The Shell Game

I usually don't like it when my kids get suspended. I know they (most) often deserve it and I know that schools need some serious consequences, so I don't raise a fuss. But I still regret the poor choices that my kids make and try to help them make better choices in the future. But sometimes... sometimes.

I got a suspension notification for a child that I just don't like that much. He is quiet and often appeared well-behaved, but appearances can be deceiving. He was a liar, and a damn good one. I figured out awhile ago that he cheated on most of his tests and assignments and that I had to watch him like a hawk. Even when confronted with evidence, he would lie about it. Bold-faced lies. He had obviously learned (long, long ago) that adults will back down if he appeared confident. I had an extra year to figure out his tricks, so I started this year ahead of the curve.

And you know, I think he is very low-skilled. I think he was (is) embarassed by his lack of academic (and English) knowledge, and learned to cheat to cover it up. Eventually, he got better at cheating than at learning. So now he just cheats and is too scared to think. I tried, really I did, to change my thinking about him and treat him with all kindness and openness. I tried to encourage him to open up to learning and trying new things. We won't see if it would have worked out, though.

Suddenly, a day after the suspension, I got a drop form. It struck me as strange, and I happened to get the back story. It turns out he doesn't live in our neighborhood so he got booted to his "real" school. He's gone to my high school for three years; there is nothing "real" about this other school. Furthermore, will it do any good?

It is alleged that he was seen by the police breaking into neighborhood houses. (He, of course, denied all allegations.) We want to clean up our school, though, so we got rid of him. Did we rehabilitate him? No. Did we get him counseling? No. Have we changed in any real way the type of education he will receive? No. We just shifted him one school over.

A few years ago, my friend Cat went to a meeting in my former town, looking at the test scores in one particularly poor-performing school. Well, their scores went up! yay! But, when the entire district was analyzed, it turns out it was all a sham. Some students had left the school, but their scores didn't rise; their scores followed them to their new school. It's a shell game. We move the cups around, but the nut doesn't change.

So my kid? He's been moved. In this town, it could have some real consequences for him. With the new information we have, it's conceivable that he is dealing or holding, and the new school might have a whole slew of rivals in it. And there's no way to tell what happens to him -- unless I read something in the news.

Oh, but we've improved the climate at my school! yay!