Teachers experience a growing number of angry, abusive parents

[proud2BlibKansan]

The enraged mother of a kindergartner stormed into her child’s classroom. She allegedly punched her kid’s teacher in the face, grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head twice into a file cabinet.

It made national news for its shock value. But the nation’s public school teachers and principals were not at all surprised at the violent outburst this month at a Hickman Mills elementary school.

They’ve had to contend with a growing number of angry and sometimes abusive parents in recent years.

“When I saw that on the news,” said retired Kansas City principal Roxanne Pearce, “those were the things that gave you the headaches and upset stomach.”

Whether they work in poor urban districts or affluent suburban ones, experts say, teachers and administrators are increasingly becoming punching bags and targets of verbal abuse by students as well as their parents.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/14/4481648/when-parents-abuse-teachers.html#storylink=cpy

[gopiscrap]

1. Yup, my wife is a teacher and has found that to be true

she works in an inner city school and much of it is due to the frustration and sorrow of poverty in the lives of the families of students she teaches.

[Rebellious Republican]

10. Spot on!!!!!!

[BrotherIvan]

13. It's that and working two to three jobs

I also worked in a low income school. Parents were so overworked and underpaid, they could not participate in school activities, back-to-school nights, etc.

But the biggest problem is all the talk that teachers are bad which leads leads to no respect from administrators, parents or students. Kids are allowed to cuss out a teacher with very little reprimand. Parents are allowed to abuse teachers because they are lowly public servants, union thugs. Teachers are threatened and belittled from all sides, including the Department of Education. In all the countries I have visited, teachers are held in high regard, and their educational systems reap the benefit. If we truly cared about education (as more than just a path to monetary gain but a worthwhile goal in and of itself) we would treat teachers far better.

[DebJ]

14. Absolutely!! And in our neck of the woods, this helps them get rid of high salaries,

which is a primary goal. They don't care how good a teacher is; they just want low paychecks.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. Students, parents, and even teachers are getting fed up with how broken our public school system is.

I am furious, but I have never verbally abused any of my son's teachers even though I really did not like his math teacher last year. My son's math teacher was also his IEP advocate but he never advocated for my son. He just blamed him for not trying hard enough. My son was placed in a math class that was two years more advanced than his comprehension level. Our system is broken and people are angry. I am angry. But I think our anger would be better directed at the state and federal government for not funding education and for putting Race to the Top in place. We also need to direct our anger at our state legislators for making state standardized test scores a requirement for graduation, and city school districts who come up with crazy rules such as all students must take grade level math or English(I have encountered this in two different school districts). It is time to fight back but I see no need in verbally assaulting our teachers. Many of them are on our side and we are on their side.

[Igel]

6. They push to keep kids with their age cohort.

There are all kinds of education studies that show that's best for the kid. (Whether education studies are worth the price of used toilet paper, there's another topic. Haven't seen the research, my life is irritating enough as it is.)

I think AYP is also based on not failing students. My school has a push to increase grades. Yeah--grades will increase. Then there'll be the recriminations--"How is it that grades increased but the test scores stayed the same?"

It's an issue with gifted/talented kids. And with SpEd/504s. They used to have pull-outs, but those are a no-no now.

The "best practice" is to leave the kid in level math (or whatever other subject) had have small-group instruction in class, possibly with a paraprofessional, pitched at the kids' level. This relies on funding and teacher brilliance. It's hard to juggle all the different groups in one class without assistance.

Funding is a SpEd issue. The federal government's never fully funded it; SCOTUS has repeatedly derived all kinds of restrictions and requirements that they place on schools that were never foreseen in the legislation or Constitution and has no funding mechanism. On a good day the SCOTUS-produced regulations are put into law and Congress funds them.

Otherwise funding, except in the most deprived schools, isn't a serious issue.

