Jamey Rodemeyer, a handsome 14-year-old from New York, took his own life. He was yet another in what is an all-too-familiar pattern of a boy who is gay, or perceived to be gay, being harassed and bullied constantly until he snaps and kills himself.
Days ago he posted on his blog, "I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens. What do I have to do so people will listen to me?" The thoughts that were going through his head were apparent in another post: "No one in my school cares about preventing suicide, while you're the ones calling me faggot and tearing me down." The response from other students was vicious:
"JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT, ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!"
"I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it. : ) It would make everyone WAY more happier!"
Jamey recorded a YouTube video about the abuse he suffered at school. He tried to muster the courage to go on. He said, "We were born this way... all you have to do, just love yourself and you're set." But "we were born this way" just doesn't sink in to the thugs at his school who harassed him. Jamey will go to his grave with a t-shirt saying, "Born this way."
Jamey's father, Tim Rodemeyer, said that schools "have to somehow get the power away from the bully, and I don't know how you do that. And that's the biggest question in my mind, because if the bully has no power, he's nobody."
Jamey lamented that no one would listen to him about how badly he was being bullied. He was not alone. In case after case of gay kids killing themselves, I've read the press accounts, and the same theme kept reappearing. The parents and the kids were powerless. They would go to the school to complain and then feel ignored. Here and there, feeble attempts would be made to address the problem, often through "education" programs. Well, considering how abstinence education has no impact on pregnancy or VD rates, why should we assume that "feel-good programs" at the school will end bullying?
But there is another form of powerlessness that is happening here. Just as kids feel powerless against the gangs of bullies, parents are powerless, as well. Let us be honest about one feature of government education. It is a massive program where neither funding nor attendance is voluntary. Parents pay taxes for schools whether or not they use them, whether or not the schools are actually giving them value for their money. And clearly some of these schools have environments so toxic that kids are choosing to kill themselves rather than go back.
If you found yourself being harassed at the local grocery store, you'd tell the staff and expect them to do something about it. If they refused, you'd shop elsewhere. But public education is built on compulsion, not choice. Parents are free to remove their children and educate them someplace else, but that means they pay twice: once through taxes, and then again for the substitute they find. Many parents simply can't do this -- once they finish paying for the school they hate, they can't afford the school they want.
The sad truth is that schools can afford to ignore complaining parents because those parents are not customers. If the parent finally gets fed up and remove the kid, it's not as though the school is any worse off. There is little need to satisfy customers, because there are no customers. The education establishment likes to pretend that the customers get their say at the ballot box. At best, the ballot box is a crude measure, and elections are easily influenced by the big money that pours in from unions. Politicians who run schools are far more interested in pleasing unions that donate millions to campaigns. An angry parent might storm off and they lose one vote. Compared to the big money, that's of little concern.
So, the process goes on. Parents complain and are ignored. If they can afford to remove their son and enroll him somewhere else, they do so. The former school loses nothing. The parents end up paying twice. But, most can't afford to pay twice, so the child stays there, and they keep begging. Most of the victims survive; some don't. It's a terribly high price to pay.
Just as kids are powerless, so are parents. Perhaps we need to seriously consider giving power over schools to the parents. I don't mean give it to them collectively; that is just the same, failed political control all over again. It is ripe for corruption and manipulation. Give each parent the power over their own child.
Instead of funding schools, why not fund students? Allow parents the choice of whichever school they wish to use, and have the funding follow the student. Include private, non-governmental schools, as well. Schools that fail to respond to the concerns of parents over bullying will find that losing a student also means losing income. It gives them an incentive to pay attention. Sadly, we would think that kids killing themselves would be sufficient motive to deal with the issue, but apparently it isn't; otherwise it wouldn't keep happening.
Schools that fail to protect kids and create a safe learning environment would lose students to schools that did. We might, hopefully, even see some of the worst schools close down entirely while decent schools thrive.
It's time to take power away from bullies. The best way to make sure that happens is to give it to the parents instead.
Here are some of the names of the victims who couldn't live with the bullying anymore:
Billy Lucas, 15, Greenburg, Ind.
Asher Brown, 13, Houston, Tex.
Seth Walsh, 13, Tehachapi, Calif.
Justin Aaberg, 15, Anoka, Minn.
Brandon Bitner, 14, Mount Pleasant Mills, Pa.
Nick Kelo, 13, Akron, Ohio
Lance Lundsten, 18, Miltona, Minn.
Tiffani Maxwell, 16, Slippery Rock, Pa.
Phoebe Prince, 15, South Hadley, Mass.
Jaheem Herrera, 11, DeKalb, Ga.
