The behavior data at Iroquois High School is bound to scare away good teachers, especially since a student-teacher fight went viral online. According to Courier-Journal, Iroquois High has reported 24 teachers hit by students in the first two months of school. These statistics would mean a teacher was assaulted nearly every other day during the first two months of school. But Iroquois High School is not alone in its statistics. The total for the district’s comprehensive schools was 1,100 incidences in the first two months. And those are only teacher-to-student reports, these numbers do not include student-to-student violence like the horrific bathroom beating recently in the news.
Linda Duncan, and public school board member in the area and retired educator is extremely concerned for the staff of the schools in her area. Duncan explained, “We have more and more kids not under the control of a parent. We have so many kids who are used to doing what they want, with no regard or respect for any authority.”
Looking at the demographics of the students who attend Iroquois and the surrounding schools, she’s probably right. According to the Courier-Journal, here are student statistics for Iroquois High School:
4 out of 5 students live in poverty
1/3 are still learning English
Roughly 100 were considered homeless
A book called Teaching with Poverty in Mind explains how poverty has a serious effect on behavior in the classroom:
Socioeconomic status forms a huge part of this equation. Children raised in poverty rarely choose to behave differently, but they are faced daily with overwhelming challenges that affluent children never have to confront, and their brains have adapted to suboptimal conditions in ways that undermine good school performance...
In many poor households, parental education is substandard, time is short, and warm emotions are at a premium—all factors that put the attunement process at risk (Feldman & Eidelman, 2009; Kearney, 1997; Segawa, 2008). Caregivers tend to be overworked, overstressed, and authoritarian with children, using the same harsh disciplinary strategies used by their own parents. They often lack warmth and sensitivity (Evans, 2004) and fail to form solid, healthy relationships with their children (Ahnert, Pinquart, & Lamb, 2006).
In addition, low-income caregivers are typically half as likely as higher-income parents are to be able to track down where their children are in the neighborhood (Evans, 2004), and frequently they do not know the names of their children's teachers or friends.
As described in the paragraphs above, children living in poverty often come into the classroom behind in numerous ways, lugging much of their stress and strife with them. And teachers, no matter how brilliant and caring, are not fully equipped to deal with these students, especially not a classroom full of them. These children need so much more than academics, and we can ask teachers to be all things to all children. So, how should schools handle these issues? Well, maybe it’s not the schools’ job. Maybe change needs to occur in neighborhoods so that children who are attending school are not bringing so much social and emotional baggage with them.
In his research, Raj Chetty describes how policies that reduce segregation and concentrated poverty in neighborhoods, on the whole, can ultimately change the outcomes and experiences of children growing up in poverty. He gives the example of changing zoning laws, but a similar catalyst would be to change how school district lines work in places of concentrated poverty.
Ultimately, as school district lines exist today, many parents would not choose to live zoned for a school with such frequent violence as in Iroquois High’s case. Not only out of concern for the faculty’s safety, but also because most parents do not want to send their children to a school with such common behavioral issues. So, instead, they avoid the school by avoiding the neighborhood. This avoidance, in turn, creates concentrated poverty.
But what if by creating more school opportunities in areas of concentrated poverty, families who are more financially stable are willing to put down roots in poorer communities. Their presence could ultimately change the social and economic opportunities in neighborhoods that need it most. Not to mention, the public school would get better too.
The story of Iroquois’s conflict is frustrating, but it is also a reminder to look for solutions beyond the school walls.