as people sometimes suggest. If that magic worked, the Confederacy would have been rich enough to buy all the arms and help it needed to win the Civil War. Confederate money had value at first, when people believed that the South would win the war and that their money would be the tender of a new nation. But as the South’s losses mounted, and the dream of a new country receded into blood-tinged mists, the price of bread kept rising until a loaf cost thousands of those Confederate dollars. Then that loaf could only be acquired through barter. People swapped their last turnips for bread. Once the South lost, the money had zero value, as no government stood behind those Confederate scraps of paper.

The following snippet from http://credit-help.biz/bank/139275 does a good job of explaining the issue of inflation:

Money can also lose its value when a government decides to print more of it, which can trigger inflation. In Germany during World War I. Germany borrowed heavily to pay its war costs. This led to inflation and by 1923; the inflation increased to the highest levels in history. Prices for goods and services doubled every few hours, and stampedes occurred to buy goods and services before the prices would go up again.

By late 1923 it took 200 billion marks (German dollars) to buy a loaf of bread. The German people found that their life’s savings would not buy a postage stamp. It got so bad that people would burn money to stay warm because it was cheaper to burn money than to buy firewood with the worthless money.

We can’t print money to get out of this mess. States obviously can’t print money anyway. When the bullet makers won’t take an IOU from the State of Illinois, we are in trouble. We have been in trouble for years, but various government bureaucracies just kept spending money they did not have, relying on rescues and bonds. We may be out of rescues and, at least at the moment, those school bonds remain iffy.

Wishing and hoping will not get us out this mess. Fiscal responsibility might, but fiscal responsibility will require sacrifices. Those sacrifices are inevitable now. Like the Soviet Union, we are getting close to being unable to pay the soldiers who guard the wall.

As the CPS dialogs unfold this spring, I hope that all participants will understand and remember that people cannot consume more than they produce. They can’t write checks on accounts without funds.

Just the facts, ma’am — As Chicago self-destructs

cop
Readers, please pass this post along if you have time today. On the one-to-ten scale of posts that matter in the larger scheme of things, this one strikes me as 9.425.

I feel like going sideways today, into the heart of Chicago and law enforcement. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) has 12,000 officers, enough to fill a small, resort town. To put the matter in perspective, 17 counties in Illinois contain fewer than 12,000 people (sea to shining sea of corn out there) and a few counties contain about 12,000 people. That’s lots of cops.

Recently, the video of a white officer shooting a black young man named Laquan McDonald captured the news, and rightfully so. That video shows what appears to be an unjustifiable and inexplicable shooting. The officer was charged with murder, the police superintendent fired and a federal investigation ensued.

Here is the part of that story that captured my full attention and made me believe I needed to add this story to eduhonesty.com: Street stops have fallen dramatically in the recent past. In January of last year, 61,330 contact cards were filled out, reflecting police stops. For January of this year, only 9,044 stops have been recorded on the new form that officers are now required to fill out for each stop. That’s a drop of 52,286 recorded stops. That’s a drop in stops of about 85%.

“‘The days of the hunch are over,’ said a sergeant with 20 years’ experience who works on the South Side.” (Most information and this quote are taken from the Sunday February 29, 2016 Chicago News Tribune)

What happened to those hunches? Government interventions happened to those hunches. Since January 1st, Chicago cops have been required to fill out detailed, multi-page reports every time they make a street stop as part of a new, state law and an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union. The new reports slow down street stops in two ways. First, they create a lengthy log that may be scrutinized later. This does prevent stops that might be tough to justify later. Second, the reports require a great deal of time to fill out, time that necessarily takes an officer off the street.

I can see readers saying to themselves, “well, those officers should not be making stops that cannot easily be justified.” But I am not certain I agree. I would like to refer readers to my post on April 4, 2015, “For Rick, who lives where he works,” and a few posts nearby in that time frame. The fact is that cops tend to know the local gang bangers. Especially in gang-ridden areas, cops know the kids and young adults who are active in local crime.

Street gangs in Chicago, Illinois

Asian street gangs in Chicago

Asian Boyz
Black Shadow
Black Widows
Hop Sing
Local Boys
Wolf Boys

Folk street gangs in Chicago

Ambrose
Allport Lovers
Black Disciples
Brazers
City Knights
Gangster Disciples (GD), branches include Eight ball Posse, Insane Gangster Disciples and Hellraisers
Gangster Party People
Harrison Gents
Insane C-Notes
Insane Campbell Boys
Insane Cullerton Deuces
Insane Deuces
Insane Dragons
Insane Guess Boys
Insane Latin Lovers
Insane Latin Jivers
Insane Orchestra Albany
Insane Popes (North Side)
Insane Spanish Cobras
Krazy Getdown Boys
King Cobras
La Raza
Latin Dragons
Latin Eagles
Latin Stylers
Latin Souls
Maniac Campbell Boys
Maniac Latin Disciples
Milwaukee Kings
Morgan Boys
Racine Boys
Satan Disciples (SD)
Simon City Royals
Spanish Gangster Disciples
Spanish Gangster Two Six
Two Two Boys
Young Latino Organization Cobras
Young Latino Organization Disciples

People street gangs in Chicago

Bishops
Black P Stones (braches include Apache Stones, Jet Black Stones, Titanic Stones, Ruben Night Stones, Jabari Stones, & Black Stone Villans)
Four Corner Hustlers
Familia Stones
Gaylords
Insane Popes (South Side)
Insane Unknowns
Latin Brothers
Latin Counts
Latin Pachucos
Latin Stones
Loco Boys
Mickey Cobras
Noble Knights
Outlaw Bloods
Party Players
Ridgeway Boys
Saints
Spanish Lords
Stoned Freaks
Twelvth Street Players
Vice Lords (Branches include the Conservative VLs, Unknown VLs, Insane VLs, Renegade VLs, Mafia Insane VLs, Imperial Insane VLs, Cicero Insane VLs, Spanish VLs, Traveler VLs, Outlaw Lunatic Traveler VLs, Ebony VLs, Gangster Stone VLs, Undertaker VLs, & 4VLs.)
Villalobos