Elijah Mendez, 12, New York City, N.Y.
Carl Walker-Hoover, 11, Springfield, Mass.
Jamey Rodemeyer, 14, Williamsville, N.Y.
If you are a gay kid, remember this: you are not alone. If you are thinking life isn't worth living, call the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.
c) Steps need to be taken to prevent bullying in other venues, including online. We should ask companies like Facebook, YouTube, etc. to provide reporting systems for bullying so that they can remove users who engage in bullying behaviors online. Part of why cyberbullying has become such a big deal is that the internet has no real adult supervision; it is the least patrolled area of kids lives. Will that prevent all our problems? No, but it will be better than what we have now.
The acceptable number of teen deaths from bullying is zero, but school choice is not the answer. It's just another way to inject the same tired politics into a hot button issue. Giving up on our schools and the program of universal education that we've worked to build in this country for the past 100 years doesn't solve anything; although we absolutely need to prevent these needless and tragic teen deaths, we also need to find ways effective ways to teach tolerance and non-discrimination. Enacting discriminatory policies like school choice is a pretty horrible way to teach by example.
5) You talk about the "worst schools shutting down." Are you really suggesting that you would like to see some public schools, the ones that are required to take all students, shut down? That's morally indefensible, and amounts to wishing that you could deny education to some students. I completely disagree with this.
6) Since school choice is a terrible choice, and because, as you point out, many parents do not have the ability to move their children to another school, that means that we have to prevent bullying at the schools we currently have, not at the schools we wish we had. How do we do that? a) By bringing media attention to the issue, and making kids and parents aware that if their child is being bullied, that something needs to change immediately. Kids who are being bullied need help from the school, their parents, their therapists, and their communities, not necessarily in that order, and they need to feel that they can speak out and actually receive help from these people when they do. b) Schools need to adopt no tolerance policies for bullying. If a child was caught committing a violent act at school, you would expect there to be real consequences, up to and including expulsion from schools. These kinds of policies need to be adopted by every school district in the country.
3) Let me put an even finer point on it: if LGBT folks get to choose what school they go to, which is great, so do bullies. To put a finer point on it, while you may be funding the future gay leaders of America with this program, you may also be helping create the next generation's Rick Santorum.
4) "Funding students" sounds great in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work that way. The average amount of money spent per student is extraordinarily unequal. It's not that hard to educate a normal kid, but it's expensive to educate a kid who has a disability; think about the cost of teaching a deaf child, for example, versus a classroom of children without hearing problems. You have to teach the kid sign language, hire sign interpreters, etc. It's naive to think that an average of x amount of money per student actually means that the school is spending that amount of money on each student. It's like saying that you're going to "fund workers, not professions," and then trying to hire a bunch of brain surgeons for the average household income in the US, which is around $50,000. The analysis simply doesn't take enough factors into account.
Although I agree 100% that bullying is a problem that must be dealt with in schools, I completely disagree that school choice is the answer. Here's why:
1) School choice is a disastrous policy for the most vulnerable school students; private institutions are can and do discriminate against students with disabilities, especially students with learning disabilities, teach hate and discrimination against gay and lesbian students on religious grounds, and provide substandard educations without any negative consequences.
2) I know, I know, there are also some truly wonderful private schools that let everyone in, provide great educations, and teach tolerance; so as long as we only choose those schools we're ok, right? This would be a great argument if there was any sort of oversight of private schools whatsoever, but there really isn't. They don't have to follow approved curriculums, their students don't have to take standardized tests, and no one vets them for whether or not they're discriminatory in their choice of students. Hey, you don't even have to have a teaching license to teach in a private school here in NY! I don't want my tax dollars going to fund discrimination against LGBT folks in private schools or anywhere else, and I don't want to fund schools that discriminate against vulnerable students. That just exacerbates the preexisting problem.
So they treated the victim the same as the victimizer and then punish the mother for complaining. They refuse to speak about it due to protecting the privacy of the mother and child. You think she'd move her kid to a better school if she had the choice? I bet she would. But the unions and politicians won't give up the power they have to allow that to happen.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/09/21/mother-disciplined-after-confronting-boys-about-bullying-son/
http://storeyinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/07/beware-of-your-inner-fundamentalist.html
although vouchers have tended to be more unsuccessful than successful, many voucher supporters treat market-based education like a religion. consider:
"The fundamentalist assumes his belief system answers all questions.
The fundamentalist starts with moral condemnations.
For the fundamentalists opponents are never sincere.
