"If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake
That will be punishment as well as the prison."
― Crime and Punishment
That will be punishment as well as the prison."
― Crime and Punishment
One twitter academic has claimed schools that exclude students exacerbate existing mental health problems in already vulnerable students. The author of the study argues that there is "bi-directional" causality between being excluded and poor mental health outcomes. It was pointed out by @oldandrewuk that there are kids who behave badly enough to be excluded but aren't excluded and that this has bad consequences for them and everyone else. This was the reply:
Anecdote does not equate to evidence- those children not excluded but still struggling will be in the comparison group against those excluded in the datasets that I & others have analysed- they almost certainly don’t do well but children who are excluded do demonstrably worse
-- Tamsin Ford #FBPE (@Tamsin_J_Ford) December 20, 2018
The conclusion that excluded children "do worse" was reached by comparing two groups at similar "starting points" according to a survey on behaviour and mental health. One group were excluded and the other group were not and "all other things being equal" the ones who were excluded had worse overall outcomes. I didn't want to pay 25 quid to read a paper that was clearly flawed but you can tell the author has missed the point of what schools hope to achieve when they exclude in a way far more profound than the poor design of the study. Spoiler alert: it's not just about the person excluded but justice, safety and the general wellbeing of the school community.
The point that maybe the kids who were excluded behaved worse than those who weren't excluded making subsequent worse outcomes unsuprising was not rebutted by the academic.
She argued that there must have been some environmental/non-pupil related factors involved in why some were excluded and others were not. I think she meant "stricter" schools excluded more kids and/or helped them less. No evidence is provided for this conclusion so I assume she's assuming. Imagine it was the case, and imagine these measures of mental health are meaningful and not just manipulated to reach the conclusion the author clearly wants, that means that vulnerable kids stayed within schools and presumably did some really bad stuff (although the author doesn't tell us what the bad stuff is), weren't excluded and were better off as a result. In the meantime, the ones at the strict school did the same amount of bad stuff (inferred from the baseline) but were held accountable, were excluded and suffered as a result. Seems pretty obviously true in a prima facie kind of way; I don't think you'll hear anyone arguing that excluding kids is always good for the kids who are excluded. Being excluded is a "bad thing" for the person excluded, after all. This isn't exactly headline material.
Let's assume that the dubious and hard to verify conclusion: "exclusion further damages already vulnerable kids", is true. This gives credence to those who argue people in prison are there because of incompetent or heartless heads who weren't able to "offer the support" these kids needed. The obvious policy conclusion is that exclusion is bad and should be reduced. The obvious Daily Mail headline is "cruel heads damage mental health".
These kind of headlines lead to people accusing schools of being vile and evil. Let's think about this for a second, exclusion is one of the most stressful and challenging things a school leader has to do. I am not saying that to get sympathy but just to make it clear that it's never something undertaken lightly by anyone. It happens when we need to protect the safety of the rest of the community and when all else has failed and it requires substantial documentation of all the support systems that have been put in place. Headlines never include the hours of time that teachers and other professionals put into supporting the children involved. Headlines also never include details of the types of disruptive behaviour that prevent many other students from achieving their potential. Headlines also never include the potentially excellent work that alternative provisions CAN offer because the nuance of the study saying exclusion is probably, just-about, more-often-than-not "bad" for the expelled kids (not including everyone else) is lost on the general public and they see "evil schools who exclude damage kids". Despite this, in the paper mentioned, the trite conclusion reached is "efforts to identify and support children who struggle with school may, therefore, prevent both future exclusion and future psychiatric disorder". Slow clap. Thanks for that, I had never thought of identifying and getting support for people, that's a really good idea. I'm sure all those schools who go around excluding anyone who causes the slightest amount of trouble will be grateful for this whizzbang notion.
Schools already do work extremely hard, every day, to identify and support students who struggle. The fact that on average kids with complex needs that could lead to exclusion do better in schools that exclude less doesn't mean that the kids who did get excluded were in schools that didn't identify and support students. That's an assumption the author has reached to explain why the excluded kids did less well without the obvious possibility that they just did worse stuff. If we accept that there are some deterministic elements involved with behaviour can't we also accept there is always some element of choice? Taking away agency is dehumanising (not to mention patronising). Caring is all about high-expectations for behaviour and following through, this structure provides the calm and order that many vulnerable SEN students thrive upon. When you stop believing that even the most hard-to-reach students can change you lower your expectations of them and send the message to the rest of the community that certain behaviours will be tolerated because of background difficulties. The message to all the rest of the students, many of whom also have mental health problems and family issues, is that their needs aren't as important as those who are more openly challenging, violent or aggressive. The logic of these arguments leads to the following absurd position. When kid 1 (with many challenges) violently assaults kid 2 (more or less equal challenges), the violence of kid 1 is so outwardly troubling that his needs must be greater and so he goes UP on the vulnerability scale and gets greater support. Because there is an obvious advantage of being "more" vulnerable in the sense that your needs are greater so the scale of the provision is greater, kid 2 just got beaten up, moved down the list of priorities and must spend the rest of his school life with kid 1. A triple whammy of humiliation for an already extremely vulnerable kid. Anyone going to measure his outcomes?
