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Whitmire: 'Ticketing Students at School Teaches the Wrong Lesson'

State Senator John Whitmire's staff forwarded me the following op ed by the Senate Criminal Justice Coalition Chairman that deserves Grits readers' attention.It sounds ridiculous on its face: Young children ticketed at school for disrupting class, marking on a wall with pencil, using a cuss word, scuffling on school grounds, and misbehaving on a school bus.These aren?t school-issued ?behavior tickets? that send disruptive students to the principal?s office. These are Class C misdemeanor tickets issued by real police officers assigned to schools. And, they are sending thousands of Texas students -- some under the age of 10 -- to adult criminal court each school year to face fines of up to $500, community service, and court costs.The vast majority of these tickets are written for Disruption of Class or Transportation, Disorderly Conduct, curfew violations (leaving campus without permission), truancy, and fighting where no weapon or serious injury is involved...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 08, 2011 (boomark / email).