There is an adage that goes, “You get the behavior you reward, not the behavior you want.”

CalWatchdog contributor Chris Reed explores this concept, looking at how the California school system funds institutions based on the number of troubled students they have.

But one specific example of adults-always-first school policies has always especially galled me: the callous way that districts deal with troubled students, which guarantees the districts will keep getting funding based on “average daily attendance” formulas but does nothing to help the troubled students get on the right track. Over the weekend, an excellent Center for Public Integrity piece put the spotlight on this assault on social justice:

“LOST HILLS – On a blistering May day in the Central Valley, most other 13-year-olds were in school. But Erick Araujo was under orders from his mother to stay inside with a U.S. history textbook.

“The seventh-grader actually didn’t have much to do. Over four days, his only task was to read three chapters and answer, briefly, a few questions per chapter.

“‘Pretty easy,’ the boy with braces shrugged, leafing through pages.

“He had no math. No English. No science. No other books to engage his love of history.”

“This could be Erick’s schooling until he’s halfway through eighth grade in early 2014.”

It gets worse. Erick’s not the exception. He’s the norm. School districts want the dues (ADA), not the hassles.

” … in February, Erick was expelled for a year from Lost Hills’ A.M. Thomas Middle School and told to enroll at a community school for kids with discipline problems that is run by Kern County.

“That school is 38 miles away – so far away that staff there suggested Erick’s mom put him on independent study at home. She would only drive him to the North Kern Community School in Delano on Mondays, so he could comply with the county’s required minimum of 4½ hours a week with a teacher.

“For Erick’s farmworker mom, Nereida Vasquez, this seems a strange way for her son to fulfill his ‘rehabilitation plan.’ She feels educators have cast Erick adrift.

“‘He’s already told me that he should just drop out and go to work in the fields,’ Vasquez said….