It is pathetic that this lying, thieving public official will not do a day in jail.

A scandal that began in 2006 when a TSU regent complimented Priscilla Slade's choice of home furnishings ended Wednesday with a deal that lets the ousted leader of Texas' largest historically black university avoid prison in exchange for paying back $127,672.18.

It is only a fraction of the $500,000 in school money Slade was accused of spending, lavishly and improperly, on herself. Her first trial ended last year in a mistrial, and the former, much-beloved president was scheduled to again face judgment Friday.

Wednesday's settlement, reached after hours of negotiations and ending with Slade apologizing, brings the saga to an end.

"I thank God that it's over," Slade told reporters after the plea bargain. "I can move on with my life to bigger and better things."

Slade, a CPA, said she is now working as a consultant but declined to answer any other questions.

Yeah, you saw that right -- the crook will only be required to repay 25 cents on the dollar. In other words, the makes about $325,000 in ill-gotten gains from her abuse of office. That means that we, the taxpayers of the state of Texas, really did get the shaft.

Especially since the crooked college president was not required to even admit guilt as a part of the plea deal.

Mike DeGeurin, Slade's attorney, said she is not admitting guilt and would not be forced to admit she committed a crime. He said she accepts responsibility for not ensuring that proper guidelines were followed.

Sorry -- this Texan believes there should have been a conviction.

I'm curious -- if this had been the president of UT or Texas A&M, or even University of Houston three or four blocks down the street from TSU, would this sort of plea deal have been offered or accepted? Why is it that the head of the dismally-performing open-admission four-year community college that pretends to be a university permitted to get away with her crimes? Heck, why hasn't the legislature abolished this scandal-plagued money pit?

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My initial thought was that this was a figure of speech -- but if you get a whole room full of teachers concerned with the words and tone, I have to accept that it was said in a manner that made it something more.

And besides -- if a student said something like this, he'd be in jail, or at least expelled.

A middle school principal threatened to kill a group of science teachers if their students did not improve their standardized test scores, according to a complaint filed with the New Braunfels Police Department.

Anita White, who taught at New Braunfels Middle School for 18 years before being transferred this month to the district's Learning Center, said Principal John Burks made the threat in a Jan. 21 meeting with eighth-grade science teachers.

She said Burks was angry that scores on benchmark tests were not better, and the scores on the upcoming Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests must show improvement.

"He said if the TAKS scores were not as expected he would kill the teachers," White said. "He said 'I will kill you all and kill myself.' He finished the meeting that way and we were in shock. Obviously, we talked about it among ourselves. He just threatened our lives. After he threatened to kill us, he said, 'You don't know how ruthless I can be.'

"We walked out of the meeting just totally dumbfounded because it was not a joke," White said.

New Braunfels Police spokesman Mike Penshorn said the incident was filed as a verbal assault, but is being investigated as a terroristic threat.

Of course, I can understand the principal being a bit stressed over scores. I know districts where new principals are told that if their campus has not achieved recognized status after three years, they will be fired. And I have seen departments in my own district decimated when their scores have not made the progress a principal or superintendent desired.

But threatening to kill your teachers? That goes a bit too far. Seems to me that Burks crossed a pretty bright line.

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As I’ve mentioned more than once around here, I’m a high school teacher. One of the things about teaching high school is that you end up hearing a lot about colleges and universities, and the various strengths and weaknesses of different programs. In recent years there has been a focus on co-op and internship programs, and how to get students “real world” experience to go along with their classroom learning.

That is one of the reasons I find the industrial engineering program at Kettering University to be intriguing. Kettering University offers engineering co-op programs that don't only provide a classroom education, but the sort of hands-on experience that is so important for young people entering todayÂ’s highly competitive job market. Having a degree isnÂ’t enough today -- you've got to have some sort of work experience to go along with it.

How respected is this program? US News and World Report recently ranked Kettering University as "the #1 University in the nation for Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering". One of the reasons for this ranking was the unique engineering co-op programs, in which Kettering places students in companies beginning in their freshman year, rotating them between school and their co-op job every 3 months so that they gain practical experience. Not only do the students get experience outside the classroom, but they also earn a professional salary.

There are eleven science, business, and engineering programs and seven different majors to choose from at Kettering. Their program is one of the best in the nation. IÂ’ll be encouraging students interested in engineering to at least take a look at Kettering and the opportunities they offer outside of the classroom. It is certainly a program worth examining.

Posted by: Greg at 06:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Avery DoningerÂ’s case was just heard on appeal by the Second Circuit.

A teen who used vulgar slang in an Internet blog to complain about school administrators shouldn't have been punished by the school, her lawyer told a federal appeals court.

