Lets see how many accuse Trump of racial bias and for blaming Obama. The only reason this is about race is because Obama made it so.
That is basic common sense. Who gets this?
2
Once again it is "Obama's fault."
Anything and everything that trump disagrees with is "Obama's fault."
His "beautiful chocolate cake" didn't have enough icing so he only ate two (large) pieces. "Obama's fault." Really wanted three pieces.
The GOP talks about "trump derangement syndrome" Well take a look at their "Obama derangement syndrome."
It's everywhere.
Pathetic blather from a pathetic party.
25
Let's be blunt and frank...the racists won the last presidential election and are asserting their hegemony over all aspects of USA life.
21
Restore white privilege to schools in order to prevent more school shootings? Sure! Those minorities don't count anyway. /sarcasm
12
The banality of evil.
12
So Trump’s way of ending the scourge of white young males shooting in schools is to relax discriminatory treatment of minority students. Then to make sure all is done correctly, Betsy DeVos is put in charge of examining the ‘repeal of the Obama administration’s ‘rethink School Discipline’ policies. Apparently her working to destroy public schools makes her an expert on school discipline.
Does this make any sense? NO!! Trump is a bigot working to satisfy his base. DeVos got her job as Secretary of Education by giving $200 million to the GOP. Wealth does not mean intelligence nor common sense.
18
Are we not worried yet? The authoritarian’s answer is always more authoritarianism; the racist’s answer is always more racism. In the context of everything this president has done and said, this is more than ominous
12
No, not Obama policies; Trump's hate-laced speeches.
14
Sometimes it's just hard to admit that at least a third of my countrymen are racist cowards and now that they've found an enabler in chief we have to cope with their ugliness on a daily, hourly basis. The pendulum will swing the other way but I'm afraid a great deal more damage will be done to this country, it's people and it's reputation.
13
Is anyone surprised that the GOP and Trump have decided that the core problem of overwhelmingly white men shooting people in schools and churches and malls and nightclubs and at concerts is a policy to stop treating children of colour badly?
10
Well, we all knew that eventually this tragedy (or any other tragedy or crisis on Trump's watch) would be Obama's fault or Hillary's fault or both. Amazing how a "guidance," not a law or rule, could have such power, but then anything is possible when one must blame an opponent for everything.
19
Obama's Restorative Discipline policy reduces the number of angry, young men who feel disrespected and excluded to the point that they turn a gun on their classmates. Trump knows nothing about how to raise emotional stability, accountability, and integrity in young men.
22
That's because Trump is devoid of those traits. He exhibits no emotional stability, has a lack of accountability to others, and zero integrity.
12
What can anyone say about these disastrous do nothing Repubs? Florida voters will have to vote them out.
25
Video games are at fault not by their violence but by their fascinating entanglement of young and older minds. The abomination of these games is that they consume enormous amounts of time while delivering nearly nothing of use in the real world. The parent that allows these in the home for unsupervised use (or any, IMO) has bought temporary quiet from the kids while doing lasting damage to those kids' futures. Instead of exercise of the body and mind, those kids consume pointless time in pointless activity (always losing is a goal?) and probably far too many calories as well. What a shock is coming to both the kids and their parents when those kids become poorly educated, poorly employed adults. Thanks, Mom and Dad! I'm glad I denied by two step daughters such games: they both went through college on full scholarships. And they have fantastic jobs now. Mom and Dad should buy their kids books.
5
Oh, please. You can’t be serious!
The topic is racial discrimination in the application of school discipline. Your curmudgeonly comment is especially out of place here.
19
I have an honours degree in law. I used to sail competitively and skydive (until I busted a knee - twice). As a young man I played club rugby (union) at second grade, with an occassional appearance in the firsts. I am also an enthusiastic gamer and always have been.
There are a lot of people like me. Incidentally, I also served in my country's army and most of the young blokes I served with also played video games extensively - during down time. Not one of them has been a failure in life.
Your theory is typical - and typically wrong.
10
The almost unlimited right to possess a gun, by children, the mentally ill, non-felon criminals, and foreign terrorists, implies a de facto right to commit murder. We Americans are mentally ill as a society because we value the right to commit mass murder more than we value the lives of our own children.
44
Do Trump and his Gang of Republicans have any shame left?
May be we can find comfort in the few like this one ICE Agent that resign today instead of parroting the LIES from this administration.
27
Let’s hope Schwab can salvage his career!
6
Is there anything that would surprise anyone when it comes to Republican talking points. The slime can't get any lower. It's a shame our fellow countrymen, love reality shows, above all!
16
The shooter was reported to the police dozens of times and they did nothing
15
Is it April 1? This would be laughable but it is too pathetic to laugh at.
15
Trump, to be honest, does not strike as an astute student of policy so one must ask...who in the WH is feeding him these garbage ideas??? Someone with a shameful agenda and a powerful stooge at the helm willing to implement them.
30
sputtering ... no words ... i shudder for the republic~
15
I am absolutely disgusted. Shame on Marco Rubio. Shame on Trump.
50
Making Pandering Common Again (MPCA): Trump's 2020 re-election slogan.
18
All-purpose headline: WH Blames Obama.
42
So does this mean all the white boys will be subject to greater scrutiny? (Hope so) Because most of the shootings are done by white boys.
47
What's up is down, what's left is right, what's good is bad... It all makes Orwell look like an amateur.
This would all be laughable if there weren't real lives at stake.
44
One only has to look at the suspensions in NYC to see that even in liberal NYC black and brown boys are suspended more. And they aren't typically mass killers.
18
The Democrats plot to confiscate guns is straight from Putin’s mouth
5
Does any of this really comes as a surprise to anyone?
12
A lot of these kids are going to be voting very soon.
12
Not if they are first channeled into the prison system! And I imagine that is the real point — imprison as many black and ‘Hispanic’ kids as possible. 1) This makes money for the private prisons, and 2) lives are derailed, likely ending with most of these kids as criminals and NEVER able to vote.
It is clear that this is what Republicans want. Note that they do not charge or punish ‘white’ children with anywhere near the kind of severity which minority children receive.
38
Will they? Or will the dark-skinned ones all be in prison for speaking out of turn in class?
15
In the wake of Parkland killings, the NRA simply waited for a couple of weeks, spoke to key people in the House and the Senate behind closed doors, then they whispered a few suggestions in the president's ear. With the exception of the legal actions taken in Florida, all is now back to "normal" around the country.
The "gun enthusiasts" around the country can sleep soundly, knowing that their rights aren't being infringed upon. For them, "peace of mind" will prevail, because they've mastered new talking points for the next time a mass shooting occurs.
17
Gianni Rivera, as I expected from Trump and congress, things are pretty much "back to normal" as you point out. However, you need to be a bit more nuanced from that point forward. A significant majority of "gun enthusiasts" (I am one) favor universal background checks and improving the NICS system overall. Even a majority of NRA members (I am not one) favor universal background checks. More than any other measure, improving and making universal the background check system is critical.
You, like many others, probably perceive all firearms owners and shooting sports enthusiasts as lock-step with the NRA's perverse agenda. To be sure, there are those that are 100 percent NRA - or worse. But you would find a spectrum of values and positions, many well-thought out and reasoned. Most of us are pretty rational. In that vein of thought, keep in mind that the NRA wants you to believe - successfully I would add - that they are bigger than they are, and that every gun owner thinks like they do.
11
Thank you for writing this. I am as liberal as they come, and I respect your right to own a gun, as I am sure you respect my right not to. Why are we letting the NRA spewers co-opt our right to have a dialogue with each other? I am starting to believe the conspiracy theorists that Putin in controlling the NRA just to sow divisiveness in our society. Let's stop the madness. Gun safety courses and licensing for all who want to purchase a gun, universal background checks, and psychological evaluation for anyone under 25 wanting to purchase a gun as many mental illness' become apparent in late adolescence/ early adulthood.
3
The Democrats are panicking as they are finding out that gun confiscation is not distracting America from the Democrats plot to flood schools with murderers and that there never was any collusion
2
HAHAHAHA! (Or, as "we people" say, ¡¡¡JAJAJAJAJA!!!) You are a funny person. And I know *everyone* in Chicago thanks you for leaving. (I was just there last weekend. They're still talking about how nice it is now that you're gone.)
15
He’s a bit. Do not engage
10
Nice try, Boris. I'm sure you never have been to Chicago, probably not ever been out of Russia.
9
Trump`s moral depravity has no boundaries.
25
Local school discipline policies were never any business of the federal government in the first place.
11
They are if they are discriminatory.
8
So instead of dealing with how a white youth was able to buy a military style rifle and lots of high-capacity magazines and mow down 17 other whites in a matter of a couple of minutes, the GOP is focusing on a program to curtail conscious or unconscious racism is school disciplinary decisions.
38
FACT CHECK: the AR 15 is NOT a military weapon. Not one armed force anywhere in the world carries or has ever carried the AR15
1
He was able to get guns because charges were never brought against him for the myriad assaults and threats he made (these are all documented through the school and police/sheriff - please feel free to look it up). Any one of which would have gotten him convicted of a felony and therefore unable to purchase said gun under any circumstance.
8
But it is 'military-style'.
9
once again, Trump proves he's a racist. once again, his supporters forgive him. once again, America is betrayed. please, isn't it time to say No More???
27
America isn`t betrayed, America is like Trump - look at the reality, my friend your country is awful, really awful.
10
What does this have to do with the Florida shootings? The big shootings we've had in schools have been committed by, none other than white males , so where do minorities come into the picture?
31
Because Obama is a minority. And therefore any policy he supported is, prima facie, bad.
8
If DJT could he would blame the latest winter storms on Obama. So predictable.
27
Well, Mr. Obama didn't do anything to stop the sttorms that occurred during his administration, so....
7
I thought he already. Am I wrong?
4
Beyond this case the Obama era school discipline initiatives were a disaster. The reality is that black kids do actually behave worse on average than other kids, anyone that attended a public school with a significant black population can attest to that.
Anyway what ended up happening is that school officials wouldn't suspend black kids except for the most egregious infractions. In Minneapolis, the situation got so bad at some schools Hmong parents started pulling their kids from schools. Liberals seem to thing equity in outcomes is a goal by itself. This mania has resulted in horribly run schools with deflated discipline rates and inflated graduation rates.
15
I believe you’re conflating skin color with other socio-economic factors. In my high school, the trouble makers were largely what some people would call “white trash”. Poor white populations do not have the high level of visibility that poor black populations have largely because the overwhelming majority of economically disadvantaged people of color live in cities...and it was exclusionary tactics that created the problem. Legal segregation well into the 20th century, redlining, etc created the problems we face today. In less populous areas, the majority of impoverished people tend to be white (aside from the southeast) and those kids are every bit as poorly behaved as anyone. I’m not suggesting that less wealthy people are generally poorly behaved in school, but rather that systematic exclusion, a lack of resources to confront challenges, a lack of emphasis on education at home, etc tend to contribute to proper behavior in school. Lack of sleep, a relative lack of security and often less parental supervision (absenteeism and odd or long work hours), and a less healthy diet also contribute. To assume that race is the trigger is ignorant...and uh...the largest school shootings have been perpetrated by white kids. There’s also that.
42
Thank you
2
How many mass shooting did African Americans kids enact and how many from white kids?
So this is just another racist policy.
18
...so this explains Columbine and the host of school shootings that happened prior to Barack Obama’s presidency?
27
Don’t worry America, when Cruz is convicted of 17 murders the Democrats will put him right back in the classroom! They ban recording his prior 17 counts of murder so when he tries to buy a gun the background check will come up clean! They’ll ban teachers from any disciplinary action against him. When he kills again, the Democrats will come for your guns
2
we haven't come for your guns yet, Larry. but by all means, continue posting spurious and inflammatory ad hominem attacks as a means of solidifying your partisan stance.