Fundamentalists tend to ignore new facts"
Changing school isn't going to make much of difference. It's just changing one bad atmosphere for another not as bad but still one with bullies. Notice that one of the responses said Jamie was "Gay, fat and ugly". Whether Gay or overweight, or not conforming to society's standards of what's good looking and attractive, bullying is here to stay until a child learns that personal attacks of any kind are unacceptable.
With Gay people though, first a child has to learn that Gay people are even people. Gays are dehumanized to the point where it's okay to beat Gays and even kill them them and it's that dehumanization that must change. The same thing happened to Gays and Jews and Gypsies etc throughout europe in the last century. Look at Michelle Bachmann's horrendously sick husband who equated Gays with "barbarians".
We now serve about 35,000 students at 1,100 private schools throughout Florida. You could ask thousands of their parents why they chose the schools they did, and many will say they wanted to get their children of of harm's way. Academics get lost in a child's anxiety over what's going to happen at the lockers during class break or on the route home from the schoolhouse. But the heartless responses from many comments here seem to focus more on the effect an effort like ours would have on a public school's spreadsheet.
The only credibly independent attempts to study our Florida program have found that it saves taxpayers money ($36.2 million in 2009 according to Florida's legislative watchdog), and that, according to Northwestern University economist David Figlio, it modestly boosted the performance of students at the public schools likely to lose pupils to our program. We obviously have much more to learn, but we can have a better debate than what we see here.
The issue is not specific bullies or specific schools. It is an issue of people who are different have a very difficult time in a place where popularity and image are hugely important.
People are ignoring the other issues as well (mental disorder and recent death of a loved one). Yes, bullying had an effect, but it was not everything. Other children who are teased and even tormented do not end up killing themselves.
It is unfortunate that he died, but he could not run from "bullying." He would need to be around other odd, let us say, children that would not use his demeanor and mannerisms as a way to focus attention upon him. He was different and in high school being different is the worst thing that one can be.
The attempt to reduce this all to "people mocked him for having the gay, so he killed himself" is wrong and accomplishes nothing. The kid had problems and the interactions with others did not help. Nor did the death of a relative.
I guess that does not matter now. The child is a martyr for the cause of gay and is fodder for its fight against supposed wrongs against the "community."
I was bullied during my time at school, from first grade up until my senior year of high school. I sure would have appreciated it if someone stood by my side and helped me to confront the bullies. I suppose that if I had been a lesbian or a transgender, you guys would have come to my defense. Am I right?
You people are hypocrites, and I'm sick and tired of it! Bullying is wrong, no matter WHO the victim is! It's time for you people to stand up for EVERY person who is bullied, no matter what their sexuality is!
Yes, bullying is wrong no matter who is the victim. But the surveys show gay kids are more likely to be bullied and more severely.
That's what's driving this article. The writer has no idea what he's talking about. Schools don't lose funding when kids leave? In my state, they're funded on a per-pupil basis. They'll bend over backward to keep a kid. Does he really think that private schools are going to be a haven for gay students? Politicians are interested in pleasing unions? That would be good news, actually, since most of the stuff the unions suggest is actually good for kids... which puts them in almost perfect opposition to most of the politicians in charge of schools. Has Mr. Peron really managed to avoid the nearly violent anti-union rhetoric that's pervading our country right now, to the detriment of pretty much all of us except the extremely wealthy? How?
A suicide is a horrible thing. Defunding public schools would be another horrible thing. Just because you need someone to blame, that doesn't mean you should lash out at the first thing that comes to mind.
I didn't say private schools would necessarily be havens either. I said students take the funds to any school that are havens. Those that protect them would benefit, whether they are private or government schools. I didn't say one would necessarily do better than the other. But, so far I've found no gay kids who killed themselves after being bullied in a private school. I'm not saying it never happened, but all the case I found were in government schools. And I deny the unions give a damn about students. They protect teachers by seniority not competency and they stand in the way of firing bad teachers. The unions represent the best interests of teachers, not students.
Finally, I did say defund government schools. The government schools could 100% of the funding if they were able to attracted the students. If they can't keep the students then they shouldn't get the money.
The per-pupil thing (which isn't limited to my state) isn't a digression; it illustrates that schools are worried about losing students NOW. We don't need your prescription to create a condition that already exists.
Vouchers to improve education, which are analogous to what you're suggesting, have been tried. They've failed. The idea that competition, injected unnaturally into a cooperative system like education, will magically fix everything has been conservative dogma for years, persistently pushed despite its failure. I doubt that making schools compete for safety is likely to work any better than making them compete for academics.
What you're upset about is, I agree, a huge problem. I wish I had an answer to it. But in your rush to blame someone, you've come up with an answer that will likely help nobody, and will hurt the entire country as public schools, one of the pillars of our democracy, are defunded and destroyed.