But a lawyer for the Burlington, Conn., school told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday that administrators should be allowed to act if such comments are made on the Web.

Avery Doninger, 17, claims officials at Lewis S. Mills High School violated her free speech rights when they barred her from serving on the student council because of what she wrote from her home computer.

In her Internet journal, Doninger said officials were canceling the school's annual Jamfest, which is similar to a battle of the bands contest. The event, which she helped coordinate, was rescheduled.

According to the lawsuit, she wrote: "'Jamfest' is canceled due to douchebags in central office," and also referred to an administrator who was "pissed off."

After discovering the blog entry, school officials refused to allow Doninger to run for re-election as class secretary. Doninger won anyway with write-in votes, but was not allowed to serve.

A lower federal court had supported the school. U.S. District Judge Mark Kravitz, denying Doninger's request for an injunction, said he believed she could be punished for writing in a blog because the blog addressed school issues and was likely to be read by other students.

Now I wrote extensively about this case some months ago, and really believe Kravitz dropped the ball here. After all, no one could plausibly argue that the school could impose this sort of ban on her had she appeared on a radio talk show or been interviewed for a television news show and made similar statements. The First Amendment would clearly apply in such a manner as to prohibit the district from taking action against Avery. Similarly, a blog post made from home on personal equipment outside of school hours cannot reasonably be seen as rising to the level of disruptiveness that could possibly justify allowing to school to reach out and punish Avery for a potential disruption of school – especially when the blog post was not discovered for several weeks after it was made and it could be clearly determined that there had been no disruption caused beyond district officials having to field a few extra phone calls and emails from members of the taxpaying public in regards to the operation of the district’s schools.

And most frightening, Judge Kravitz even acknowledged that what Avery had done was to engage in political speech seeking the redress of grievances – something protected explicitly by the Constitution.

My analysis from September still stands.

But let's consider the judge's opinion itself (34 pages long, yet miraculously issued a mere 45 minutes after closing arguments!).

In the opinion, Judge Kravitz states that the internet presents new challenges for school administrators, and that the courts have yet to fully shape the boundaries of school authority when it relates to the Internet. But in his recitation of the facts of the case, Judge Kravitz makes one important factual concession that shows his decision to be wrong.

Avery, J.E., P.A., and T.F. decided to send an email to various taxpayers, informing them of the situation and requesting that they contact the school superintendent, Paula Schwartz, in the LMHS central office to demand that Jamfest be held in the auditorium on April 28.

This email, which urges the public to contact public officials on a matter related to the operation of a public school, clearly qualifies as political speech. And given that Avery's later posting on her LiveJournal site reproduced the email in its entirety, it is virtually impossible to argue that the LiveJournal post does not similarly constitute political speech -- and it is that post which was used as the basis to prevent Avery from seeking reelection to her class officer position AND which later led the school to refuse to count write-in votes for her and to attempt to hide the ballots and the vote tally when repeated FOIA requests were made for them.

Now the judge conflates the standards found in the Morse and Fraser cases to argue that the school's action is justified in this case because the speech was disrespectful, uncivil, and potentially disruptive (despite the fact it took place away from school, the judge ruled that Internet speech can be treated as on-campus speech if any member of the school community can read it). But in doing so, he ignores Justice Alito's concurring opinion in the Morse case, which essentially controls and limits the reach of school authority in cases of political speech.

I join the opinion of the Court on the understanding that. . . (b) it provides no support for any restriction of speech that can plausibly be interpreted as commenting on any political or social issue. . . .

As such, the most recent Supreme Court decision regarding student speech, which Judge Kravitz uses to permit the school to take action against Avery Doninger, clearly prohibits the school from doing so. And given that the standard in Tinker requires the speech to cause a substantial disruption before it can be suppressed, A side-by-side reading of the two decisions must lead to the conclusion that the school's actions were wrong.

As for the application of the Fraser standard, it needs to be remembered that the lewd sexual language in that case occurred in a middle school auditorium, before a captive audience of students. No one can maintain that the facts here are even remotely similar. Calling an administrator a "douchbag" on a webpage might be uncivil, rude, and (arguably) inappropriate, but no one who does not voluntarily access the page is exposed to that message -- and it is possible to prevent any disruption caused by blocking the page from the school computers. The facts simply do not fit with the Fraser precedent.

