"There are those that believe that by suspending kids we are building a pipeline to prison. I think that by not, we are," McQueen says. "I think we're telling these kids you don't have to be on time for anything, we're just going to talk to you. You can assault somebody and we're gonna let you come back here."
Harding teachers are terrified the district is sending kids into the world with distorted expectations of reality. They're unprepared for college. They're taught to disrespect authority. Sooner or later, they'll realize they were cheated, Brandt says.
But most teachers are afraid to speak out. Tenure, after all, doesn't come until after three years on the job. And even those with tenure fear transfers and endless performance evaluations.
At John A. Johnson Elementary on the East Side, several teachers, who asked to remain anonymous, describe anything but a learning environment. Students run up and down the hallways, slamming lockers and tearing posters off the walls. They hit and swear at each other, upend garbage cans under teachers' noses.
"We have students who will spend an hour in the hallway just running and hiding from people, like it's a game for them," says one despondent teacher. "A lot of them know no one is going to stop them, so they just continue."
Nine teachers at Ramsey Middle School have quit since the beginning of this school year. Some left for other districts. Others couldn't withstand the escalating anarchy.
In mid-April, staff at Battle Creek Elementary penned a letter to their principal over "concerns about building wide safety, both physical and emotional, as well as the deteriorating learning environment."