[liberal_at_heart]

8. I agree with most of what you said except the funding issue. Class sizes are too big in a lot of

schools. My daughter's school was in an affluent area and a lot of their money went to sports teams and stadiums. Hiring teachers always seems to be a low priority for schools. Also I can see a difference when my kids are being taught by a teacher who has a Master in Ed and continuing education through the school district versus being taught by a teacher who does not have a Masters and who does not get continuing ed from the school district. Thirty years ago the federal and state governments funded K-12 and even universities much much more than they do now. Reagan kind of screwed us on that and no one has bothered to fix it yet.

[Rebellious Republican]

9. I concur the system is broken, its not the system that is at its core, its a symptom of a greater..

problem. Read gopiscrap's post.

[liberal_at_heart]

11. yeah, I agree with gopiscrap's post. Poverty is a big part of it.

[uponit7771]

20. If we spend HALF the money on education as we do defense there would be less complaining

[FarCenter]

24. Actually, we spend more on education than on defense

Federal, state and local spending on education is $935 billion in Fiscal Year 2013, while defense spending is $858 billion.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20.html

And that doesn't count privately paid tuition or other school related spending by parents.

[LWolf]

25. Interesting.

That's not what the chart on this page of the same website seems to indicate.

http://www.usfederalbudget.us/federal_budget_estimate_vs_actual

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/budget_pie_gs.php

Of course, state and local funding is variable; some states spend more than others.

States also have a military budget. State spending isn't included when looking at the percentage of federal spending on education or on the military.

[FarCenter]

33. The federal budget for education is small, but the state and local ones are large

Education has always been largely a state and local funded activity. And the total of federal state and local funding for education is bigger than it is for defense.

The National Guard is included in the federal defense budget. There is only $1.2 billion of state defense spending for veterans.

[LWolf]

34. The bottom line, though,

is that the Federal Government spends much more on defense than it does on education. Those state expenditures aren't funds going to the feds to disburse back to states.

Including state expenditures artificially inflates those statistics. It also doesn't reflect actual spending in individual states.

Education has always been largely a state and local funded activity, while the federal government assumes more and more control of the whole system without adding significantly to that funding. Unfunded and under-funded federal mandates are the norm in education.

Which again, is beside the point. When we are talking about national budgets, state expenditures aren't included.

[FarCenter]

35. uponit7771 didn't specify whether "we" meant just federal or total spending

Limiting the spending calculation to federal funds only is artificial. Total spending is what matters, and there is no reason to flow taxes through the federal government and then back to state and local government.

[LWolf]

36. .

Sure.

[uponit7771]

38. I disagree, there should be a floor on education spending and there's not. THat floor could be set

...by sending the funds through the feds

[uponit7771]

37. Apples to apples we STILL spend more on defense then, FEDREAL spending on education is not half

...of what the defense

[jaysunb]

3. 30 years of "children having children."

This is one of the many predictable results.

[madfloridian]

4. Oh, heck yeh. Another post about this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023634611

With a cartoon that says it all.

[MichiganVote]

5. Out of control, the systems,the expectations,the kids,the parents

But that's ok, we can always count on another school shooting.

Too much?

Too bad.

[xfundy]

7. Thank Raygun

and Bill Bennett. Their intention, which has mostly succeeded, was to dumb 'Murrica down. And it worked.

Fuck you, Raygun, as you sit next to Hitler, being burned and constantly having your flesh regenerated so you can burn again.

[earthside]

28. Add Bush and Obama.

This whole anti-teacher agenda that started with 'No Child Left Behind' and continues with 'Race to the Top' is much to blame for the poor attitude a lot of folks have now towards teachers.

Indeed, the 'accountability' crusade directed at teachers has found its biggest advocates in Pres. Obama's Department of Education.

Sure, the seeds of this 'standardization' and charter/private schools policy were planted with Reagan and Bennett. But those seeds have been watered and nurtured by Bush-Obama.

The testing-standardization education scheme has failed, yet more and more money is poured into it. Now we've got a nationalized curriculum and more emphasis on so-called 'teacher accountability' -- there will undoubtedly be more incidents like the one recounted in the OP.