In light of that analysis, I'd go further. Judge Kravitz cites a series of cases in which courts have held that students have no right to participate in extracurricular activities. While I am generally in agreement with him, I think the reasonable application of the Tinker and Morse standards is necessary here. If, in fact, students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate, and if schools may not restrict political speech, then it is absurd to argue that a student might be banned from extracurricular activities for their speech on political or social issues. No rational legal scholar would argue, for example, that the Tinker children could not be suspended or expelled for the black armbands but could be denied a place in the school band, on an athletic team, or in student government for that same anti-war speech. No judge would rule that an administrator could bar a student who maintained a blog that commented against abortion or in favor of gay rights from membership on the debate team or the chess club. And more to the point, it would be seen as frighteningly un-American if a school district were to impose an extracurricular ban upon students who maintained a website opposing a school bond issue.

And quite frankly, the judge probably needs to consider the Supreme Court ruling in Cohens v. California as well. If the word "fuck" is protected speech in a political context, it is impossible to argue that "douchbag" (or its correctly spelled version) does not maintain similar protected status -- especially given that no action was taken against a student who posted a comment on the blog referring to the district superintendent BY NAME as a "dirty whore".

Another issue to consider is the fact that Judge Kravitz has ruled that speech on the Internet can be considered on-campus speech if it relates to school and students can see it at any time, including while at home using their privately-owned computers. This treats the Internet in a manner different from any other media, and essentially exempts it from First Amendment protection. I seriously doubt, for example, that Judge Kravitz would have ruled that Avery's use of the word "douchbag" on a picket picket-sign on a public sidewalk in front of the administration building during a protest of the cancellation of Jamfest could be treated as on-campus speech, even if students passing by on vehicles saw the sign. Similarly, were the protest covered by the news media, photos or video of such a sign in the press coverage could not convert her speech into an on-campus disruption of the educational process. Neither would placing signs in her yard, posters in public places, or an ad in the local newspaper. And were she to write a column on the issue that appeared in the press -- perhaps in a local alternative newspaper -- I cannot imagine any judge declaring her use of the word "douchbag" to be on-campus speech merely because a fellow student could read it. On what legitimate basis does the judge treat the Internet differently and place it beyond First Amendment protection under Tinker, Fraser, and Morse?

At this point, the only individuals directly harmed by this decision are Avery Doninger and the students who wrote her name in during the class election (incidentally, she won the office according to a tally of the ballots when they were eventually obtained under the states FOIA). And yet the speech of every student in her school is chilled by the decision allowing even a temporary victory to the officious administrative douchebags who chose to make an example out of her for her exercise of her First Amendment rights in her home using her own computer outside of school hours. But the potential for damage to the First Amendment rights of every American student is even greater. Judge Kravitz's decision must be overturned.

Indeed, IÂ’d argue that the need to overturn the decision is even more critical now. The school board is now arguing that it has the right to regulate student speech on the Internet precisely because it is a larger forum and can be used more effectively by students to communicate with each other and the public! Rather than preparing students to be citizens of a free society, this district is inculcating the values of a totalitarian countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, or Red China which punish their enslaved subjects for speaking out against their dictatorial regimes.

The case has been covered extensively, exhaustively and comprehensively at The Cool Justice Report.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT The Virtuous Republic, Nuke Gingrich, Allie is Wired, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Global American Discourse, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, , CORSARI D'ITALIA, Conservative Cat, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 09:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I really have to wonder if the school has a leg to stand on here. After all, there is certainly no rule prohibiting the use of legal tender to pay for one's lunch, is there?

Got pennies!

It's plastered on their shirts and these eighth graders wear it proudly because on Thursday they pulled a prank at the Readington Middle School, paying for their lunches entirely in pennies.

"At first it started out as a joke, then everyone else started saying we're protesting against like how short our lunch is," student Alyssa Concannon said.

Several lunch ladies who had to do the counting didn't think it was funny, even though some of the students put the coins in rolls. They're not authorized to put in their two cents but school officials say they felt disrespected and other students didn't get to eat lunch.

"There are ways to express yourself that are not disruptive to other kids and disrespectful to staff," said Readington Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jorden Schiff.

Eighth grader Jenny Hunt said in hindsight, the prank may have been a bad idea.

"Maybe we should have thought before we did it," Hunt said.

In fact, the penny prank has earned 29 students two days of detention.

Now I will grant that 5800 pennies is a bit of a nuisance -- but given that the pennies are legal tender, I don't know where a public school can refuse them in payment or punish their use. Especially since some of the students in question even brought them neatly rolled.

And I'm curious -- will the principal now dictate that all lunches be paid for with two crisp, non-sequential one dollar bills?

Posted by: Greg at 04:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Granted, my department is pretty testosterone-laden (only 1/3 female -- which is a 300% increase from a year ago), but I can attest that the number of female teachers significantly exceeds the number of male teachers, especially in the lower grades.

It is an odd, disquieting fact at times. After all, such a discrepancy in regard to any other demographic sub-group would be taken as prima facie evidence of invidious discrimination and mandate serious affirmative action remedies.