21
Larry-we're glad you left!
11
There has been one constant since even before Columbine and that is the easy availability of guns.
25
The electorate must demand real and significant gun law reform and must insist that any person running for political office on any level must stand first and foremost upon that platform. The media has a role to play in keeping the public focused on that goal and in moving public opinion toward that direction. The electorate must not be distracted by the machinations of the powerful influences who feel otherwise. This is the only way for us to effect change. We must all work together to accomplish this achievable goal and if we do I think many other progressive issues will follow.
8
The Democrats think murderers should be in school, not prison. The Democrats banned recording all information that would pop up in a background check and prevent these murderers from getting guns. The sick Democrats put 15 children in their graves with this twisted thinking.
4
Larry, do you believe that repeating these falsehoods over and over will make them true?
36
The Democrats flood the schools with murders who should be in prison, prevent teachers from reporting them to police, sabotage background checks, and when the inevitable murders occur they scream racism and use that as a pretext to abolish the Bill of Rights. How despicable and diabolical!!
4
With which murderers did Democrats flood the schools? When did Democrats prevent teachers from reporting violent students? And who, pray tell, has stood in the way of effective background checks? Just saying that something is so doesn’t make it so. If ever we needed evidence that gun control is necessary, your posts provide it.
22
Well, we seen this tactic before. When faced with a need to do something positive, in this case tangible action to curb access to firearms, Trump tries to deflect us from noticing his political duplicity by blaming the previous Administration or HRC.
15
Unbelievable. To claim that a policy that fights racial bias is responsible for school shootings is beyond cowardly. It’s stunning what politicians will do to avoid legislating even minimal gun control. Only recourse is to vote them out!!! Rubio, along with the two NC senators, should be first in line. Don’t know how they sleep at night.
22
All this talk of 'why' there are more mass shootings, or 'what' causes boys/men to do this in the first place, is mere distraction tactics. We can discuss all this 'til the cows come home, but none of this changes the Fact that No Private Citizen has any 'right' to an AR. ARs are not for hunting. They are not for supposed 'self-protection'. All the ARs in the world are not going to help you overthrow any supposed 'tyrannical' US government, for they will be no match against what our DoD could unleash on us (and any talk of this is mere paranoia/propaganda by the cult of the NRA.) The risk of an AR getting into the wrong hands is far too grave of a possibility, so for the Greater Good, the only solution can be NO ARs for any private citizen. Period. End of discussion.
33
This is so shameless, anyone with brains must be embarrassed. We are truly living in a fantasy world run by sociopaths when an argument this transparent sees the light of even a Stormy day.
25
You write, "anyone with brains must be embarrassed," which translates to, "no one in the current administration will be embarrassed." It is just another dog whistle about (1) Obama's fault, (2) decaying cities, (3) unruly minority youth, etc.
7
Are we really so wrapped up in the political hatred that we really are unwilling to even consider the impact of a policy that discourages teachers from reporting to the police a potential murderer?
As a teacher, I'm a mandatory reporter of sexual abuse. But I'm threatened with discipline for reporting potentially violent students to the police under our efforts to stop the "school to prison pipeline." Unless I see the kid with a weapon, or interpret the language as a sexually predatory or racially motivated, I'm not supposed to say anything that can get them in trouble with the law.
6
I don't profess to know all the rules about what teachers can and cannot report with regards to students, and how literally to take your comment that a teacher could actually be 'disciplined' for reporting a potentially violent student to the police? (I find that a bit of a stretch?)
But regardless, for the sake of argument, I'm going to take what you say at face value. If the policy you mention has more to do with your potentially wanting to report black or latino students, the point that I and others here are trying to make is that this ignores the fact that 99% of mass shooters are not in fact black or latino, but white. So in other words, the mere mention of this policy, and then trying to link it to the mass shooting problem in this country, makes no sense at all.
This is all yet another example of Trump, Congress, the NRA, and Second A 'fanatics' trying to deflect attention from the real issue....the fact that guns, ARs, ammo, bumpstocks, etc. are far too readily available. We don't want to abolish the Second A. We don't want to take away 'all guns'. We don't want to take away 'rights'. But those 'rights' should not include unfettered access to weaponry, ammo, or things like ARs and bumpstocks. Please people, some common sense here! Stop listening to the demented NRA cult leader, Wayne LaPierre.
22
I’m sad that you are almost accusing this teacher of lying. Why don’t you look at what this kid has been accused of prior to killing 17 people. He threatened to kill, assaulted others, etc. all reported to the administration and some to sheriff/police. What he did would have made him ineligible to own a gun.
Also, look at the stats for discipline in his district. Think about why discipline numbers are down (hint: it’s not because less offenses are occurring).
We need to stop being so partisan we are incapable of seeing the obvious. Maybe these guns should be banned, maybe the age requirements should change, but this kid should have been disciplined and so should many others.
3
Making policy based on racial quotas is extremely dangerous.
No, we don't need to equalize the suspension rates for blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians. That would of course ignore several plausible lurking variables behind different disciplinary rates.
Of course we do need to ferret out and stop racial discrimination.
But blindly following racial quotas is an improper and wrongheaded way to achieve that goal.
8
The Obama administration policy does not institute “racial quotas” of any kind. If some local school districts are implementing the policy in this way, that’s the fault of those local officials, NOT the policy.
The very real issue addressed by the policy is the fact, seen over and over again across the country, that students of color receive harsher disciplinary measures than white student for THE SAME BEHAVIOR.
14
Apparently, the cases of white students being let off while black or Hispanic students are disciplined is very rare. Look at below stats in Chicago:
"Between September 2011 and February 2012, 25 times more black Chicago students than white ones were arrested at school, mostly for battery; black students outnumbered whites by four to one. (In response to the inevitable outcry over the arrest data, a Chicago teacher commented: “I feel bad for kids being arrested, . . . but I feel worse seeing a kid get his head smashed on the floor and almost die. Or a teacher being threatened with his life. Nationally, the picture is no better. The homicide rate among males between the ages of 14 and 17 is nearly ten times higher for blacks than for whites and Hispanics combined. During the 2009–10 school year, the rate at which schools that were over 50 percent minority reported gang activity was five times as high as the rate at schools where minorities constituted 5 to 20 percent of the population. More than 11 times as many schools in the first category as in the second reported widespread weekly disorder in classrooms; more than four times as many reported weekly verbal abuse of teachers."
https://www.city-journal.org/html/undisciplined-13485.html
getting kids who are bad out of schools is a good idea. That more men commit crimes (and therefore fill our prisons) than women is not a reason to yell "discrimination" and lessen the punishment of male criminals.
Same thing applies here. Keeping bad kids in school is a mistake.
4
There is a flaw in your argument: Men in this country have not been persecuted because of their sex. In fact, men have not been persecuted historically except in the mind of some in the Men's Rights movement. Blacks, Latinos and other racial minorities have been persecuted historically, including in the county's laws. Given that reality, it makes sense for schools to make sure that members of these racial groups are not discriminated against in disciplinary decisions.
7
It all depends on how “bad” is defined.
1
Any racial minority who sends their kids to public school and votes Republican should have their sanity checked. The party features full-blown racist Trump-lovers as their sole constituent group. This country is in a sad place.
13
Obama created the school-to-grave pipeline
2
African Americans need to get out and vote in every election! I am so angry by this misdirected blame and I am not one of those affected African Americans. Please vote these awful people out!
15
Don the Con & DeLuded Devos could not be more detached from the actual education system or anything else most Americans would recognize as reality.
10
I don’t think he is even trying to pretend he’s not racist anymore.
13
Its not an "unlikely" culprit, it IS a "likely" culprit. A hand's off approach to male behavior problems is not only irresponsible, its shows gross incompetence to the point of negligence. That sounds like something Obama would create. Its typical backwards government thinking in attempt to social engineer a problem. But, what do they always say after their policies fail?, "I didnt know that would happen!". That's because they trust their foolish wisdom that government is the answer.
2
No, it's just another case of Trump blaming every single issue on his predecessor or somebody else. Can you quote one time when Trump said he himself did something wrong (other than when he admitted Obama was born in the U.S.)?
11
Oh please, that’s typical politics. Obama blamed Bush for lots of things too. The point is this kid should have been punished (ie, prosecuted for the felonies he committed prior to this incident), but wasn’t because of policies created to stop the school to prison pipeline. The law of unintended consequences at play here.
This is plain racism to the worst degree. If the data shows that a certain set of school policies lead to minority kids getting thrown in jail while white kids get off easy, then these policies should be banned immediately. End of story. This is NOT the solution we're looking for. Bringing it back up now after a white kid, who was repeatedly reported to the police and FBI, killed a bunch of fellow students shows us two things. First, Republican politicians would rather pursue a failed policy (reporting to police obviously doesn't work) than gun control laws and second, they're perfectly willing to have minority kids head off to jail in droves in the false hope that police will catch the next white kid who decides to kill his classmates.
Quite apart from that, police shouldn't be involved in child discipline. It doesn't work. I'd just like to point out that the Cruz kid's own mother called police in on multiple occasions to try to scare some sense into her son. Nothing the police could do about it, because the kid didn't need to be scared; he needed psychological therapy and the removal of his rights to buy deadly weapons.
In conclusion, this is a racist, failed method of solving the school shooting problem.
19
The enforcement was not racist; there was a significant difference in discipline problems from black kids. The intent of the discipline reforms was to avoid the criminal record that is suspected of being causal to a life of crime. The consequences of the reform are not clear in the general population, but has left my school a much less safe place for everyone.
1
How do they think this stuff up? Do not even the Trump True Believers have some conscience and / or the ability to recognize flimsy thinking?
9
I never thought that I would witness a time that was akin to the behavior of Congress during the McCarthy era. Bold face lies. Accusations not grounded in facts. And spineless politicians beholden to large sums of campaign cash or business dealings. I just cannot believe that this is happening. I thought that we had buried this type of absurdity a long time ago. Maybe we just became too complacent.
10
Demonizing the public schools is another GOP extremist agenda to privatize education in America. Betsy Devos has thus far been ineffective in instigating change. This is a brutal attack on the public schools and the politicization of the literal attack on the Parkland school is unforgivable. Lumping together every school and school district in America as ineffective and unsafe is disgusting. Our school systems are a strong democratic tradition of local control by school boards, parent involvement and union backed teachers. The GOP is threatened by free thinking and democratic values and is purposely misleading and obfuscating the issues for their extremist and ugly agenda. This is our country and our children. This is an insidious attack on public education in America.
12
More obfuscation to benefit the NRA. The handling of Cruz was textbook -- expelled from high school, known to school officials, reported (by his own step mother) to the police, known to the FBI. Other than wearing a tree shirt screaming "I will go postal in a public school!", what more notification was needed? The only place discipline was lacking here was at the gun store(s) where he bought his weapons. Someone should have "just said no".
12
Actually your entire premise is wrong. Just because he was reported does not mean he was disciplined. This kid committed felonies, was he prosecuted? At all? All they did was move him from one school to another because he threatened to kill people, assaulted people, etc.
Crikey. I already knew they're eager to imprison or kill or deport all "those people" but when are we going to stand up to these monsters! If there is one person who is a public danger (with his buddies and enablers) it is Trump himself. Time to put him through some re-education so he develops some humanity.
"Evil, be thou my good" (Paradise lost)
The road to death is easy (Virgil)
Sell his soul for success (Faust)
They're eager to put those uppity kids in prison and it has a side benefit: they can never vote again: the new Jim Crow.