[msongs]

12. Politicians and our government has declared war on teachers, parents are joining in nt

[DebJ]

15. Because many parents believe they have zero to do with their own children's education.

Education is merely a 'product' they purchase via taxes. Drop the kid off in the morning,
et voila! The student is supposed to return brilliant. Despite video gaming until 2am.

[missingthebigdog]

29. Do you understand that your attitude is part of th problem?

While it may be true that there are parents who do not do all that they can to help their kids succeed, there are many more who do.
Too many teachers and administrators use parents as a scapegoat; an excuse for not doing everything THEY can.
Whether by accident or design, an adversarial system has developed wherein teachers blame parents, parents blame teachers, and kids lose.

[liberal_at_heart]

30. yes, frankly I get tired of hearing parents and teachers blame each other. We should be working

together to get the legislators to fund our schools, stop using state standardized tests to punish students and teachers, and come up with policies that help poverty stricken students do better in school. IF there is an enemy here it is the people who are intentionally trying to defund our public school system. We are not the enemy.

[delrem]

16. The debate: spend on education, health, infrastructure, or spend on war.

[Suich]

17. My niece is a teacher in British Columbia.

She had to get a restraining order against one of the moms.

Times have definitely changed, eh?

[Skittles]

21. yes they have

back in "my day" LOL you got in trouble with the teacher AND your parents

[freshwest]

18. Used to post on a board where tea partiers in suburban schools told their kids that the teachers

were evil liberals and encouraged them - even from elementary school age - to curse at them and refuse to follow any instructions, which they called indoctrination. This is standard CT meme.

When the kid got into trouble for disrupting, the father went to school and buliied the teachers in front of the class. I know one who actually did it.

They proudly highfived each other online for getting back at liberals. The hate in this country is out of control.

Fascism is not as some people think, from the top up, but from grassroots with people embracing a form of populism where they will destroy anyone they think is above them. In pay, salary, whatever.

[ReRe]

19. This society is broken...

... from top to bottom. "Exceptionally" broken.

[devils chaplain]

26. I agree...

Troubled areas create troubled schools.

[B Calm]

22. The violence stems from conservatives hatred of public education.

[OregonBlue]

23. I agree. Not a day goes by that the right does not tell us that the teachers are the problem.

[kelliekat44]

27. It all begins in the home. There is a certain lack of respect for public servants (teachers too)

that is fostered in homes at all income levels. Until parents practice as well as preach respect for authority and certain kinds of professions our society will continue to deteriorate at its roots. law enforcement has stopped earning the respect of citizens and is now seen by many communities as the enemy (in many cases they are the enemy) because they themselves have not been taught self-respect and respect of others. Many are in that profession for dubious reasons. Those professions that seem to garner the most respect from parents and children alike are the professions that are self-aggrandizing, self-centered, and materialistic. It wasn't always that way. We all need to look at ourselves and what we are doing or not doing in our own homes to foster the demise of our society.

[maynard]

31. Middle income school

I work in a middle income, middle school and our parents sense of entitlement reflects in their children. Add in the fact that I teach special education, I also deal with parent advocates that make my life a living hell. The harassment from those advocates and their stay at home moms, would have made me quit had I been in the first 5 years of teaching. My 30 years of experience is still not enough to take away the mental beating that I constantly take. Income has nothing to do with entitlement. ......and of course.....they want to tie in teacher evaluations to test scores. If I were a new teacher, I would not last long in the teaching field. Teaching is not as fun as it used to be. We have three different rounds of major testing we do at my school. Only one of them counts for the new version of "No Child Left Behind." Why do we do the other two? It looks good for the school and keeps the District personnel happy.

Does it sound like I am excited to go to school tomorrow? Too exhausted to know the difference.

[malaise]

32. Thank the ReTHUG politicians

They declared open season on teachers, and all other government workers.