According to statistics recently released by the National Education Association (NEA), men made up just 24.4 percent of the total number of teachers in 2006. In fact, the number of male public school teachers in the U.S. has hit a record 40-year low. Arkansas, at 17.5 percent, and Mississippi, with 17.7 percent, have the lowest percentage of male teachers, while Kansas, at 33.3 percent, and Oregon, with 31.4 percent, boast the largest percentage of men leading the classroom.

Let's look at those numbers. Men are represented in the classroom at only 50% of their percentage in the general public nationwide -- and in some states the under-representation rises as high as 65%. Why would that be?

Why the downward trend in male teaching? According to Bryan Nelson, founder of MenTeach, a nonprofit organization dedicated to recruiting male teachers, research suggests three key reasons for the shortage of male teachers: low status and pay, the perception that teaching is "women's work," and the fear of accusation of child abuse.

You have that right, folks. Men are still expected to be the main breadwinner in this society, but we teachers are really not paid enough to do that. The perception of teaching as "women's work" is real -- and often fostered by female teachers and administrator in the lower grades, as well as female professors of education (and some of their neutered male colleagues) who seek to elevate "female" notions of cooperation and collaboration over "male" values like competition and individual achievement. And don't forget the minor detail that any man is presumed to be a sexual predator under modern notions of feminism.

What no one wants to look at is the reality that there actually is discrimination against men who want to go into education, especially in the lower grades.

For men thinking of heading into education, Nelson offered hard-won advice: Be persistent. Get practical experience first. Look for resources to help you get through school, and, when applying for a job, make sure you have thick skin.

"People will ask you inappropriate questions," he said, recalling a recent e-mail he received from an aspiring male teacher who was asked during a job interview, "Why would any healthy male want to work with kids?"

In such situations, Nelson suggests stressing the positive aspects of having a man in the classroom. "When kids see [a man] in front of them on a daily basis, it helps to contradict negative stereotypes," Nelson said.

The magnificent Dr. Helen sums up my reaction to that little bit of "wisdom" from an ADVOCATE for men in the classroom.

So men are told to get a thick skin, get used to handling "inappropriate questions," and learn to contradict negative sterotypes. In other words, if men are discriminated against, it is up to them to deal with the fall-out and to change negative steroptypes and to expect no help from other people. So men are guilty unless proven otherwise.

Dear God -- it is 2008! No one would dream of asking why a "normal" woman or minority would want to be a doctor, lawyer, or President of the United States. What is going on when we are getting the same sort of questions about the normalcy of a man who wants to work with children?

Personal experience on the matter? I've been on the receiving end of the anti-male discrimination. I can point to it 20 years ago. Having completed all but my comprehensive exams for my master's degrees, I found myself work at the start of a school year. A local Catholic school was advertising for a teacher's aide to help teach reading classes. I interviewed for the position -- and was turned down. Four weeks later I got a call from the school offering me the position. I later learned that two women without college degrees had been hired and let go before I, the sole remaining applicant (who was already certified in secondary education), was offered the job.

Shortly after Christmas, I began talking with the two teachers with whom I worked about seeking elementary education certification -- and was discouraged, despite the high praise they gave me for my work with our first and second grade students. After raising the issue a few more times over the next several weeks with some of the other teachers, I was summoned to the office of the principal and informed that I should give up my "silly notions" of teaching on the elementary level -- and that she would see to it that I received no positive recommendations for either the local university elementary education program or any elementary school because "men do not belong in an elementary classroom." A few days later I was informed that my position was to be eliminated at the end of the school year -- but interestingly enough, an identical position was created the following fall and given to a female parishioner without a college degree.

And I won't get into the question of sexual abuse allegations. I've ranted about that one in the past, about seeing male colleagues victimized by false accusations while actual female perpetrators are given light sentences because their actual misconduct is seen as not as severe as the same deeds committed by a man.

Having said all that, I want to mention one positive sign -- and one close to my heart. Last spring, I met up with a former student at the district administration building. I'd lost contact with this young man, an old favorite of mine, after he graduated from high school. I was pleasantly surprised to see he was wearing an ID card from one of the other schools in the district -- and that he was teaching fourth grade. Even better, that spring he was named the rookie teacher of the year at his school. I know it is a little thing, but that this young man made the choice to teach tells me that there are others out there who will follow if our society makes it clear that male teachers -- and teachers in general -- are something that we value.

By the way, kudos to Hube for noting that the media seems intent upon ignoring this story. And thanks to Soccer Dad for contacting us both about the issue.

Posted by: Greg at 12:23 PM | Comments (325) | Add Comment
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