Combatting Classroom Chaos

On April 23, President Trump signed an executive order directing public schools to develop student discipline policies without considering race and ethnicity. The order states, “The Federal Government will no longer tolerate known risks to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom that result from the application of school discipline based on discriminatory and unlawful ‘equity’ ideology.”

The administration is justified in taking action. Restoring order to America’s classrooms requires reversing years of misguided federal policies that focused on racial quotas and therapeutic interventions. These policies have harmed academic achievement, endangered students, and made it more difficult for struggling students to get help. To succeed, the administration must respect local control while overcoming strong resistance from a deeply rooted education bureaucracy, whose radical agenda remains its primary goal.

Our current problems were intensified by a 2012 report from the Obama administration, which found that black students were “suspended, expelled, and arrested” at higher rates than white students. In response, the administration sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to state and local education agencies in 2014, warning of federal investigations if rates of “exclusionary discipline”—suspensions and expulsions—were racially disproportionate.

Not surprisingly, Obama’s redirect has been a disaster. Where schools have tried the racial bean-counting regimen, the results have been less than noteworthy. A North Carolina school districttried to improve discipline by implementing a policy that paid a non-profit over $800,000 to help develop. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools had fewer suspensions during the school year and no expulsions, part of a broader shift toward “equitable discipline.”

However, the district reported a higher crime rate than the previous year. Critics say the changes have worsened conditions for students because disruption in class is not being addressed.

Surveys consistently show that student behavior has declined over the past decade, with school violence and overall classroom disorder now at all-time highs.

A recent EdWeek Research Center poll found that student behavior is deteriorating nationwide, according to teachers and administrators. Since 2019, before the pandemic, “there’s been a clear increase in behavior issues, from minor classroom disruptions to more serious student fights broadcast on social media.”

The survey discloses that 72% of educators say that students in their classroom, school, or district have been misbehaving either “a little” (24%) or “a lot” (48%) more than in the fall of 2019, the last semester before the COVID-19 shutdowns started.

In fact, student misbehavior is now the leading reason teachers leave the profession.

Students feel very uneasy about the chaos. In Los Angeles, for example, in the 2023-2024 school year, only 58.5% of elementary students, 55.2% of middle school students, and 51.6% of high school students reported feeling safe in their schools—a significant decline from previous years. Fighting and physical aggression increased by 16.8% from the 2022-2023 school year to 2023-2024, while threats surged by 28.5%. Incidents involving illegal or controlled substances rose by 23.8% during the same period.

When a disruptive student remains in the classroom, it can negatively influence the learning environment and the well-being of students who behave. Teachers’ time and effort are often diverted to control the troublemakers, affecting the overall educational experience.

To change things, we must shift away from a system where students can behave in the most egregious ways because they are told they are victims of racism or “ableism.”

Instead, we must use the “No Excuses” approach. The term was coined in the 1990s as a plea for educators to stop using excuses, such as poverty and broken homes, for the chaos in urban schools that made learning impossible.

In his 2008 Fordham Institute book, Sweating the Small Stuff, David Whitman captures the concept well. He believes that “disorder, not violence or poverty per se, is the fatal undoing of urban schools in poor neighborhoods.”

Schools should return to traditional values, establish and enforce academic standards, and monitor student behavior closely. Students must listen to the teacher, complete homework, study diligently, avoid fights, and follow all the school rules.

As RealClearInvestigations details, Columbus Collegiate Academy Main in Ohio exemplifies traditional education methods. Orderliness is evident. Students in khakis and blue tops with bulging backpacks walk quickly in line through the front doors of the single-story brick building, appearing eager to be there. Its strict behavior rules require students to sit upright at their desks, remain silent unless called upon, and treat each other with respect, fostering a calm learning environment.

“In class after class, the predominantly black and Latino student body appears seriously engaged, with pencils in hand or fingers on keyboards. Teachers move rapidly through lessons. Hands shoot up to answer questions. No one is fooling around or disturbing others, which seems remarkable for a middle school full of teenagers.”

The academy is among roughly 1,000 high-performing urban charter schools that follow the No Excuses model.

After another year of chaos in many urban public schools, with most teachers claiming that behavior issues were their biggest challenge, No Excuses charters demonstrate how to restore order and learning.

While President Trump’s order is a positive step, school decisions are made locally, and it’s hard to predict how all this will unfold.

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Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.