But if that doesn't work, now they'll have guns in the classrooms. And since they want teachers screened to support far-right fake religion (the one that respects life before but not after birth) any "different" kids can be accidentally or purposely shot.
It's a mistake to expect this bunch of good intentions with their a deeply inhuman selfishness and blindness to others.
They're perfectly happy with the idea of eliminating, by death or prison or whatever means available, anyone who opposes their self-worshiping religion. And they take that religion very very seriously.
When they're not worshiping themselves, they're worshiping machines of death, and organizations (mercenaries) who are efficient at eliminating their enemies.
16
What ever happened to just disagreeing with someone?
3
A man who has paid off a hooker, had multiple wives, divorces and other tryst with many more women attacks the happily married family man, and great fatherly role model. That surely makes a lot of sense.
25
It's "1984" all over again, and again, and again..................
11
I’m listening to 1984 on audiobook right now. There are many similarities between the fictional novel and what’s happening right now
6
Trump is a racist. He will take any chance he can to attack people of color.
The Republican party as a whole is doing everything it can to avoid the reality of the situation- the problem is GUNS. Period. Not "the education system" (DeVos) not how programs "are applied" (Rubio) but GUNS. The problem is the overwhelming number of military-grade assault weapons in circulation in our society and the sickening ease with which they can be purchased.
The problem is guns.
34
why do we call them conservative. we know what they are.
24
No, we don't know what "they are." Please elaborate.
2
of my black friends there are two that voted for Trump. Both are female teachers. Also the recent Pennsylvania rally I saw two black women standing behind Trump with sign saying women for Trump.
This is more than a cult
Why don't they perceive Trump the way that we do? Why do they believe he is the only one fighting for them? When any dissent or criticism towards Trump, they say it's fake news. When I point out how much better is your life now than it was 2 years ago under Obama? They tell me to shut up and I need to educate myself...
4
If someone has to tell you, then it's a waste of time.
2
Rather than focus on the racial disparities in school discipline, as the Obama administration did, I hope the Trump administration will focus on a much greater disparity in school discipline - boys vs. girls.
According to a NIH study, boys are suspended from school at a rate more than twice that of girls. And not surprisingly, the school to prison pipeline exists for men, who are also incarcerated at rates much higher than girls.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2678799/
3
Full disclosure. I'm male. And the reason boys as disciplined (only) twice as often as girls shows - given how aggressive and bullying they are - male privilege. The fact is that boys behave far, far worse than girls and thus the disparity in discipline.
2
Assuming there is no valid reason for the discrepancy in black vs. white discipline rates, this is quite an indictment of our educational establishment. Is it really true that bigotry is widespread among teachers in the US?
4
I think it's not widespread, but all too common, and supported by administration in the usual locations. Finding people to blame rather than focusing on the one person each of us can change - ourselves - is all too common.
Reaching for the worst rather than the best in ourselves is a deeply dark path.
6
Short answer: yes.
2
Why does Obama remain silent when Trump continues to tear down, one after another, Obama's policies? The majority of Americans respect Obama. If Obama is a true patriot, then he should use his platform to "educate" Americans and chip away at Trump's base. Chipping away at Trump's base if one way to bring us closer to normalcy.
10
@Tom: While I feel your pain; Why should "Obama' have to "speak-up"? He didn't create the monster-called-Trump. Americans created Donald Trump; 62 Million of them: Why aren't the former Bush Presidents speaking up (and out)? Why aren't House and Senate Republicans- speaking out?
You are lamenting about the Black President who 62 Million (and more) still believe he isn't a U.S. Citizen...This. Is. Not. up to Barack Obama to make "right".
5
President Trump was given a landslide mandate to undo the Obama disaster
I agree. Here's a president who worked very hard to accomplish the things that he did, and he seems willing o stand passively by and watch it all be dismantled. No doubt he respects the choices of the next administration, but how can he simply ignore what Trump has done to his work and his legacy? He should speak out, push back and defend his work. But as good as Obama has been, it seems to me that he never had that element in his personality...to respond forcefully as his policies have been denegrated by the Trump administration.
2
If I was teacher who was assaulted by a student, my response would be as follows:
Report the incident to police.
Then, ask a local judge for a PPO that bans the kid from where I teach.
What the president wanted me to do or what the school administration wanted me to do after an assault, wouldn't be a factor.
If the school decided to punish me for reporting an assault or attempting to protect myself with a PPO, I'd sue them.
3
Sorry Democrats, your faux outrage won’t hide the fact that Obama’s policies caused this mass murder. How can background checks work when Obama won’t allow authorities to report and record information?
12
Believing that the criminal justice system can do a good job of fixing behavior problems at school -- and making schools safer -- is sheer lunacy. Just ask any juvenile court judge or police officer. Obama didn't gut school discipline...he just tried to make it more equitable. This isn't a Democrat versus Republican issue...it's not an Obama versus Trump issue...and getting suckered into those dichotomies makes it much more difficult to solve the problem.
4
Everything is always Obama's fault in Rumpworld. It's Obama's fault that he is a fundamentally decent human being who puts the Rump to shame in everything from morals to his treatment of women to his intelligence.
6
How can you possibly blame Obama for all those who have sold out to the NRA?
6
Body-slamming black girls for not putting away their cell phones in class is the reason why white kids shoot up their schools and massacre their classmates; An AR-15 didn't kill students- Obama's bad policies did. While were at this school shootings in the U.S. has been a regular occurrence since the 1800's, but- hey; it ain't the guns.
One would think there would be a bit of pause before this latest idiocy to emit from the mouths of allegedly intelligent politicians; we now now this isn't the case.
Is the NRA really this powerful or politicians just extremely weak?
16
Here's the salient part of Obama's Dear Colleague letter - school personnel must “understand that they, rather than school resource officers and other security or law enforcement personnel, are responsible for administering routine student discipline.”
So when Mr. Cruz fought other students, and made death threats against them, he was merely expelled. The school resource officer was not involved. No one from Sheriff Israel's office was asked to arrest Mr. Cruz. Had Mr. Cruz been arrested, he would have been placed on the do-not-buy list. Granted, Parkland's racial disparity stats would look less good, because a person with an Hispanic surname would have been flagged for a serious violation, but 17 students at Parkland would still be alive.
To only give Runcie's side of the story (himself a colleague and friend of Arne Duncan's from back when they were at Chicago Public Schools, where many of these foolish policies were incubated before being unleashed on the United States via the Obama administration), is bad journalism. To attack the one thing that would have actually prevented the shooting is bad logic.
But this is instructive in at least one way; we're learning that liberals don't really care about facts. Whether it's Chicago's death toll, Baltimore's graduation rates, or Parkland's death toll - none of it matters. Preventing and fixing problems aren't what liberals want. In this case they want gun control, and no amount of evidence will sway them.
9
The logic you employ is like someone falling into a volcano and blaming their choice of shoelaces, rather than the fact that they were walking on the lip of a volcano in the first place. Create a country jammed with guns, and you'll get a whole lot of shootings.
19
So the 30 visits to the Cruz home regarding violence by the police were immaterial. They didn’t act when his own family were in fear of him but they would have for a school disciplinary issue. Right!!!!
21
The faux conservatives have no plan to stop violence. Mostly because we don’t know how to figure out which crazy person is going to actually follow through on their delusions. They do offer repression as a cheap substitute. The reason for Chicago’s violence is the same reason for London’s back in the 19th century. Or other cities in the 20th. Rampant poverty. But the right cares not about that. Easier to try to beat it out of them. Which has never worked. But it does make certain people feel better.
5
You know how people use apples to make apple sauce? Well, in this case Trump is using gun violence to play the racist card... his version of apple sauce... take some horrible incident or something the Chief Executive should take responsibility for and try to pin it on someone else, preferably President Obama... I can guarantee you we're going to see four years of this awkward slight of hand move...
13
I see your point however there is a serious flaw in Obama's school strategy for discipline. It encouraged school officials to under-report. I agree with this in theory but it gave school officials too much latitude and flexibility about who when and what. This strategy of Obama's resembles a reverse discrimination strategy against law enforcement.
3
When schools put 6 year olds in handcuffs, you have a problem.
5
When all else fails, they blame Obama. You've got to be kidding me. Sadly they will continue to spew this nonsense. Help us all!
29
This man is racist to the core. From his earlier wish to execute innocent black teens in the Central Park killing to his deep, prolonged hatred of all things Obama & his excusing violent, rampaging, white supremacists in Charlottesville - even with a murder on their hands - he has played his hand over & over again. He knows about police offences against blacks; he knows about the higher rates of blacks being imprisoned. He likes it & he doesn't care. He wants to arm teachers - whose job it is to earn trust with students & help them learn, not to instil fear because their teacher & mentor may be carrying a gun.
Keep this ignorant bully out of schools. (Keep co-hort Betty DeVos out of schools.) Trump is exactly that guy no parent, no neighbour or any kid of any age ever wanted to have on their playground or in their community. Why let him in now?
25
As I said before, it must be agonizing to hate someone so much, as Trump hates Obama.
20
I think the hard part must be that no matter how much Trump hates Obama, not matter how many ridiculous charges he tweets or sane, well studied and carefully thought out policies he arbitrarily trashes, he, Donald Trump, will never measure up to Barack Obama in any way. In terms of moral, intellectual and inspirational stature Donald Trump doesn't reach the top of Barack Obama's shoes, and clearly never will. Trump can have all the rallies he wants, he will never be anything but a cheap bully, an imitation leader and a parody President.
6
I suppose the Obama-era Justice Department would also say that the 45-55% share of murders committed by 6% of the population (black men) is also only because of racial discrimination and "not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior....".
3
This shooting never would have happened except for Obama’s meddling in school discipline. How can background checks work when Obama won’t let the background get recorded??
4
The shooting occurred while Trump was in office. A leader is responsible for what happens under his leadership. As Truman put it, "the buck stops here." Meaning at his desk in the oval office. Therefore the blood of Parkland's dead is on Trump's hands. And on the hands of all his supporters, apologists, enablers and co-conspirators.
6
This is the left’s playbook: hinder discipline and law enforcement, and when the inevitable crime happens use it as a pretext to abolish the Bill of Rights and confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans. Take note, the latest hobby horse of the Left is abolition of ICE. When an immigrant commits a crime, that’ll be a pretext to crack down on the Rights of Americans!
7
Make America Great Again is really code for Make America WHITE Again. Just writing this makes my stomach heave.
20
white nationalism strikes again. trumps baseness know no end, and amoral hole he's dug in Americans will take decades to fill.
13
If it’s something I don’t like, Obama did it, assist to Hillary—the Trump doctrine.
13
How embarrassing it is for Floridians -- 50% of our U.S. Senators are Marco Rubio.
5
Well considering they came up with, not reporting problems to law enforcement to reduce the number of minorities in the system ,kids learned they can get away with everything. And they did, plenty of videos out showing kids physically attaching teachers etc. called the promise program, which as a Chicago citizen, Obama worked on it and brought to federal level as president, schools got money for using it to show reduction in school violent behavior, Obama buddy took it to boward county schools
2
Should it rain on Trump's military parade, he'll blame it on Obama.
15
Have there actually been any minority children shooting up schools? The first chore of the new president in 2020 will have to be the de-Trumpification of our government. Perhaps the new President can even create a new court dealing with parking tickets where all those Trump picked federal judges can be pulled away from the legal system and put where they can do no harm.
12
Non-teachers will not understand how destructive the Obama Dear Colleague letter has been to schools and discipline. They will not see the link between Obama's "policy" (more of a thinly-veiled mandate) and kids like Nikolas Cruz or expelled kids.
