The Left likes to complain about a so-called “school to prison pipeline,” where school disciplinary policies drive at-risk kids into a life of crime.

Every Leftist organization under the sun has been attacking the issue, pushing for more lax discipline in the schools to “decriminalize” kids. The ADL of all people–which at one time was not a ridiculous organization–describes the pipeline thusly:

In 2015, a video of a rough takedown and arrest, in which a police officer (referred to in schools as “School Resource Officer”) in a South Carolina school flips over a high school student and her desk, has brought the “School-to-Prison Pipeline” topic into the headlines. The School-to-Prison Pipeline refers to the school policies and procedures that drive many of our nation’s schoolchildren into a pathway that begins in school and ends in the criminal justice system.

Behavior that once led to a trip to the principal’s office and detention, such as school uniform violations, profanity and “talking back,” now often leads to suspension, expulsion, and/or arrest.

Why the ADL is involved in this is beyond me. Last I checked there was not an excessive number of Jewish kids getting kicked out of school and sent to prison. But maybe I am just ignorant about a trend.

In any case, you reap what you sow. Relaxing discipline in schools, shockingly, does not seem to be the solution to getting kids onto the straight and narrow.

"We aren’t preventing those kids from going to prison; we’re just repeating the cycle of poverty and violence in a different way.”🔥🔥🔥🔥https://t.co/ZP0EsCgpLW

— Daniel Buck (@MrDanielBuck) January 13, 2023

Since August 2021, San Francisco Unified’s Marina Middle School has lost almost a third of its staff, seen the departure of its longtime principal, and descended into what some educators familiar with the 670-student institution in one of The City’s wealthiest neighborhoods describe as barely controlled chaos.

Teachers, counselors and security staff who have left or are still working at the Fillmore Street school report that recent incidents include students recording videos of themselves as they beat another student, three female students assaulting a special-education student, and a student bringing an air gun to school — all without documented suspensions at the time of those incidents.

Meanwhile, teachers and counselors report there are five to 15 students in the hallway much of the time while classes are in session. The students scream at teachers, throw food at each other and intimidate other students, some of whom are afraid to go to the bathroom.

Shocking, isn’t it, that signaling to teenagers that they can do whatever they like without repercussions doesn’t lead to lions laying down with lambs?

No, apparently it leads to lambs getting slaughtered.

“(Former) principal Ginny Daws told me herself that principals only keep their jobs if the reported number of suspensions are low,” said a longtime teacher who requested anonymity for fear of administrative retaliation. “That means students are kept in a school that is a serious threat to their safety. This erodes the climate.”

The security, behavioral and administrative problems at Marina Middle School are not unique to SFUSD or other California public schools. Mission Local reported a climate of chaos at Everett Middle School in April, where administrative negligence allegedly led to violence and loss of staff. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in February 2020 a “Lord of the Flies” environment at Aptos Middle School, where a small group of students “managed to wrest control of the school from the adults.”

Data about student behavior collected by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences in May 2022 found in a survey of 850 school leaders nationwide that, compared to pre-COVID years, physical attacks or fights between students have increased 33%, classroom disruptions from student misconduct are up 56%, and student verbal abuse of teachers and other staff is up 48%. This follows similar data from the previous year.

I would suggest that while kicking kids out of school as an ill-conceived COVID mitigation measure may play a role here, the timeline is more driven by the George Floyd backlash where “defund the police” and other pro-criminal activism really kicked into gear. Schools have not been immune to the pressures that Leftists have put on law enforcement; the pressure just results in a different kind of discipline reduction.

The effect is the same: safety for law-abiding kids and adults is tossed aside as a concern, and coddling bad actors leads to these problems.

Liberals have embraced the idea that American society is fundamentally unjust, so they act as though any form of rebellion against societal strictures is a good thing. This has resulted in vast increases in crimes. Shoplifting, carjackings, and even murders have been increasing in numbers. If you prioritize rebelling against “the man,” it turns out that people rebel against “the man.” And being on the wrong end of that rebellion is not a good thing.

Who are the biggest victims? All these kids, perpetrators and innocent alike. Some of those misbehaving kids could have been set on a good path with the right discipline and attention, and of course the innocent kids are being terrorized and deprived of an education.

What has not been widely reported is that some disciplinary problems could be an unintended consequence of California’s anti-suspension mandate, designed to protect the state’s most at-risk youth and stem the school-to-prison pipeline. Suspensions have been shown to do more harm than good. In an Aug. 19, 2021 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond urged education leaders to “replace suspensions with support.”

“Sending a student home from school does not address the root cause of a student’s behavior; it removes students from the learning environment; and it has a disproportionate impact on African American students and students with disabilities, among other marginalized groups that are underperforming academically and overrepresented in our criminal justice system,” Thurmond said in the letter.

The letter followed a state bill that took effect July 1, 2020 prohibiting the suspension of middle school students for “disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully defying the valid authority of those school personnel engaged in the performance of their duties.” The bill is active through July 1, 2025.

Liberals always misdiagnose the problem. While it is true that a kid thrown in jail will almost always result in a wasted life, they focus on the prison and not the crime. We all know what the root causes are: lack of family structure and discipline. The schools can’t provide those, and neither can social workers. The government, though, has incentivized the breakup of the family, and in dealing with the problems that stem from that they compound the problem by encouraging the behavior that eventually lands kids in jail.

Getting rid of discipline is not the answer. More of it in the schools would be a good start. Perhaps suspensions aren’t the best solution, but getting rid of them certainly made things worse. If you lose a third of your teachers in a year you are failing miserably. At the very least a suspension will keep the rest of the kids safer, and not result in losing teachers and staff.

Failing miserably seems to be a specialty of these people. Yet others suffer the consequences, usually.