Kicking kids out is the final straw and it cannot be undertaken lightly because undertaking it lightly is illegal. Because it's part and parcel of school life, you will never be without a shortage of families who feel hard done by and you will never be without a shortage of cases where exclusion was genuinely badly done. This doesn't provide good evidence for why you should make it more difficult. Expelling a kid is the "nuclear" option. We know instinctively it's potentially damaging but we also know it's potentially very helpful. It's a minefield. There isn't really a way of knowing in advance which of the two groups any particular case will fall into because of the uniqueness of the circumstances but heads need to be trusted to do what's best for the whole community including the child who is being excluded but not limited to the child being excluded. Without this option being available at all really bad things can happen to staff and other students. Let's give this report the benefit of the doubt and say that expelling kids is much more frequently damaging to them and sends them on a school-to-prison pipeline. What are the alternatives?
The application of sanctions to reduce or prevent behaviours that societies don't want is fundamental to our economic and social freedom, safety, and wellbeing. People need to be protected in order for a society to function. Better and worse prison systems exist, yes, but there is no system without any type of prison despite the chances of criminals doing more crime when they leave being pretty high. There is not a society that can function without some level of "serious sanction". For me, exclusion is like sending someone to prison, you only ever do it when the other options have been exhausted, when the problem is frequent and when you need to protect. You might also hope the sentence could help the person to change but you know it's not guaranteed. Judges are also aware of the potential of prisoners to become better, more well-connected criminals whilst in jail. They also realise that jails are full of young men with mental health problems. Reaching the conclusion that because of the imperfections of jail "we should reduce prison sentences and support more" is a non-sequitur because we have no way of knowing what the consequences of doing that would be on society more generally because the impact on others is a hidden cost. The same goes for school exclusions. The level and amount of sanctions available to school leaders is pretty low. We can't fine them so kids often pay with their time, do some community service or waste some time after school in detention. Then you chat, keep it real and things move on. More often than not this works. When we do that we show them we care about them and we show the rest of the school we mean business when it comes to our values. Not doing that, blaming teachers for poor behaviour and generally saying well, "if we just met their needs all would be good" is an intellectual Xanadu. Rules of all types exist to limit the darker sides of our nature and guide us towards the light of reason and peaceful coexistence. Rules, consequences, exclusions and prisons couldn’t be eliminated by "meeting societal needs" because how can we possibly know what they all are? Doesnt mean we don’t try but there is a danger of all or nothing thinking here.
Let's assume that the dubious and hard to verify conclusion: "exclusion further damages already vulnerable kids", is true. This gives credence to those who argue people in prison are there because of incompetent or heartless heads who weren't able to "offer the support" these kids needed. The obvious policy conclusion is that exclusion is bad and should be reduced. The obvious Daily Mail headline is "cruel heads damage mental health".
These kind of headlines lead to people accusing schools of being vile and evil. Let's think about this for a second, exclusion is one of the most stressful and challenging things a school leader has to do. I am not saying that to get sympathy but just to make it clear that it's never something undertaken lightly by anyone. It happens when we need to protect the safety of the rest of the community and when all else has failed and it requires substantial documentation of all the support systems that have been put in place. Headlines never include the hours of time that teachers and other professionals put into supporting the children involved. Headlines also never include details of the types of disruptive behaviour that prevent many other students from achieving their potential. Headlines also never include the potentially excellent work that alternative provisions CAN offer because the nuance of the study saying exclusion is probably, just-about, more-often-than-not "bad" for the expelled kids (not including everyone else) is lost on the general public and they see "evil schools who exclude damage kids". Despite this, in the paper mentioned, the trite conclusion reached is "efforts to identify and support children who struggle with school may, therefore, prevent both future exclusion and future psychiatric disorder". Slow clap. Thanks for that, I had never thought of identifying and getting support for people, that's a really good idea. I'm sure all those schools who go around excluding anyone who causes the slightest amount of trouble will be grateful for this whizzbang notion.
