PBS Frontline http://www.pbs.org/wg…/pages/frontline/separate-and-unequal/

At the very end of this show, the Principal was fired. The dilemma of public education is multifaceted: the leadership at each school must be extremely strict over violence and make early interventions. In most cases, the leadership in each school is too passive and does not intervene early or sufficiently after violent outbursts. Interventions involves coping with the intimidation from students groups, sometimes called gangs, from parent interest groups, from other administrators, from the local police or in-school security, and from other individuals in the school.

The classroom teachers can only implement interventions to the point that they are accepted by the administration and the administration must impose their expectations on the students and their parents. If the superintendency or the police are not cooperative, principals cannot respond adequately to violence or other mental illness problems of students. Also, teachers must be cooperative with the principalship and in too many cases the teachers are resistant and reject interventionist measures or implement their own personal strategies to minimize student resistance to the learning process which is sometimes called 'babysitting.' Teachers are faced with a serious problem: how to motivate negative students which involves coping with student hate and dislike of the required self-control necessary to participate in the learning process.

Teachers need to follow rules related to the curriculum and adaptation of the curriculum to particular groupings of students while still achieving student success. But, teachers are often foiled in their attempts and end up failing the students for non-compliance with participation in the learning process. Teachers are also expected to cooperate with each other in their school but end up competing over identity differences due to the hot-house climate of excessive diversity by class, race, religion, age, educational backgrounds, and sexual orientations or gender differences. Teachers are fighting with each other, with the students, with the administrators, and with the parents while the administrators fail to intervene effectively in the school climate and with student uncooperative behavior claiming that it is the teacher's responsibility. Teachers are faced with the problem of how to teach content without student emotional reactions upsetting the learning process and end up lowering the rigor of their lessons to prevent student reactions. Students typically fail to do their homework and often fail to pay attention during each class.

The excess number of sports programs in public schools, the pampering of student athletes, and the disconnect between coaches and teachers where not even administrators can impress upon the coaches to instill leadership values in their athletes, turns public schooling into sporting events. Lastly, there was little discussion of parental responsibility for their student's academic achievement. Parents seem to want choice for their children but not instill in their children the necessary expectations for paying attention and not disrupting the class. When a child interferes with a class or fails to follow directions and rules, there should be a penalty, parents should be contacted and the child should pay the price of discipline by attending detention or by exclusion from a desirable activity. But, administrators and politicians fear public reaction to discipline and punishment.

Competent administrators and competent teachers are in a face-off with the uncooperative students, their parents, and with institutions in the school which undermine the academic mission which is the basis for each school's evaluation. Sports, music, art, foreign language, etc are not evaluated by agencies governing schools, the four main departments of English, Math, Science, and Social Studies are evaluated but these departments are not equally valued by everyone: English and their teachers are accorded far greater status than the other departments which sets up a competition for status within each school. In an era where science is most important cognitive resource, English and Social Studies are undermining because the relevant factors of valid thinking are disavowed by these departmental orientations: fictions and historical descriptions do not require explanations or evidence.

This divide within the academic community enlarge puts our social identities in jeopardy where explanation is required for valid argument but is not evident in Literature or politics.