Obama's mandate allowed discipline issues to bloom and fester. No brakes could be applied. Crazy kids and out-of-control kids became a monolithic, untouchable blob.
6
Apparently logic has joined the truth as a casualty of the Trump administration. How we get from white kids shooting up schools to minority kids being treated equitably is beyond me. It’s a dark and mysterious universe that Mr Trump inhabits, and I fear he is dragging us all into the same black hole.
11
Blaming the Obama administration’s student civil rights initiative for school shootings, is another smokescreen for Trump and his cronies to hide behind while pandering to the NRA. It also plays to his racist base by heaping misplaced blame on minorities for school shootings like at Parkland’s high school while diminishing the legacy of the last honorable man to sit in Oval Office, President Obama.
8
Still carrying on the campaign intended to teach black Americans (or indeed all Americans, other than while males) a lesson---that they must not have the temerity to run for the presidency again. Their childish attempts to smear Obama and blame him for everything that went wrong since the year 1600 ought to embarrass them but it does not. The desperate farcical vendetta (against President Obama as well as Hillary Clinton) continues.
9
The easiest way to address this disparity is simple. If you're eighteen and black and want to buy a gun you can. If you're white you'll have to wait until you're twenty-one. We Are The World is so close at hand.
2
this article is a very clumsy attempt to mix two separate issues. mass shooting end School suspension procedures have not correlated.
4
Blaming the Nikolas Cruz shootings, who was expelled from school, on lax disciplinary rules is as illogical as, well, invading Iraq in response to an attack by a bunch of Saudis, launched from Afghanistan.
8
Liberal democrats have evaded dealing with interpersonal violence in Public schools for decades; student-student assaults start in preschool and for many continue to the point of expulsion despite the many resource people who deal with them ....and like crime stat.'s the majority are Black and Hispanic, from broken homes, poor urban neighborhoods and usually gang bangers.
Many teachers are terrified to teach in central city schools as a result. The acts of mass violence are only the bursting of a festering boil; and some kind of weapons focus is, once again, an evasion of effectively dealing with violent youth.
Liberals wanted the doctrine of IN LOCO PARENTIS to apply, well, now it's time to hold the public schools accountable as 'bad' parents.
2
“However, any policy seeking to achieve these goals requires basic common sense and an understanding that failure to report troubled students, like Cruz, to law enforcement can have dangerous repercussions.”
They DID report him to law enforcement, repeatedly, over many years and it was law enforcement who did nothing.
6
I am so glad that my youngest grandchild will graduate from high school in June. When my children were in school I frequently butted heads with school administrators over their dictatorial nonsense.
When my oldest son was 7 he was expelled from school for a week because an edge less butter knife fell out of his backpack while on the bus. My son was fascinated with taking things apart and reassembling them, still is. He had no intention of causing harm to anyone. The school's principal was deaf to the logical arguments that his teacher and I made on his behalf, not surprising given that our schools prefer mindless obedience over critical thought. This event occurred in 1988 and is only one of many. My children are white and I am well aware that Black and Hispanic children have it so much worse.
Public and Private Schools in our country have become an extension of the prison industrial complex. How can we ever hope to have an informed electorate if our schools only prepare our children to become either inmates or cogs in the Republican machine?
7
This is yet another point at which America needs to collectively turn toward the Trump White House and say, "Have you no sense of decency?"
4
This article seems to miss (or mischaracterize) the point. Under the new federal guidelines, which Broward County championed, even assault and battery are misdemeanors. Cruz committed assault but wasn't reported to the authorities, which is why he was able to pass the background check to get his weapon. The school leniency policies aim to give troubled students--even those who beat teachers and fellow students and commit property damage--a clean record so that their behavior as juveniles won't affect their future. Striving to ensure a clean record for these kinds of students also allows them to pass background checks to get weapons. That's the point.
3
Here are two more points.
Reporting a school assault to authorities will not necessarily lead to an arrest or conviction for a crime. Most such "assaults" are too minor to interest local prosecutors.
To materially affect weapons access, such a huge volume of assault reports would have to be taken up by prosecutors as to jam up the justice system. Prosecuting every minor instance of rough behavior in a school could and probably would cause more crime and more shootings in the end.
What's important is a pattern of behavior, including threats, combined with interest in firearms. That's where authorities dropped the ball in Florida.
2
I want to ask if this is a joke. I wish it was. It wouldn't be in the least bit funny, though. Has this president no shame? Rhetorical question.
2
Again, the GOP shows it is morally bankrupt. The Broward County superintendent at the end of this article is the only one making sense, when he says
“We’re not going to dismantle a program that’s been successful in the district because of false information that someone has put out there,” Mr. Runcie said on Twitter. “We will neither manage nor lead by rumors.”
5
Well, I guess Trump plans to eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline by simply eliminating the pipeline. Of course, this grand idea needs the thoughtful scrutiny and approval of DeVos. Perhaps she can suggest an appropriate source for security guard staffing.
3
This alternative universe rationalization for tragedy borne of political fecklessness is too despicable to warrant any further comment.
1
Trump"s playbook goes like this:
1. Blame Obama for everything.
2. Accuse Hillary of everything.
3. Hold televised meetings where Trump promises to fix DACA with love,
pass serious gun control AND stand up to on the NRA, etc.
4. Hold a rally where Trump insults everyone, mock the concept of acting with dignity while president.
5. Fire top WH officials in as disrespectful, undignified way as possible.
6. Never ever apologize or take responsibility for ANYthing but the glossy stuff.
It's all on you, Trump, and the Congressional Republicans.
43
If you look at the agreement that the Broward County School Board and the Broward County Sheriff's Office you will find that threats are one of the crimes that should be settled without bringing in the police. Nikolaus Cruz threatened one of his classmates but the High School Police liaison, Scot Peterson never did anything about it. Cruz threatened to kill his classmate and this type of threat rose to felonious status under Florida Law. A felony arrest and or conviction might have prevented him from purchasing the AR-15.
9
Was Mr Cruz not reported just to keep "minority" numbers artificially low in order to comply w President Obama's directive?
This is common sense - but this opinion/analysis piece masquerading as news thinks otherwise.
1
Trump leads the leads backward. His only policies seem to involve undoing something that someone before him put into action. Rather than proactively making change, he falls into the blame-game and refuses to to put any new solutions on the table. Any sane person should be able to see that semi-automatic and automatic weapons are tools of war. Guns are tools of violence. Getting the gun-problem under control is the only way we are going to get started on solving this problem. It won’t be the only thing we have to do, but at least it's a start.
This country should try to be as sane and intelligent a nation as Australia has proven to be by putting human well-being above that of industry, and money, and folks who need to have a gun in order to feel safe.
5
with your comment it opens up to gun lovers with if a gun is a tool of violence than what about knives, what about cars, what about razors?
These were all used as weapons.
so how do we sanely reply?
sometimes I reply with, there's no Lobby group behind manufacturers of knives and cars saying it is my second Amendment right to use it as a weapon to protect my family
Knives and cars don't have the NRA thinking for me...
The reaction to crazy events in the U.S., that in any other country in the world would generate almost immediate sweeping changes, literally boggles the mind.
In an effort to be as pragmatic as possible about this disgusting, disgusting discussion, the only path I see forward is for Citizen's United to be repealed, and banned from influencing American politics forever.
The response to events like these from the right is beyond the point of insanity.
14
Trump's America equals more guns, more racism, less heart and fewer brains. I despair when I read stories like this. Putting Ditsy DeVos in charge of a school safety commission to repeal yet another Obama policy that was about racial equality, not school safety, is insane. I am thankful I don't live a country where a gun lobby association has more influence over the President than his constituents.
26
The social shark tank which is now a public high school is nothing like most of your readers remember from their school days. Sex in the bathrooms, adjudicated violent felons with the "legal right" to be on a high school campus till they are 21. Vaping tobacco and marijuana. Intimidation directed to teachers who refer students for disruptive, insubordinate and violent behavior often directed at the teacher themselves. Parents who blame the system when their children do not pass, regardless of work turned in. Truth is the system is broken.
6
That's utter nonsense. None of those things occur in high schools on a routine basis. Have they occurred somewhere and sometimes--probably, but you clearly watch too much "Shark Tank" reality television. Kids in the USA go to public high schools every day confident that they are safe and will receive quality education and a bright future. The thing that would be better is to get rid of Betsy DeVos as the head of the education department. She knows nothing and is clearly in over her head. The next thing we could do is adequately fund public education and stop using public money to support for-profit charter and religious schools. A horrible scam for which the tax payers foot the bill.
5
I attended what used to be Charles Evans Hughes HS on 18th St in Manhattan. Your description is apropos of my old alma mater . . . Class of '70.
And that's just in Florida. You don't want to know about elsewhere.
When you are so afraid of data that you don't allow the Government to study gun violence, wild theories are easy to propose and difficult to refute among the true believers. Unfortunately, the modern version of the Republican Party frequently uses racist ideas as a basis for those wild theories. Once again, our decent President Obama is cited as the cause of school violence and the ugly underbelly of the argument is that he is black.
19
The color of a person's skin does not determine their behavior, any more than the color of their eyes or hair.
But how a person is treated because of their color of their skin--that can shape a person's behavior at a very young age.
So if a student of color acts out, are they acting out because of the color of their skin? No.
Perhaps they have undiagnosed ADHD. Or an undiagnosed learning disability. You know, just like white kids. Or maybe someone hurled a racial slur at them in the hall just before class and they don't know how to handle that. (And why should they? Racial slurs should not happen, period.)
My heart breaks for these kids. They are just kids. They shouldn't become victims of political grandstanding.
12
Rubio looking for favor from the Trump base. A leader - in fawning submission to the NRA, big donors, and strutting before cameras.
13
Luckily, Betty DeVos is totally incompetent. She hasn't done anything in her time in office, so I hope she continues on her previous path.
4
She rolled back the horribly misguided 2014 "dear colleague" letter curtailing due process/instituting kangaroo courts for allegations of sexual misconduct at colleges. That alone should be a shining accomplishment.
2
@Neal- Yes that was a good thing but her motives are suspect. She did it because it was an Obama era rule. Personally, I think rape should be handled ONLY by the police. The kangaroo courts cut both ways. Football players are rarely prosecuted so they can play on their precious teams while the accusers are hounded out of the college.
2
This reversal of Obama’s sensible policy will only make worse the school-to-prison pipeline that has made it possible to incarcerate millions of children of color. A close friend of mine has made it her life’s work to change the dreadful and disproportionate disciplinary enforcement penalties inflicted on so many children. She must be aghast.
Again, the Trump administration is going in reverse.
10
The first step in effectively solving any problem is problem definition. The Trump administration has shown repeatedly that it is incapable of engaging in proble definition without first referring to it's political playbook. That's why it keeps coming up with nonsensical solutions to the issues that plague our society.
This also seems to account for Trump's tendency to then take a equally bizarre first step to solving any problem. Find someone to scapegoat.
5
The twisted mind of tRUMP and his base of support ... to continually find blame with Obama. This level of hatred ensures that tRUMP and his base of support will fall. The world does not self-hate. The world recognizes that we are all souls first.
2
Rubio's argument makes no sense. Authorities WERE alerted about Cruz - and did nothing.
3
There are two ways to interpret this. One is simply racial animus and willful racial blindsight to robust evidence of racial and ethnic bias in school discipline. Another is that it is yet another deflection to shield this administration from the pileup of scandals, from Russia to Stormy Daniels. This is red meat for his base and the GOP enablers.
