Larry Hoyt: Schools need to supsend some students

I wonder if Assemblymember Kristin Olsen even reads the bills she approves. No better example can be found than her vote for AB 420 which prohibits public schools from suspending students in grades 1-3 and expelling students from school in grades 1-12 for “disrupting school activities or defying the valid authority of teacher, administrators or others in authority...”

Not only does this law conflict with the present law which requires students to “obey promptly the directions of teachers” (CCR 5 sec 300), it will divert millions from the classroom to pay for in-school day care for students who lack basic manners.

Worse, the law is racist and ethnocentric. The bill, pushed by special interests to keep black and Latino youth off the street and out of gangs, assumes that their parents do not care or have influence over their children or young adults when sent home for an attitude adjustment. Just the opposite might true. Out of 3.6 million students from these two groups, only 277 were expelled for willful defiance – now protected by AB 420 in 2013.

Great idea, let’s get gang members off the street and into the schools where they can disrupt and intimidate.

This story was originally published November 3, 2014 at 1:13 PM with the headline "Larry Hoyt: Schools need to supsend some students."