Something’s amiss when a girl in kindergarten, all of 40 pounds, is led away in handcuffs by police. That’s what happened a few weeks ago in St. Petersburg, Fla. Equally strange, the whole episode was taped and shown on national TV: a little girl, hair neatly braided, methodically destroying her classroom. The assistant principal, arms outstretched as if in a linebacker drill, circles the child but avoids contact. (Is the child a hemophiliac?) The child is steered into the principal’s office, where she continues her destruction. Eventually the police arrive and handcuff the five-year-old. The tape ends.
For as long as there have been schools, teachers have had to deal with unreasonable five-year-olds. But calling the cops isn’t the time-tested way. Let’s rewind the tape and think. Problem: Temper tantrum in kindergarten classroom. Solution: Ask child to stop tearing up classroom. When she refuses, hold her by the arm, preventing more destruction. If necessary, take her to another room until she calms down. But the teacher can’t do this. Taking hold of the child’s arm is verboten, a violation of the child’s rights. Touching is taboo, except to prevent harm to others. Doing that could get you SUED. So the five-year-old ends up in handcuffs.
There’s a lot wrong with our schools, but the general decline in order is the most unappreciated. Every day, in schools across America, students wander around the classroom or confront teachers with an in-your-face attitude. The disrespect is shocking. The losers are not mainly the teachers, however, but all the other students. Disruptive behavior by one student diverts all attention. Learning is crippled.
An orderly classroom requires the teacher to have authority. If a student persists in misbehaving, the teacher must have the ability, yes, to take the child by the arm and march her out of the classroom. To be sure, that’s embarrassing to the child. That’s OK: Better not to misbehave. Disruptive older students may require intervention of a security guard. That, too, should be swift. (And where did the older students get the idea that they can disrupt with impunity? It’s a lesson learned early in American schools.)
The downward spiral of public education has withstood the efforts of reformers. Yet no one proposes this most obvious reform — to restore the authority of teachers to maintain order — because we don’t admit that teachers have lost authority. Teachers, we’re told, just have to follow the rules. Schools are managed under a detailed legal code. This 1960s innovation was designed to guarantee fairness through uniform rules and individual rights. But rules are rigid, and rarely fit the complexities of real life. Take the rule against touching. Grabbing hold of a child should be done only as a last resort, and teachers who bully children should not be tolerated. But a strict prohibition encourages children to exploit the rule: In a recent survey, 78% of middle and high school teachers said they’d been threatened by students with suits over “violations” of their rights.
Reformers dreamed of a legal peaceable kingdom where everything is fair. Achieving fairness in a joint enterprise is not usually a matter of individual rights, however, but of balancing the interests of everyone. The fairness of sending a student home involves not only that student but the others in the class whose learning is disrupted. Making that balancing judgment requires someone at the school to have authority.
The idea of authority terrifies Americans. We got into this mess by thinking our only organizational choice was either to run schools by a legal code or to give carte blanche to petty dictators. But authority, properly understood, is neither free license nor a matter of legal argument. Authority is the freedom to choose within the scope of a person’s responsibility. Authority allows you to draw on your values and judgment — that’s what makes humans effective — and allows someone else to judge your effectiveness. Our schools are dysfunctional because no one has the authority to make daily choices needed to make them functional. A legal process can’t maintain order in the classroom. Only a teacher can.
Mr. Howard, a lawyer and writer, is the chairman of Common Good.