5
I suppose this latest move makes it official, there is no limit to how low the GOP/Trump will go to smear Obama.
6
This makes me so mad, I want to spit tacks! I'm really glad I read the entirety of the review on which pillow to scream into -- I just wish I had my pillow at work.
4
Speaking from experience, the rules issued by federal/state/local governments of not allowing public schools to discipline/suspend out of control students have greatly contributed to many schools across America being unsafe/unhealthy places to teach and to learn. "Creative" discipline can only get a teacher/administrator/school district just so far, particularly when the mandate is to do more with your unruly students, but with fewer resources and support. The few have been granted permission to sabotage the learning environment of the many. So typical of all those bleeding hearts.
9
As Trump-Pence-GOP continue their unrelenting destruction of the foundation of the USA, Putin must be marveling at how successful his plan is. Putin's Russia funded the internet trolls the equivalent of $1million USD / month and achieved the same success at bringing down our Country that we did in bringing down the USSR, but at the cost of hundreds of millions over decades of proxy wars and covert activities.
1
The student responsible for the Parkland shooting was in fact expelled. The problem was that a seriously disturbed 18 year old was able to buy an assault rifle, a weapon designed to inflict mass carnage on a field of battle, with no oversight. Are Republicans, who talk tough on crime, illegal immigration, and terrorism aware that convicted criminals, illegal immigrants, and suspected terrorists can all lawfully purchase assault rifles at gun shows in 32 states without background checks? Who are they kidding? It is shameful, disgusting. Throw them out in 2018. That is if they haven’t Gerrymandered their way into office permanently.
8
Students that are THIS troubled should not be pushed away and out of institutional systems designed to leap kids transition to adults; but should receive much more intensive guidance. Our secondary school culture tends to pour the most support into many of the students that need it the least.p Why? Administration and teacher humble brag, job security...and a MUCH easier job...these tough students need so much, so much; and in our system, teachers that truly take on these challenges go unrewarded, unrecognized, and work only for the reward that comes in knowing...
Look like it’s up to me to correct one of the biggest lies continually put forth here: the AR15 is NOT a military weapon. No armed force of any nation anywhere in the world carries or has ever carried the AR15. This is a fact
1
So what? It's more similar to military weapons than hunting weapons. In particular because it's designed to kill people not animals. What's your point?
Larry, just a quick question. You obviously love your guns and support the second amendment. Why is it that almost every other democratic country in the world has just as many people with mental issues, but your country is the only one with this many mass shootings. Just give me your answer. Take away guns, you take away mass shootings.
1
Larry, I was in the Army for 25+ years so feel I can accurately answer this for you. The AR-15 is the semi-automatic version of the M-16. It can easily be converted to full automatic mode by a person who knows what they are doing. It is built to military specs. It is an assault weapon. Quibbling about whether it is "military" or not is pointless.
4
Since public schools are the primary preserve of local aka city and county along with state financing and control any focus on federal control is a foolish distraction. But federal money is strategically used to perpetuate the re-segregation of American public schools by color aka race, ethnicity aka race and national origin aka race by malign bigoted intent and benign bigoted impact due to the inextricable socioeconomic political educational historical relationship with color, ethnicity, national origin and race.
3
What it really and obviously boils down to is that Donald Trump is too craven to stand up to the National Rifle Association. Further, by making it seem as though an Obama policy aimed, however inaccurately, at fairness for black students is to blame for the sort of mass shootings that to date have never been perpetrated by a black student, Trump is once again pandering to that element of his base that is racist and white.
But Trump's base, much of which is serially misinformed by Fox News, will eat this up. And, God help me, I'm willing to bet that the next mass school shooting, which will once again be perpetrated by a white person, will take place within the next six months.
7
If I understand this article Trump is upset because the Obama administration tried to stem the suspensions and expulsions of minority students.
Trump seems to believe that if you're lax on discipline it promotes students to use gun violence as a response.
No amount of discipline was going to stop the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooter. He was already without supervision which is how he slipped through the cracks.
This is just another way of this administration passing the buck when they should be passing gun laws.
6
You have to hand it to them. The ability to blame this on Obama - just brilliant in its audacity, even in the face of facts so clearly contradictory to their argument.
4
Does the moral and intellectual vacuum in the White House very do anything but blame others? This is not leadership. It is the worst possible way to conduct high office. I am beyond disgusted.
4
I fail to see even the most tenuous connection here.
Once again, right wing politicians demonstrate their gleeful willingness to exacerbate racial tension to keep their "base" in line.
Anything to stay in power.
Disgusting.
4
Was Senator Rubio assuming that Nikolas Cruz is Hispanic? He really should keep up with the reporting - and he has an entire staff to assist him in that task. Mr. Cruz was adopted. Perhaps Faux News didn’t mention that fact - probably not.
12
In Dallas ISD one year, there was a lawsuit about too many white kids in one class (this was within the last 15 years) even though the entire district pop of white kids is like 5%.
So people LITERALLY CAME IN AND LOOKED AT KIDS AND TALLIED THE NUMBER OF "WHITE" KIDS THEY SAW.
They counted a kid from Europe with dark hair as Hispanic.
You can't make this stuff up.
So yeah, with a last name of Cruz, I would be shocked if the child wasn't coded as Hispanic in order to get more federal money for the district.
Rubio isn't wrong; perhaps you misunderstand the reality of what goes on in the schools.
1
So "Hispanic" is a biological race, not a culture?
Wow...is pretty much all I can muster after reading this story. How does this apply to a kid who was expelled, or the Las Vegas shooting, or Sandy Hook, or Columbine, or Orlando, or the bombs killing people in Austin? Republicans have now lost any claim they ever had on claims that Democrats politicize violence. Just when I think I can’t get more disgusted, I do. America (and especially the Right) romanticizes guns and fetishizes violence - and the NRA nurtures and reinforces those emotions in order to enrich themselves and the gun companies they serve
27
Research has shown that the frontal cortex of young people, especially boys, is not fully developed. In males it my take a full twenty-five years. The frontal cortex is the Jiiminy Cricket of our brains. It is nature and not a fault. Adults should shepherd young people until they are beyond this "dangerous" phase. Keeping them occupied and in school is crucial to their future and our well being. Why waste money on prisons when a little TLC can work. The dividends in income tax paid by successful citizens over their lifetimes are tremendous.
12
You are forgetting the sacred profit margins of for profit prisons. (sarcasm alert)
A job will keep them occupied.
So black kids are now responsible for the violence and mental illness of their white classmates? And the solution is to have more untrained school security guards around to bodyslam saucy 11-year-olds. This time they’ll have legal guns. We can now have some unnecessary pistolwhippings and deaths of black kids at the hands of teachers. Maybe having black classmates turned into a targeted group will raise white kids’ self-esteem and they won’t need to act out anymore. Thanks for clarifying where else this “give teachers a gun” policy might be going. I am sure everybody remembers at least one creepy or bullying teacher from their school experience. That’ll be the person who volunteers to be school protection services. I am not looking forward to the headlines about kids being shot for bad behavior.
33
Get the military recruiters out of the schools. They go after junior high school students now.
Oh. You think I am being irrational and unbalanced because I DARE to criticize the military (Thank you for your service) It's no more irrational than blaming the NRA.
How many mass shooters were NRA members? None
How many mass shooters were in the military or had significant influence by the military? At least one third of them. Look it up.
Cruz wanted to join the military, he was in JROTC, where he learned to shoot, He spoke to an Army recruiter just weeks before the shooting. He lived with a military family. He compulsively played military themed combat video games for up to 15 hours at a time. The military uses video games like these to train new recruits to kill. Since 2002 all high schools are required to provide to the Pentagon personal information on all of their students for recruiting purposes.
4
Once again they are trying to deflect us from the real issue, which is that we need a ban on military-type assault weapons!
19
Do the Democrats lies ever end? The AR15 is not a military weapon. No armed force has ever carried the AR15
The AR15 is just the semi-automatic version of the M16. It is an assault rifle built by the same company to the same specs as an M16, minus full automatic mode - and it can be easily retrofitted to be fully automatic. I've done some quick searches and see that the AR15 was in fact sold to several nation's militaries. I've seen you post this same argument above several times so I am going to say that you are the one who is lying.
1
A trained and armed officer failed to deter a student expelled from school.
The obvious solution is to add trained and armed officers to deter students and to make it easier to expel students.
In fact, if the GOP and NRA are to be believed, gun-free zones increase danger, and it’s every American’s right and responsibility to protect themselves. Relying on the government to do it obviously fails. So, we should obviously seek to arm all the students. Anything less is gun control, something the NRA and GOP are against.
Let’s see then back that.
2
Statistics don't lie. Sadly it took our first black president to do something about racial bias in how we address disciplinary issues in our public schools. Likely because it's not something that white people experience during their time in school so they lack the awareness of how damaging racial bias can be.
We as a nation have a lot of work to do to conquer centuries of racism. The civil rights movement didn't fix racism, it just laid the groundwork for how to fight back. We're going to have to be willing to examine our biases and be willing to make changes or we're going to continue to pass this issue onto future generations.
Yes we need to do something about school shootings. Working with law enforcement and educators to create a better process would be a much more responsible way to handle this issue. Unfairly targeting minority students for a problem they have nothing to do with isn't the answer.
13
This is a complicated issue but I believe the Obama disciplinary incentive has been misunderstood and missed the mark. The punitive 1940's-50's style of punitive discipline being administered to ALL students is destructive and causes the type of alienation and disenfranchisement that fosters violent retaliation by the demeaned and emotionally distraught students. The student disrupting obviously has issues and shutting them out without trying to get to the bottom of the cause is not the answer. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer but creating a place for these students to be heard so that they can actually rebuild skills and resume learning is the difficult path that must be taken. The intent of the Obama program was leaning in the right direction, interrupting the school to prison pipeline but needs more directives and to be inclusive of all.
2
If our country is ever going to move forward, we have to stop categorizing all discussions into "minority" or "white privilege" categories. Students who misbehave at school should be disciplined. Period. A civilized society depends on a certain level of acceptable behavior and when behavior falls outside those accepted norms, attention must be paid and action/consequences initiated.
4
So, when a particular misbehavior is punished 10 times harder for a black kid than a white kid, we should ignore it? Would you be ok with that if you were the targeted group?
You, as a purple teen forget to bring back a library book and you are suspended for 5 days, someone who is a blue teen forgets and they are just warned, even though this was the first infraction ever for BOTH of you? And this continues always for everyone purple being suspended, while those who are blue are not?
4
Trump's agenda and the Republican Party's agenda and public policy are now driven by big donors and right-wing media like Fox News and Breitbart. There's a constant stream of totalitarian disinformation from Trump and the Republicans on how the "liberal media" is supposedly manufacturing everything that Trump and the Republicans are actually doing wrong, whether colluding with Russia or answering to their paymasters, the Koch's and the NRA, as opposed to their constituents. The real problem is that the press is really reporting what Trump and the Republicans are doing. Then we have this: "The issue of the discipline guidance was raised formally by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida… after seeing a flurry of conservative news media reports." Rubio realized he could exploit the racism already rife in right-wing propaganda as a diversionary tactic and dress it up as public policy. All the mass shooters have been White males, including the one in Rubio's home state of Florida. However, facts don't matter to Rubio just as the students massacred in his home state don't matter as long as he, taking a page out of Trump's playbook, can divert the pressure he's rightfully receiving for being in the pocket of the NRA by pretending the whole thing can be blamed on some Black student who had nothing whatsoever to do with any of these horrific crimes. Yes, Rubio is so easy to buy, and for Republicans, whether Trump or Rubio, exploiting racism is the gift that never stops giving.
