There is plenty of blame to go all around. As a teacher in a inner-city middle school full of “at-risk” children, I can testify that many parents will have nothing to do with disciplining their children. Many of them will frankly tell me that they can’t do anything with their children at home either. One of the main reasons for this is that their is essentially no parenting in these homes. Less than 20% of my students live with both their parents (the national figure for African-American children is 28%), and the single moms that are trying to raise their children often work evenings, so a lot of these kids essentially raise themselves. Discipline problems are incredible for all the teachers at my school.
On the other hand, there are many poor teachers. In fact, these poor students are stuck with the worst teachers their entire lives. Because the teachers’ unions want all teachers to be paid the same, teachers naturally want to teach at the suburban schools where kids behave better and are willing to learn and where parents care. So schools like mine get the leftovers and rejects (and a few who genuinely want to help poor kids). There were four math teaching vacancies at the beginning of the school year at the “worst” middle school in our district, so those students were “taught” by subs for weeks until teachers were found who would work there.
A long-term teacher at my school was dismissed for throwing things at students (a year after he was sued by another student for assault). He was put on paid administrative leave for four months while this incident was investigated, and he immediately got another job in an adjacent school district.
