Trump Takes Action to Undo Obama and Biden's School Discipline Chaos

On April 23, President Trump issued an executive order to reinstate common sense school discipline policies, undoing harmful orders put in place by Obama and Biden. When there are no consequences for breaking the rules, chaos ensues. Obama and Biden created dangerous school environments with their "restorative justice" approach to student discipline.

In 2014, Obama issued a "Dear Colleague" letter to public schools threatening legal action if they didn't abide by the federal government's 32-page directive on school discipline. The documents asserted that since a higher rate of black males were disciplined, schools were being discriminatory. Yet that the directive didn't complain about the disparity of a much higher incidence of males being disciplined over females.

During his first term, President Trump rescinded this directive, but Biden quickly reinstated it when he took over in 2021.

The Obama-Biden directives gave specific heavy-handed rules of how discipline could and could not be enforced. As a result, positive reinforcement and restorative justice replaced consequences for misbehavior. The results were devastating. Students began acting like feral animals and violent children took over the nation's education system.

Grounds for Hazardous Duty Pay

A 2018 federal report noted that because of the Obama directive, “schools ignored or covered up—rather than disciplined—student misconduct in order to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government.”  

The same day Trump issued his executive order, a student at West Potomac High School in Fairfax, Virginia was stabbed. A fight broke out between two students and video shows a teacher calmly walking by the violence taking a picture—taking no action to stop the fight. A few minutes later, one of the students is seen lying on the floor in a pool of blood after reportedly being stabbed by his 15-year-old classmate. 

According to the Educator's School Safety Network, the number of violent incidents in schools reported in the media increased more than 300 percent from 2016 to 2023. The Centers for Disease Control reported in 2023 that nearly 13 percent of high school students admitted to not going to school because they felt unsafe. That is a 180 percent increase in 30 years, when only 4.4 percent of students in 1993 did not go to school because they felt unsafe.

Source: Centers for Disease Control

Fights have become extremely violent and now teachers are being attacked and permanently injured by students. One teacher was blinded by a student, and another had to have her skull removed to prevent brain damage.

A few recent examples of attacks against teachers:

• Colerain Township, Ohio: A student punched a teacher multiple times in the head causing swelling. The teacher's skull had to be removed to prevent brain damage.
• Eldorado High School, Nevada: A teacher suffered life-threatening injuries after a student tried to strangle her with a cord, punched and kicked her, and then masturbated on her.
• Englewood High, Chicago: At least 100 students involved in a massive brawl during the school day. A parent said fights are a regular occurrence.
• Monte Vista High School, California: A high school teacher was hospitalized after being attacked by a student.
• Dillard High School, Florida: Two 19-year-old students beat up a teacher, sending him to the hospital.
• Independence Middle School, Virginia: A teacher was attacked in the classroom by a student, sending the teacher to a hospital.
• Matanzas High School, Florida: A student punched a teacher, knocking her unconscious.
• Collins Intermediate School, Texas: An assistant principal was left blind after a violent attack by a student.
• Frontier Elementary School, California: A first-grade student attacked a teacher, giving her a black eye. The teacher was previously attacked by the same student.
• Normandy Collaborative High School, Missouri: A teacher was dragged through the hallway and punched multiple times by a student.

Some reports want to blame COVID "trauma" on the increased violence, but student discipline problems were boiling over before school shutdowns. Teachers' unions would have the public believe teachers are leaving the classroom over compensation issues, but surveys indicate student discipline problems are the number one reason teachers are exiting the profession. One survey of teachers in the Midwest indicated that 93 percent of teachers resigned due to student behavior and progressive political mandates in their classrooms.

A disturbing trend is the increased behavioral problems in young children. One such example happened in 2023 when a Newport News, Virginia teacher was shot by her 6-year-old student who brought his mother's gun to school. The same child had been involved in multiple past behavioral incidents including choking a fellow student and his kindergarten teacher the previous year. He should have never been allowed to remain in the school.

What is Restorative Justice?

Obama and Biden pushed the discipline techniques of positive behavior enforcement and restorative justice in their directives. Teachers were told they must reward students for good behavior, not punish for bad conduct. Rather than give consequences for breaking the rules such as out of school suspension, teachers and administrators were encouraged to push restorative "healing circles" where the victims participate in sessions with the offender.

While there is certainly a place for positive behavior techniques and restorative practices, rules must be enforced, and consequences must be given. That was not happening under the Obama-Biden directives because schools were told they must reduce the disparity in discipline based on race. As a former school board member, I saw first-hand what happened, consequences were eliminated for all students to erase the disparities.

Interruptive and violent students were given a stern verbal warning and sent back to class—repeatedly. One teacher told me when a student was sent to the principal's office for reprimand, they were given a lollipop and sent back to class. Students were not only rewarded for positive behavior, but their misbehavior was also rewarded.

Children need structure and discipline. When they cross a "red line" they need to know there will be consequences. When that structure is absent, children become uncontrollable.

Trump's Order Will Restore Structure and Discipline

The 2018 Commission on School Safety report concluded that "disciplinary decisions are best left in the hands of classroom teachers and administrators.” President Trump's executive order asserts that discipline should be based on student behavior, rather than racial statistics. Education Secretary Linda McMahon is directed to provide guidance to local education agencies within 30 days about "their obligations not to engage in racial discrimination under Title VI in all contexts, including school discipline."

President Trump's order also directs the education department to assess federal grant funded nonprofit organizations receiving money related to student discipline to ensure they are not violating non-discrimination laws.

Discipline problems in the classroom must be corrected with meaningful consequences. Teachers must be supported and not blamed for student misconduct. Only then will public schools have a chance at fully staffing classrooms and stopping enrollment decline.

Obama often used the phrase "school-to-prison-pipeline" as the reason for his Dear Colleague letter. He claimed disciplining black males in school led them on a path to prison. In fact, the opposite is true. When children have no structure and rules aren't enforced, they have no respect for authority. The school-to-prison pipeline is a reality but not for the reasons asserted by Obama-Biden. Public schools have become a social services institution rather than an academic one. National test scores prove that students are graduating without the skills needed to succeed in the world—so they turn to crime.

It's time for schools to put the focus back on academic excellence not social justice. Students need to be prepared to be educated, active, and productive members of society—government schools are failing at that endeavor.

(READ MORE: Teachers' Unions Using Lawfare to Defend Racism in Schools)