This week at my job at a Twin Cities charter school, I was asked to review their new discipline policy. In accordance with the state of Minnesota, and also the school's own standards, the document stretched 17 pages, addressing everything from what constitutes (and how to respond to) food fights, firearms, bullying, sexual harassment, improper dress, etc. It's good to cover your bases. But I also saw the difficulty of making statewide educational policy when schools from neighborhood to neighborhood are so different -- not to mention schools from city to small town. While we all want safe and effective schools, it occurred to me that the nature of student body behavior determines a large part of how to respond to instances of misbehavior. The rigidity of broad policy, however, disallows such flexibility. This is the inherent catch-22 of law. According to state policy, students who are disruptive in class ought to be punished according to the severity of the disruption....(Read Full Article)