6
The White House press release says the Federal Commission on School Safety will “study and make recommendation on the following areas of focus:
•Age restrictions for certain firearm purchases.
•Existing entertainment rating systems and youth consumption of violent entertainment.
•Strategies to advance the science and practice of character development in youth and a culture of connectedness.
•Effects of press coverage of mass shootings.
•Repeal of the Obama Administration’s “Rethink School Discipline” policies.
•Best practices for school buildings and campus security from Federal Government components, including the Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and also from other State, local, and private sector sources.
•A plan for integration and coordination of Federal resources focused on prevention and mitigation of active shooter incidents at schools.
•Opportunities to improve access to mental health treatment, including through efforts that raise awareness about mental illness and the effectiveness of treatment, reduce barriers to the recruitment of mental health professionals, and provide training related to violence prevention.
•Best practices for school-based threat assessment and violence prevention strategies.
•The effectiveness and appropriateness of psychotropic medication for treatment of troubled youth.
•Ensuring that findings are sufficiently supported by existing and additional Federal, State, and local funding sources.”
1
The Con Don is hate in motion. He hates President Obama. He hates his blackness. He hates his brilliant mind. He hates the humanity of President and Mrs. Obama.
White slave owners were always afraid of their "chattel". They realized how smart, courageous and strong they were/are. That is what is behind the white supremacists movement - fear.
The Con Don needs to be afraid of the vast majority of Americans - not just the black population. Women will not go back to his dreams of 5th/15th century "kings". Blacks will not go back. Other minority populations will not go back.
Not now. Not ever again.
There are just a few fraidy-cat, bullying white guys trying to destroy OUR governments - and a couple of women who the boys pretended to give power to. They are not match for WE THE PEOPLE.
48
I am not sure what a "promise" program is, but the DOJ did attempt to enforce the civil rights of students affected by often discriminatory school-to-prison pipelines that improperly single out and wrongfully punish and/or expel minority and poor students across the country.
And there was no failure to report a disturbed person in the Parkland shooting.
14
I am not happy with Trump but this article seems dismissive of the points being raised.
I live in a fairly prosperous town in Western MA.
Recently the teachers at a middle level school went on strike because they felt they were being threatened by students. If I recall correctly one teacher suffered a concussion.
Their complaint was that they were being forced to try and integrate students with special needs into the regular classroom without being provided with additional teacher-student aides.
They were demanding that more aides be hired.
It should be noted that the school in question brings in a lot of students from a nearby subsidized housing unit.
As a taxpayer I feel kind of tapped out. We've had an awful lot of tax increases. Those taxes keep me working well into retirement. It's tough when reality runs up against ideals.
15
As an educator, I can tell you that your predicament in your town is not out of band for schools in many places. The problem is that criminal behavior and mental health consequences are not being teased out and treated differentially. The same is true in society in general, magnified by the particulars of adolescence when it happens in schools. Schools need to understand that they are the largest influence on a kid after parents, assuming the family is intact. If not then the influence is even greater. Schools need to recognize that. As to your consideration of the burden of the taxpayer, students with definable disabilities are covered by civil rights laws, criminal behavior is on the judicial system, and mental health is either on the family or insurance. Not sure how much of all that should impact and accrue to public funds.
3
You write "Those taxes keep me working well into retirement." Couldn't you say the same about a variety of other expenses?
1
But how does that tie into mass shootings - all of which are carried out by whites?
I was going to write that the right has no interest in making sure that minorities are well educated, but upon reflection, I believe that the right has no particular interest in educating anyone. Bringing back 1940’s style industries is only the tip of the iceberg.
33
If you disrupt a classroom you need to be removed from the classroom
until you learn not to be disruptive.
If you cannot control your disruptive behaviour then you need counseling.
What you do not need to do and what you do not have a right to do -
is to be placed back in the classroom to continue to disrupt it.
Why does the education of the rest of the class have to suffer because
you can not or will not behave ?
19
Because of the inane notion that everyone is entitled to an education.
"It's Obama's Fault !" TRUMP 2018
112
It is more than Obama’s fault, in Trumpworld... it is everyone, including me, who voted for our first multi-racial President... WE are at fault. If I’m not believable, just ask Sean Hannity, David Duke, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson or Alex Jones. They’ll explain it to you.
And now we have in power our first authoritarian President, and a man for who racism is a useful tool. You don’t have to ask him; he tweets it everyday.
3
2020 you mean..
Oh, Goody, we'll have more videos of elementary and middle school minority students being handcuffed and dragged from the classroom for major behavioral crimes like passing notes or chewing gum in class.
32
The US is a sick country. It bombs around the world for oil, sales of weapons and overall economic interests. At home, it discriminates against minorities. The perpetrators of mass massacres are almost always whites. All the racist hate and defense of narrow economic interests of the privileged supremacy is coming back to hunt US. This country is destroying itself from racist hate and greed.
114
Make America White Again!
Could Trump's credo possibly be more blatant?
84
Looks like the NRA has given the right-wing it’s marching orders and they’re all goosestepping in unison. Anything at all to take the focus off of the true culprit: guns (specifically military-grade weaponry) and their easy availability.
76
I guess the only recourse is for us to keep repeating that over and over again so that the issue never dies.
2
Stop lying! The AR15 is not a military weapon! No military force anywhere in the world carries or has ever carried the AR15
The longing for a simple solution to complex problems is one of the great moral and intellectual failings of the Right. When complex solutions are offered, panic ensues on the right. The search for scapegoats and a pledge to bring down the hammer temporarily soothes the frightened. In the end, the fascist alliance of evangelical faux christianity and the Right as its currently constituted will wither and die - but in the meantime, we must be vigilant in protecting the scapegoated and indeed our entire country from the terrible simplicity of Trump, the GOP and all the fine lemmings following close behind.
98
This sinks to a new low. I don't think I have ever been this disgusted by Trump.
159
Wait until tomorrow.
1
don't worry, there's a new low coming in the next few hours.
Yeah, and that's saying something. The other low point, I think, was when he made fun of that disabled guy at one of his rallies. What pig Trump is.
As usual, with Trump, "The Buck Stops Somewhere Else".
37
Mr. Rubio,
The WHITE NATIONALIST gunman was expelled and reported to law enforcement many times but he was still able to buy murder weapons, for a horrifyingly corrupt reason:
The gun lobby bought Florida's government - including YOU - and students and teachers died.
Their blood is on your hands.
You should not be able to sleep at night until you get out of the NRA's pocket and work for gun control.
318
Should have had his mom buy the weapons like they do it in Conn.?
To CC from Coastal Maine - that's a fair question.
The answer: AR 15s and other semi-automatic weapons should not be available for anyone to buy, adult or child. They should be outlawed.
Florida allows more of these weapons into civilian hands than Connecticut because the NRA successfully bribes and threatens more Florida politicians than Connecticut politicians.
2
Disgusting. I can't--there are no words.
60
Can this administration get anything right? No...
30
Mr. Rubio's assertion that "...failure to report troubled students, like Cruz, to law enforcement can have dangerous repercussions" overlooks the fact that the shooter in Florida WAS known to local law enforcement officials and even with that knowledge they could do nothing to confiscate his weapons. If Mr. Rubio wants to help avoid shootings in schools he needs to advocate for so-called "red-flag" laws that would allow law enforcement officials to take guns away from individuals who intend to use those weapons to harm themselves, their families, or scores of others. Mr, Rubio needs to understand that GUN violence is caused by allowing those who are like to perpetrate violence to possess GUNS...
102
Would say anyone who plays violent on-line games and has weapons of any kind might be likely to 'perpetuate violence' against others?
Define 'troubled student' so it is legally acceptable. We're not playing with language but trying to address a real problem and Liberal lawyers have created a swamp of rights, rules, and regulations.
4
Cruz hit his mother and she called the police. That's domestic violence and should have been enough to investigate Cruz or open a file on him to keep him.
Cruz stalked his girlfriend when she broke up with him. He brought a knife to school.
There was a long list of things that he did which should have been red flags for the police to look into what was available legally for them to do about him and to keep an eye on him. They never (that I read) investigated him for further violent behavior at school.
If the police aren't interested than who is supposed to protect the victims? The FBI wasn't even interested. The school did what was available to them by removing him which happened to be why he took out his revenge on them as well.
No one connected the dots of all the complaints against Cruz so, he bought guns and killed 17 people. And would that have been allowed to go on so long or happened if Cruz was black? I don't think so.
1
Well.. let's see. The Obama administration set up a promise program that segregated and treated students differently based on their skin color and not their actions. That sounds about right. So when a child acts up in school the faculty are discouraged from contacting the authorities for fear of being racist. Again sounds about right. So when a mentally ill student regardless of skin color shows signs of threatening behavior it's encouraged to sweep it under carpet. And this is Ok with people? Yes, they are children, but if the teachers can't handle these kids acting up then yes. maybe the law enforcement needs to be involved. Ideally the parents would be raising their kids to have respect for one another and themselves at a young age and this would solve a lot of the issues.
22
Very little of that applies to the Parkland case. Cruz's parents were both dead so they couldn't raise him to have respect for other kids. Law enforcement agencies were alerted to Cruz's threatening behavior but lacked the authority to keep him from purchasing an AR-15 rifle. Like most mass murderers in the US, Cruz is white so Obama's school guidelines did not apply to him. We only have to look to other developed nations in the world to find the answer to preventing mass shootings. They all have disturbed children, violent video games and movies, etc. What they do not have is an NRA.
88
I agree with a few of your points, however I do believe this policy while intended to protect minority student applies to all students regardless of skin color in turn allowing a troubled student who needs help slip through the cracks. Yes, the FBI should have never allowed him to purchase a firearm. The bottom line is this kid was intent on killing his classmates with plenty of warnings known to the FBI and the public. if he couldn't get a gun he could have easily rented a truck ( a well you know) I don't think blaming the NRA and banning guns is going to stop these horrible acts. It starts in the community through proper action and guidance and at home.
Most human beings are capable of violence when pushed in that direction either by internal or external pressures. That is why weapons of mass destruction should not be allowed in human hands outside of a military context (or even in that ideally). The AR-15 is a classic example of a weapon of mass destruction. You do the math.
1
Trump and the Republicans will do anything to deflect attention from the real culprit-the easy availability of military-style weapons. And if they can easily contort themselves to blame Obama, all the better. Never mind that they overturned an Obama regulation on background checks to prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns.
What a despicable lot.
78
"Black students have never been the culprits in the mass shootings that have shocked the nation’s conscience"
I can't find data specifically about "students", but overall whites are underrepresented among mass shooters, Asians and blacks overrepresented. "Asians and black Americans are overrepresented among mass shooters by about the same proportion (a bit more than one-fourth) that whites are underrepresented. This means the population rate of mass shootings by whites (at least according to the tiny sample measured in the MoJo database) is 0.021 per 100,000 people, while the corresponding rate of mass shootings by blacks is 1.7 times higher, at 0.037."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/10/what_th...
"whether the guidance allowed the shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, to evade law enforcement and carry out the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High.
It was, on its face, an odd point: Mr. Cruz is white, and far from evading school disciplinary procedures, he had been expelled from Stoneman Douglas."
But the claim is not that Cruz evaded school discipline because he is black. The claim is that LAW ENFORCEMENT did not act on Cruz because of school policies against arresting students...policies that were put in place to protect black and hispanic students (even if in this case the policy protected a white student with a hispanic name.)