Street gangs in Chicago

12th Street Players
Adidas Boys
Akrhos

Almighty Latin King / Queen Nation (ALKQN)
Aztecas
Aztec Souls
Black Cobras
Black Gangsters
Black Souls
Brown Pride
Brothers For Life
Cameron City Outlaws
Crazy Gangsters
Homicide Boys
Imperial Gangsters
La Onda
La Primera
Latin Mafia
Latin Players
Latin Pride
Lynch Mob
Netas
Nike Boys
Paulina Barry Community (PBC) [inactive]
South Deering Boys
Sawyer Boys
The Arabian Posse
Thugs Re-United
Vatos Locos
Whipple Boys
Whipple Brothers
Young Sinners
– See more at: http://www.streetgangs.com/cities/chicago#sthash.UkDkp18V.dpuf

Last year, the cops could have seen a group of Four Corner Hustlers standing together on the street and stopped. Now that stop is highly unlikely to occur. Standing in a group on the street is no crime. But some of those cop hunches of the past allowed for action anyway, allowed that cop to stop and address trouble that appeared likely to develop. According to the Tribune, law-abiding citizens in Chicago are upset at the lack of police support in getting troublemakers off known drug-selling corners. In the meantime, through February 21st, homicides doubled in the city while shooting incidents went up even more.

That new two-page questionnaire “contains about 70 questions, including detailed background information on those stopped as well as an explanation for their ‘reasonable articulable suspicion’ for the stop and pat-down. One officer says it takes about 20 minutes to fill out, compared with a few minutes for the previous (contact) cards,” according to the Tribune. In theory, the forms can be filled out on data terminals in cars, but sometimes those terminals are not working, and officers must finish their paperwork in the station, leaving the streets early. Supposedly, the forms are going to be simplified, but that won’t rescue January, February, March or however many months the reform requires. We can only hope that the new form requires much less time to complete. I’m honestly not hopeful, however. I taught school for too long.

Eduhonesty: Hi, readers who are wondering where the education went in this education blog. It’s about to come back, since in a way this post has been all about education. I view this as another tentacle of the legislative octopus that’s smothering us all. Readers know I have been subbing lately. I have discovered I like to work half days. Fortunately for me, the system posts many of these days. I can still pick up an afternoon if I want today. Why? Because of mandatory meetings that result from government regulations, teachers — especially special education teachers — are being dragged out of their classrooms all the time. Meetings, meetings, meeting. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Twenty-six page Individual Education Plans for students. Twenty-one page evaluations for teachers. Longer and longer self-evaluation forms. That last form sucked away hours of one of my evenings and then Lord Vader (otherwise known as my former Assistant Principal) did not even bother to read the thing.

Cops need to be able to do their jobs. Teachers need to be able to do their jobs. Well-meaning government interventions intended to fix problems frequently do a great deal more harm than good. I blogged this example from Chicago because I have seldom read anything more disheartening. I feel so sorry for those old men and women who are afraid to go out of their South Side houses right now. I feel so sorry for those teachers who are retiring early from a job they once loved.

Paperwork and oversight requirements are killing us out here.

P.S. On “Chicago Tonight,” they tried to explain away the rise in murder rates because warmer weather may have led to more people being out on the streets. Last year was an exceptionally warm winter, though, so I don’t see how this explanation accounts for the steep hike in deaths and mayhem. Besides, realistically, this version of warm weather can’t be leading that many more people to hang out on the streets. It’s been so cold that the air hurts people’s faces during most of this allegedly “warm” winter. I have to steel myself to walk the dog some days. The truth is that local lawmongers came up with a plan to fix the police and that plan seems to be misfiring all over the place.

From a former student’s message on Facebook about bullies

My student, a recent high school graduate, messaged me the following in response to the bullying post:
The bullies in the bus
I can say that a problem like that indicates family issues whenever a kid picks on another kid and becomes the bully, it is because either their parents just divorced or dad is hitting mom or both are hitting him/her, make a trauma into that kid who thinks being aggressive or violence is the solution for everything.
So parents should start paying more attention to their kids and should avoid any kind of violence or abuse.
Eduhonesty: I asked my student if I could borrow his message for the blog because I think he is right in ninety-some percent of cases of bullying. Kids practice what they see. Abused kids are frequently angry kids looking for an outlet.

We can lose track of this fact. Our bullies may need help and support as much as their victims. Bullies are much less attractive students than their victims. They usually have racked up piles of disciplinary referrals by high school. They have often mouthed off to teachers, the Dean, and other administrators. I’ve known a few with the temerity to cuss out the Principal. But these kids are mostly wounded kids. They can’t hit back at home so they hit back at school or on the bus.

Bullies should be seeing school counselors and social workers regularly if they cannot be referred for outside psychological help. And when dealing with the troublesome kids, my former student’s observations are worth keeping in mind. Our bullies sometimes respond well to a helpful listener who cares about their troubles. A little kindness can go a long way toward shutting down bullying.

Mean behavior does not come out of nowhere. In kids, mean behavior does not become a habit or way of life for years. Those kids who are making life miserable for other kids on the bus? They need intensive interventions and help developing coping strategies as soon as their bullying attempts come to light.