Schools already do work extremely hard, every day, to identify and support students who struggle. The fact that on average kids with complex needs that could lead to exclusion do better in schools that exclude less doesn't mean that the kids who did get excluded were in schools that didn't identify and support students. That's an assumption the author has reached to explain why the excluded kids did less well without the obvious possibility that they just did worse stuff. If we accept that there are some deterministic elements involved with behaviour can't we also accept there is always some element of choice? Taking away agency is dehumanising (not to mention patronising). Caring is all about high-expectations for behaviour and following through, this structure provides the calm and order that many vulnerable SEN students thrive upon. When you stop believing that even the most hard-to-reach students can change you lower your expectations of them and send the message to the rest of the community that certain behaviours will be tolerated because of background difficulties. The message to all the rest of the students, many of whom also have mental health problems and family issues, is that their needs aren't as important as those who are more openly challenging, violent or aggressive. The logic of these arguments leads to the following absurd position. When kid 1 (with many challenges) violently assaults kid 2 (more or less equal challenges), the violence of kid 1 is so outwardly troubling that his needs must be greater and so he goes UP on the vulnerability scale and gets greater support. Because there is an obvious advantage of being "more" vulnerable in the sense that your needs are greater so the scale of the provision is greater, kid 2 just got beaten up, moved down the list of priorities and must spend the rest of his school life with kid 1. A triple whammy of humiliation for an already extremely vulnerable kid. Anyone going to measure his outcomes?
Kicking kids out is the final straw and it cannot be undertaken lightly because undertaking it lightly is illegal. Because it's part and parcel of school life, you will never be without a shortage of families who feel hard done by and you will never be without a shortage of cases where exclusion was genuinely badly done. This doesn't provide good evidence for why you should make it more difficult. Expelling a kid is the "nuclear" option. We know instinctively it's potentially damaging but we also know it's potentially very helpful. It's a minefield. There isn't really a way of knowing in advance which of the two groups any particular case will fall into because of the uniqueness of the circumstances but heads need to be trusted to do what's best for the whole community including the child who is being excluded but not limited to the child being excluded. Without this option being available at all really bad things can happen to staff and other students. Let's give this report the benefit of the doubt and say that expelling kids is much more frequently damaging to them and sends them on a school-to-prison pipeline. What are the alternatives?
The application of sanctions to reduce or prevent behaviours that societies don't want is fundamental to our economic and social freedom, safety, and wellbeing. People need to be protected in order for a society to function. Better and worse prison systems exist, yes, but there is no system without any type of prison despite the chances of criminals doing more crime when they leave being pretty high. There is not a society that can function without some level of "serious sanction". For me, exclusion is like sending someone to prison, you only ever do it when the other options have been exhausted, when the problem is frequent and when you need to protect. You might also hope the sentence could help the person to change but you know it's not guaranteed. Judges are also aware of the potential of prisoners to become better, more well-connected criminals whilst in jail. They also realise that jails are full of young men with mental health problems. Reaching the conclusion that because of the imperfections of jail "we should reduce prison sentences and support more" is a non-sequitur because we have no way of knowing what the consequences of doing that would be on society more generally because the impact on others is a hidden cost. The same goes for school exclusions. The level and amount of sanctions available to school leaders is pretty low. We can't fine them so kids often pay with their time, do some community service or waste some time after school in detention. Then you chat, keep it real and things move on. More often than not this works. When we do that we show them we care about them and we show the rest of the school we mean business when it comes to our values. Not doing that, blaming teachers for poor behaviour and generally saying well, "if we just met their needs all would be good" is an intellectual Xanadu. Rules of all types exist to limit the darker sides of our nature and guide us towards the light of reason and peaceful coexistence. Rules, consequences, exclusions and prisons couldn’t be eliminated by "meeting societal needs" because how can we possibly know what they all are? Doesnt mean we don’t try but there is a danger of all or nothing thinking here.
One possible consequence of making it harder to exclude is that schools could resort to using the police to deal with in-school discipline issues in order to avoid impunity for serious discipline issues. Instead of dealing with sexual assault, verbal abuse, harassment and fraud through a well-established framework of well-communicated guidelines with expulsion right at the top as the last resort, school leaders could be forced to call the police more. What would that do for our school-to-prison pipeline problem? If the power of a head is restricted they will be forced to rely more on the very same coercive functions of the state that studies like this (very reasonably) seek to protect children from.
The reason why using the fact that expulsion is sometimes (but not always) bad for the excluded kis to further reduce expulsions is remarkably naive is that there's no way of knowing what the impact of making it even MORE difficult to expel kids would be on the overall wellbeing of each individual school, community and society more generally. People in the UK are remarkably lucky to live and work in a place where the rule of law functions most of the time. The rule of law cannot function without consequences, this is the essence of the word "impunity". Where there is corruption there is impunity and where there is impunity there is the dread sense of insecurity and impending chaos.
Reaching the conclusion that exclusion, on the whole, is bad for the excluded kids is incredibly obvious and incredibly unhelpful. Reaching the conclusion that because of exclusion being bad for kids schools should "help kids more and expel less", is actively damaging because it implies support doesn't already happen and exclusion isnt a last resort. We know it's often bad for the kid; not excluding is also often bad for the kid and others. If it was always good it wouldn't be so difficult to do and we wouldn't feel so awful about it. This strikes me as remarkably obvious as a middle school principal but it's probably not obvious to someone who has never worked in a school. Faced with a choice between the risk of either good or bad consequences for a repeatedly violent student and guaranteed bad consequences for his victims I will take the risk. Not only is that the healthiest option for my conscience it's also one of the founding principles of a just society.
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