12
Lots of comments from people who have probably never set foot in a contemporary public middle or high school, and who don't know any families whose kids attend public schools. In fact, kids are not all instinctive pacifists and schools do not resemble Quaker meetings or poetry clubs. Larger kids DO bully, harass, intimidate, and frighten smaller kids. And sometimes they threaten teachers, as well. School systems do have some responsibility to protect smaller, weaker kids from predators, and expelling the predators would be one way to do that.
15
And in the case of Cruz, they did. So, what's the next straw man argument?
2
This administration seems especially good at ignoring empirical research. We have several reports suggesting that African American boys and girls are perceived as being older than their actual ages, more knowledgeable about adult topics, and (this is the kicker) generally "less innocent" than their white counterparts. These biases are implicit and shape not only the individual actions of educators and administrators, but schools' formal policies and informal cultures.
13
Little Marco Rubio...on TV at the townhall, he sounded so thoughtful even though the students and most of us knew this was just his confusion between his thinking brain and his political dreams. He went home, got a call from his NRA handlers and changed the problem to school discipline. Needless to say, this school practiced discipline and it was law enforcement that failed over and over again.
17
How many more children will die because of the misguided and failed policies of Barack Obama? Obama made it difficult if not impossible to kick trouble makers out of school to meet artificial racial quotas, and 15 children so far are dead because of it
10
Sorry, but that is a complete lie. There is no connection there. Come armed with facts next time.
74
Did you read the article Larry? If not, look again, "Black students have never been the culprits in the mass shootings that have shocked the nation’s conscience nor have minority schools been the targets." The shooter at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas had been suspended and disciplined.
35
Show any evidence of this. The feds have little effect on public schools, except in special ed, testing, etc.
2
There's only direct solution here, folks :
GET OUT
AND
VOTE DEMOCRATIC OR INDEPENDENT !
Be it special election, mid-term or term . . .
THE G.O.P LOCK ON CONGRESS MUST END SOON.
239
This article purposely fails to articulate the point conservatives are making. The point is the Obama policies made it far less likely that Cruz's criminal behavior would result in a criminal record which would have made him fail the gun purchase background check. From liberal perspective, it seems silly to prosecute student behavior which may leave a long term criminal record in order to prevent the one-in-million nut from buying a gun which liberals think should be much harder to get anyway. So I'm with the liberals but the NYT should at least clearly state the conservative case. Obama policies dissuaded school officials and police from criminally prosecuting Cruz for many prior criminal offenses. Had they done so, he would have been prevented from legally buying a gun.
22
The background check only covers completed interactions with law enforcement that result in an adjudication or conviction. Florida would not prevent a gun purchase merely because of repeated calls to the sheriff, or expulsion from school without a criminal conviction on the record as well. Nothing else could have prevented him from purchasing a gun in the state of Florida, not even an order of protection if it were more than 365 days old.
1
Aurther, you are ignoring the fact that Cruz is white, despite his name. He was adopted by a family of Cuban extraction.
Aurther is not ignoring anything, the race of Mr. Cruz has nothing to do with this.
1
The sign in the Trump Zoo says.....Feed the Lions Red Meat. Let's try to come up with some lame excuse for mass shootings to make our base feel good about us going after those bad black kids, while we continue along our incestuous path with the NRA. Let's come up with fantastical plans, like re-opening long since closed state mental hospitals, while we refuse to address the unfettered ability for deranged people to purchase military assault weapons. Deplorable indeed.
29
School discipline? Hmm, Mr Trump, why not propose instead the following canard, on the face of it more plausibly linking A and S than your absurd conjecture?
If every school shooter had been aborted, then he couldn't have become a school shooter. Ergo, school shootings in the USA are caused by Right to Life.
9
Actually, legalized abortion is responsible for about half the drop in the crime rate we’ve experienced the past couple generatione. Fewer unwanted children correlates with less crime.
1
Wait - does the alt-right think that ANY of the school shootings were perpetrated by minorities?
This leap of thinking is staggering in it's ignorance.
16
LOL.
With anything trump says, that's all I can do.
3
Truly, from the other side of the Atlantic , it really seems like the US is a sick, sick country. How elite and wealthy interests exploit the poor and minorities is disgusting.
509
See also the British Empire...
5
As a Canadian who has long followed American politics and culture, as well as visiting on many occasions, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. I suggest reading "What is America" to gain an historical perspective on why the U.S.A has been sick from the very day the country was created.
4
Hmmm...what’s come out of Britain lately...Brexit? Boris Johnson? How healthy! Show us the cure England!
1
It's one idiotic racist move after another with the GOP.
22
Let's be clear. Kids and adults - but especially kids - need to feel a sense of belonging not only to feel safe, but to be able to learn, and to be productive members of society. Harsh disciplinary actions are not only the direct cause of our school-to-prison pipeline, but they do nothing but send kids fleeing to where they do feel a sense of belonging and purpose, as we see so often when kids turn to gangs, and in this case in Florida, to weapons. Restorative practices, not exclusionary practices, are the key to mending our school's and society's wounds. Community, not isolation, is what matters most right now.
Think of how different our country would be right now if Trump actually felt accepted by his own father.
17
“Unlikely culprit” is an understatement. Positing a causal relationship between school shootings and disciplinary policies set at the federal level is bizarre. Yet the fact that in finds favor with Marco Rubio too shows that it is well within conventional/traditional Republican standards of “logic”.
10
School discipline remains a thorny issue. Many school districts, including a few in Florida, are moving to a "Restorative Justice" model of discipline. This focus includes discipline, discipline that is better designed to get at the root of the issues causing the problems, rather than designed solely to punish. Data shows that programs designed to keep students in school, remaining as part of the community, are more likely to ultimately succeed as students and as citizens. I hope that school districts take the position of Mr. Runcie, and refuse to dismantle, or fail to move towards, successful discipline programs. How easy it is to blame everything on Obama; how much more difficult to truly understand a problem and devise solutions that work.
22
So you think violent, insane kids like Nikolas Cruz should have been molly coddled -- allowed to bring knives to school -- fight with other kids -- torture animals -- and that "restorative justice" would have fixed that????
The lack of ability to think, to research, is so unbelievable. Always revert to bigotry without any critical investigation or thought. What a role model. Bankruptcy follows him everywhere he goes, whether literal or figurative.
125
new slogan may as well be MAWA, which has been his policy goals all along, and would still get votes from the colorless crowd.
I have seen and heard racism cloaked in the most sweet, gentle, willfully ignorant tone that sounds oh so reasonable- just yesterday. it's even more insidious than overt racism from the KKK and neo-nazi groups.
18
It was only matter of time before Obama got the blame.
Make America Lawless Again!
18
Of course Obama. He probably got his wishy washy ideas growing up in Kenya. The "president" may be on a roll. Why stop with Obama whose views have held down gun-lovers since the 1940s? Perhaps, after getting some fantastic, really amazing advice from the best people at the next table at Mar-A-Lago. the "president" can show what he's made of: move the black students to their own schools where they will feel safe and so will the white students. A win-win, right? Maybe build a few walls around the black schools, you know, for ball practice.
81
Gold!
5
Of course it's Obama's fault. Everything is Obama's fault. Or Crooked Hillary's. But who will he blame if his meeting with Kim Jong-un ends in nuyclear disaster? Or if a trade war with China tanks our economy? Or if Russia attacks a NATO member country while our troops are busy parading before Dear Leader Trump? Or if Betsy DeVos destroys our schools? Or if Pruitt destroys our environment? Or if Zinke destroys our national parks? Or if Mexico won't pay for his Wall? Or if there's another school shooting and an armed teacher is mistakenly killed by SWAT?
153
I doubt that any of the catastrophes you mentioned could not be blamed on Obama by Trump and the right wing news media apparatchiks. Neither empirical evidence or shame has ever stopped them before.
1
I think we know the answer: President Obama.
It's all Obama's fault ! ... or black people ! or ... *massive eye roll
The school ''policies'' for many years were that if you were white, or ''connected'' in general, then you would get a pass ( or light judgement ) from authorities for any indiscretion. ( ''boys would be boys'' )
If you happen to be a minority ( or darker color skin ) for the same infraction. then you were deemed a ''gang member'', a terrorist, or a cancer to the school. Authorities were called and you were handcuffed and dragged off. ( in some cases as young as 8 years old )
President Obama tried to reverse all that. This President is trying to roll back every thing that the previous one did.
Even if it wrong or bad for the country at large.
22
Making American Racism Great Again. Keep in mind that the goal is not to reduce school violence but demonize the right Left people to get idiots to vote for GOP P.T. Barnums once more. And Republicans never underestimate American idiocy, from Reagan-era "tax reductions" that masked eliminating middle-class tax DE-ductions to Bush I's insistence that that aggression will not stand to Bush II's "Mission Accomplished"—to the current Schrodinger's Rat approach to policy—it's gonna be a law/it's not gonna be a law. Why do you think they don't want better public schools? That means smarter people.
p.s. American high schoolers: Stop marching to the halls of government and instead march into them. Run for office. The revolution will be legislated, not televised, Tweeted, Instagram'd, Twitch'd, etc.
5
I think the goal is to offer some protection to the smaller and physically weaker kids. And to teachers, as well. Why are you against that?
4
Obama has been Trumps go to guy for blame from day one. I find myself not surprised in the least. Mr Trump is a total racist that does not realize how racist he is. Imagine a sitting president who openly states that there are neo Nazis and white supremacists who are very fine people. Seems like Trump and Sessions goal is to send their buddies in the private prison business a few more clients to line their pockets. This is not about school safety, but is about overt racism and jealousy of a former president he will never measure up to.
14
Thank you Superintendent Runcie.
8
---Perfect response from trump. Walk back previous response to the Parkland shooting calling for more stringent firearms policy, instead putting the blame, essentially, on...drum roll...President Obama.
How trump-ian. How pathetic, unimaginative. How...small.
12
No surprise--Trump is a racist. We all now that. So is DeVos. They both have no clue about what life is like for the average high school student.
21
I remember comments in my 90% black classes on the day of the Sandy Hook shootings: "Only white kids gone crazy do that." 'Why do white kids do that?" "Where do they get guns like that?"
68
I remember the day that a sniper started assassinating members of the Dallas Police Department. "Hmm...I bet it's a black man mad about that fake "hands-up don't shoot" meme". "Oh, the shooter said he hated white people, what a surprise!"
Let me give you a more accurate headline and lead:
Trump's racism inflects his "solutions" for school shootings.
Trump continues showing us how much of a racist he is, by trying to change the subject from mass shootings to young black and brown students.The vast majority of mass shootings are perpetrated by white men. In this entirely predictable display of racism, Trump shows us again his almost reflexive desire to inflict violence on young black and brown bodies. This tendency was first revealed to the greater public when Trump demanded death sentences be imposed on five young men and boys, several of them minors, who came to be known as the Central Park Five. The five young men were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence. Trump has continued to insist they were guilty and defend the actions of NYPD detectives who bungled the case and forced confessions from minors. Trump's father was arrested at a KKK rally in the 1930s.
The NYT is not doing anyone favors by using euphemisms for Trump's naked racism and deep-seated desire to inflict punishment on black and brown bodies.
20
It was only a matter of time before he blamed President Obama. What took you so long?
7
A good move. Obama sought to institutionalize a racist, two-level discipline system for the same offense. That wont work and shouldn't in a juvenile oriented atmosphere.
9
Only someone from Alabama would see Obama as a racist. Do you still beleive he was born in Kenya?
14
That's an interesting argument, considering that it's completely at odds with reality.
2
Of course he does. Ask him about evolution.
1
Wow, Trump really is afraid of the NRA. This is clearly a desperate argument fashioned in haste. A black-white issue, really? It was Florida! He could at least have tried to tie it to illegal immigration. He must be getting tired. His demagoguery is slipping. SAD
10
Being called a racist is not slanderous if it is true. It seems that at this point basic tenant of conservatism is a need to shirk any and all responsibly and blame it on the black guy.
