Gov Newsom Makes Cali Schools Even Worse, Protects Disruptive Students with New Law
Public and charter schools in California are primed to become much more chaotic thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom signed Senate Bill 419 into law Monday, The Sacramento Bee reported.
The law prohibits the suspension of disruptive and defiant children all the way through eighth grade and applies to both public and charter schools. It will go into effect on July 1, 2020.
Students can still be suspended for violence, possession of drugs or weapons, and making threats.
Since this is California we’re talking about, the reasoning behind the law reeks of social justice.
State Sen. Nancy Skinner authored the bill, and says that it could be “one of the best ways to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Skinner and others argue that suspensions disproportionately affect students who are not white.
“I strongly believe that SB 419 will bring justice to California youth by eliminating suspensions for disruption and defiance, putting an end to discriminatory discipline policies and instituting restorative justice practices,” civil rights activist Dolores Huerta told The Sacramento Bee.
Instead of “restorative justice,” this law could likely be abused as a free pass by undisciplined students.
Now with little to no recourse for disruptive students, California schools will be forced to deal with them in other ways.
The law takes away a valuable tool from schools but doesn’t give them anything in return. Teachers will be forced to deal with disruptive students while depriving the rest of their class of crucial learning time.
For students living in poor areas and wanting to better their situation, allowing their disruptive peers to remain in schools is a cruel and unfair punishment that they don’t deserve.
Not everyone in California is on board with the law, either.
A letter to area outlet Mercury News describes a dark possible future that will bring California public schools to an even worse place than they’re at now.
“Inner-city schools will be abandoned by the best teachers and avoided by parents with means to enroll kids elsewhere,” the letter reads. “The quality of education will decline for the unfortunate children stuck in poor neighborhoods.”
With this law, bad schools will only get worse. Students with the aptitude to excel but not the means will be stuck in the downward spiral as their classes devolve into chaos on a routine basis.
While progressives may have aimed to disrupt the so-called “school to prison pipeline,” the signing of this law virtually guarantees a generation with a blatant disregard for the rules. Once this generation leaves school, they will quickly discover that there’s no SB 419 to protect them in the real world.