33
This “human being” is just.....each time I feel like I have words that describe what a loathsome, odious, despicable “person” he is...he plumbs new depths of immorality.
Even the word “Deplorable” does not adequately express his depravity. Where are Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell on this? Education Secretary DeVos??????
How about “daddy’s little girl?”
History will not be kind to this administration, to his supporters (yes, those who stay silent ARE indeed his supporters).
The last throes of a soon to be white minority. We as a Nation ARE far better than this and we deserve far better than this. May all our children be safe as they go about their lives - and may none of them be singled out based on the color of their skin.
13
Trump blames every one of his numerous failures on someone else. He also always sides with racists and fascists because those are the only supporters he has left.
6
Although it took longer than I thought it would...the Obama card has been played. What a surprise.....
4
Anything for Trump to distract the public from the fact that he lied about raising the age for gun purchases to 21. Our President is and always will be a pathological liar.
3
This country has a serious Christian white male problem. It’s becoming a public safety crisis that needs a legislative solution immediately.
45
Wait, there MUST be " evidence " of Clinton being involved. Perhaps she and Obama collaborated??? This is just surreal. But no longer surprising.
7
Let me put this bluntly: the kids affected by the Obama discipline guidelines aren’t shooting up schools. They ARE statically more likely to be shooting each other after school, but not during.
So while there certainly is a conversation here about the shocking and unaddressed violence among young blacks, they’re not taking their disputes to the cafeteria, slung over their shoulder and loaded for bear.
12
Hard to imagine the prime directive for this admin is not “We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to repeal every word of the past administration’s work, and to promote the truth that straight white American men are the most oppressed group on the planet.”
66
Well, I am one straight white American male who has never felt oppressed. I guess I just haven't been paying attention.
4
Oh, give The Steves a call - Bannon and Miller - I’m confident they can help us re-imagine our lot in life. Unknown if ill-fitting wardrobe is a prerequisite.
The only thing repealing the Obama era legislation will do is further ingrain institutionalized racism. The Trump trumpeters like Devos, Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh - and Fox in general - will use obfuscation and dupe their audience with their straw-man argument. I wish Mueller would hurry up!
7
Mass shooters are almost always young white males. How is trying to end discriminatory treatment of minority students going to help that? There is a word for what Trump is trying to do here. Racism.
321
That's a racist canard.
"In this bigger data set, the proportion of white mass shooters drops down to 56 percent, by my count. Judging by those newer numbers, and the most current census estimate that 76.9 percent of Americans are white, the whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme appears even less accurate. Perpetrators that Mother Jones classifies as Asian make up 7.4 percent of the data set, versus an estimated 5.7 percent of the population, while those MoJo identifies as black represent 17.0 percent of the mass shooters in the database versus an estimated 13.3 percent of the population. According to this data set, then, Asians and black Americans are overrepresented among mass shooters by about the same proportion (a bit more than one-fourth) that whites are underrepresented. This means the population rate of mass shootings by whites (at least according to the tiny sample measured in the MoJo database) is 0.021 per 100,000 people, while the corresponding rate of mass shootings by blacks is 1.7 times higher, at 0.037."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/10/what_th...
8
Reading this made me want to cry. How can these people possibly justify this to themselves. I really hate rhetoric that paints one party as the "good" guys and the other as the "bad", but I don't understand how someone could take an act by a white male and use it as justification to target minorities.
432
The Trayvon Martin murder was a fine example of this very principle.
2
It's called "Machiavellian". Making you want to cry means it's working.
6
I felt the same way. it made me so sad. We have to vote these people out. They are so cruel.
1
Trump is foolish to back away from his original gun control aims, and to mix in the Obama policy. That said, however, the effort to artificially adjust punishment based on race that the former administration pushed, while not connected to mass shootings, is deserving of removal on its own lack of merits and race based social engineering.
6
George you do understand that Obama was trying to ensure equal punishment not disproportionate as is the norm based on race?
9
Mb, there should absolutely be equal punishment without regard to the demographics involved. But when districts are afraid they will be labeled racist or discriminatory if the numbers don't show parity in discipline without regard to the underlying conduct or repetitive behavior of a few, then you get a race driven quota system for punishment.
3
But the whole point was that there was a disparity of treatment with regard to the same underlying conduct!
3
Trump seems to have a racial animus in taking on anything that Obama accomplished. Maybe he is afraid of a legacy that people from all backgrounds can get things done, not just whites.
16
How is this unlikely? Trump chose the most racist way to respond. Seems quite predictable to me.
16
An so the hatred continues, unabated, by those who are not worthy to utter the name Abraham Lincoln, by those having zero moral fiber, by those who came into enormous wealth and power not through any accomplishments of their own but by circumstance. That they equate money with a mandate to act without a conscience is unforgivable. The book "How the Right Almost Destroyed America" will be certain to include a special chapter for DeVos.
6
The president has to blame somebody for the spate of school shootings, so why not the former president or black students, many of whom are victims of mass shootings. The NRA certainly isn't to blame for mass killings, so it must be that black students who pose the greatest danger to society.
One deranged student slipped through the cracks and committed these murders but now the fault of school violence seems to be unruly minority children. The president's message is that being soft on black students is the same as being soft on crime, always a major Republican talking point.
16
Chicken man (the President who folded like a cheap suit when the NRA came to W.H.) has done only one thing about guns. He signed a law removing restrictions on a limited number of people with mental problems from owning guns. Chicken man does have two thing in common with the gun guys. None of them will admit to the fact that guns were invented for one purpose - to kill. And they will not stop in their efforts to make sure that everybody owns at least one lethal weapon.
7
He couldnt think this up on his own; the NRA told him to say this. What facts isn this allegation based on? How many of our mass shooters gave outward signs of aggression or required school discipline? AND if they were disciplined and expelled, as Cruz was, that does not prevent their purchase of an assault rifle.
3
Hang on. You write that Rubio wrote DeVos that "...failure to report troubled students, like Cruz, to law enforcement can have dangerous repercussions.” Then you write that this was an "an odd point," for the shooter did not "evade disciplinary procedure" and had been expelled. But there's a big difference between school discipline and the police! it appears that Rubio was worried that the Obama rules made it harder for schools to report students to law enforcement. Did the Obama rules make it harder or not? Instead of making fun of Rubio, maybe answer that question?
3
Wrong question the police and FBI were informed. Because this was a white guy, nothing happened. Same with Dylan Roof.
15
What are the tea leaves reciting this morning: 33 to 40 percent of Americans think he is more than just OK? And we're going to conduct a democracy in this place?
1
I’m surprised that Trump didn’t try to blame Hilary Clinton as well. Instead of shedding real tears like POTUS 44 Trump is gloating over the GOP dropping the ball.
I support the Parkland students and others who want to take a common sense approach towards guns.
247
He doesn’t shed tears, he makes light about these tragedies and uses them for his own personal gain. He’s a monster himself.
1
Name one mass school shooting committed by a non-white male student.
4
Virginia Tech
4
That's the only one you've got, dude. The exception that proves the rule.
There are plenty here:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones...
1
As has been said before: if Obama cured cancer, Trump would try to reverse that. What an awful, vengeful man. PB
9
Trump is a despicable thug in trying to blame Obama for school shootings. Seeking a collaboration within an educational establishment, without resorting prematurely to outside police forces, is the right thing to do. This 'ugly American' is a racist and a coward, always seeking scapegoats for his own incompetence and dedicated support of an agency drenched in blood, the N.R.A., by making access to weapons of mass destruction widely and readily available, and contributing mightily to the mowing down of so many innocent victims. Where are we, the people, intent in finding societal peace, by not calling Trump's inaction as hypocritical? Unless we are happy to be complicit in the mayhem. Can't we see we are currently living in an institutionalized violence, while manipulative demagogue Trump is laughing at us, a liar whenever he opens his big mouth?
2
Trump is so predictable. He always falls back on the unwritten rule of his people, "When all else fails, blame the black guy."
7
Is there nothing that is Obama's fault? Next up, Ms. Daniels is Barack's cousin and Trump was just a patsy to be set up.
2
Is there anything in this wide world that, according to Trump, is not Obama's fault? I think not. Including the inescapable fact that Obama has more personal grace in his little finger than Trump has in his entire corpus. This drives our current Potus mad. Sad.
8
So yeah, the school shooters have all been black...oh, wait, none of them have? Still, the gun massacres have to be Obama's fault, or Hillary's, or both. We have a madman in the white house.
7
Trump is so gross I can't believe it. Black students have never caused the mass shootings but he wants to crack down on them because someday one might? So disgusting and racist. When will this oppressive nightmare end? Vote them all out ASAP.
7
These people are really something.
Blame black students for murders committed by white students.
Blame Obama for everything.
Put MORE guns in schools.
It's hard to even know how to react anymore. Our country has gone badly off the rails.
17
Shocker: Trump admin finds way to blame program that aids minorities.
4
We have got to get rid of this fake President. His jealousy and hatred for anything Obama is sick and harmful to us all.
5
When the Broward County Superintendent is making a lot more sense than state-wide and national-wide elected leaders in the Federal Government, you have to wonder what is happening in D.C.
Obama's suggestions on school discipline was a well-researched and strongly-argued plea to keep students in school and provide the mental health care that is needed for our youth—to disrupt the pipeline from drop out to convict.
The quotidian Republican misdirection to their own base, in order to hold onto their own base, is an insult to logic and leaves us with no other alternative than to question the morals and motivations of those in power.
160
Exactly why they are known as deplorables
7
Once more Donald Trump reveals his anti-science bias by proposing explanations that are counter to the data.
116
At some point, Trump supporters will realize American can’t be great if the right wing media noise machine informs their votes. Hope there is something left to save but that time.
6
The main question remains: Do black children commit offenses which merit expulsion more than white students? Until that base rate question is answered, and it has never been answered, we cannot determine if the policy is fair. Everyone must be treated fairly. But the notion that all children are equally likely is simply wrong.
4
I think the most relevant part of this discussion is in the second paragraph of this article:
"Black students have never been the culprits in the mass shootings that have shocked the nation’s conscience"
5
All children are different and that has nothing to do with race. That wasn't the basis for the Obama regs. They were pretty balanced considering white males are much more likely to shoot up a school.
1
The imposters who are posing as our national leaders -- including Trump, DeVos, and Rubio -- continue to demonstrate that they know nothing about school safety and even less about how to ensure it. In this instance, they are -- apparently for political purposes -- conflating two issues that are largely unrelated. Kids of color are, in fact, on the receiving end of disproportionate numbers of detentions, suspensions, and arrests at school, and that's clearly a problem worth solving. School discipline is already extremely punitive, and misguided zero tolerance policies were, at least partially, a reaction to Columbine. The research tells us that zero tolerance policies made things worse. If our incurious, impulsive President had less faith in his own errant, uninformed instincts and actually read the research and consulted with people in the trenches, maybe he'd be in a position to lead the charge on this issue. In the meantime, our kids are still at risk and things aren't great at all for everyone in America's schools. That's not leadership...and that's not just sad, it's tragic.
23
All the school shooters have shared these characteristics:
white
male
ethnic Christian
access to guns
So yeah, clearly it's Obama's fault for encouraging schools not to treat black students like potential criminals.
641
And All the school shooters most likely shared this behavior:
The all voted for Donald Trump.
6
Everything is Obama's fault. Unless the fault lies with HIllary's emails.
6
False, the Virginia Tech shooter was not white. What they all have in common is mental illness.
3