Let me say this flat out -- the decision of Chance Nalley to invite his seventh grade students to his commitment ceremony with his same-sex partner was wrong. What's more, I'll go so far as to call it unprofessional.

A self-proclaimed bisexual male teacher in New York has invited his seventh-grade students and their parents to witness his commitment ceremony to another man.

The New York Times reports 32-year-old Chance Nalley gave slips of paper to his entire seventh-grade class at Columbia Secondary School, inviting them to the upcoming ceremony to be held at St. Paul's Chapel on the campus of Columbia University on April 4. Nalley teaches math, science, and engineering at the school -- "whose mission statement includes a commitment to diversity," notes the Times. Nalley reportedly obtained his principal's support before coming out to his students in the fall of 2007, when the school opened.

It isn't the sexuality issue that I object to -- it is the question of the appropriate degree of separation that should exist between teacher and student. I've taught with any number of gay teachers over the year -- indeed, my best friend is one of them -- and I've been supportive of every one of them in their decision to be public or private about their sexuality. One of them was intensely private about his personal life, to the point that students knew nothing of his life outside of school. Another kept a framed photo of herself and her partner on her desk, and was honest about her orientation when asked by students. Others have fallen somewhere in the middle, depending with their own comfort level.

No, my concern is with issuing the invitation of the students to attend such an intimate event. Such an entanglement of the personal and professional strikes me as the blurring of the separation that needs to be maintained between teacher and student. I realize, of course, that there are times when such boundaries can and should be crossed -- after all, if a student is a neighbor or a friend of one's own child, this is unavoidable. But that isn't the case here.

I'm going to presume that Nalley was not seeking to make a political statement with the invitation, which is something I'd consider much worse. But even assuming the best of intentions, I still feel that the decision was the wrong one. On the other hand, showing pictures or even inviting his partner to meet the class would be just fine in my book -- just as it would with any straight couple.

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One can argue the exact contours of the rights of students at school, but this case before the Supreme Court really shouldnÂ’t take much time to decide.

Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on — black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt — the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.

An assistant principal, enforcing the schoolÂ’s antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.

The search by two female school employees was methodical and humiliating, Ms. Redding said. After she had stripped to her underwear, “they asked me to pull out my bra and move it from side to side,” she said. “They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.”

Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.

The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation.

Oh.

Come.

On.

No person with even a lick of common sense, much less an understanding of the Constitutional prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures by government officials, can believe that such conduct is permissible. There was no basis for believing that there were drugs hidden in her underwear, nor was the medication she was suspected of having anything that could be seen as posing a serious threat to the health or safety of any student. In short, there was no pressing emergency that required this extreme measure – and any properly trained administrator ought to have known that.

Now I realize that courts have ruled that the parameters of student rights at school are different than those available to adults – and I think that sometimes the courts have erred in where they have drawn the boundaries. Indeed, the very concept of in loco parentis gives schools some pretty expansive leeway in dealing with students. But this isn’t a search of a school-owned locker or a car with a parking permit – or even of a purse or backpack. This is a particularly invasive search that shocks the conscience. For the Supreme Court to rule in any other manner than that this search violated the Constitution – and that the school personnel involved should be personally liable for their actions – would be a grave miscarriage of justice.

H/T Hot Air, Just One Minute

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The worst part is that I know this guy, and helped campaign for him. Now he wants to treat me as a suspected drug user as a condition of my continued employment.

Pasadena state representative Ken Legler filed a bill on Feb. 2 that would require all current teachers, principals, counselors, school nurses and teacher's aids to submit to random, unannounced drug tests.

Additionally, any Texas public school teacher applicant would also be required to take a drug test during the hiring process.

Legler was inspired to file the bill, HB 975, after learning that drug testing was not required by state law.

Legler said feedback on the proposed bill has been largely positive from parents and former teachers -- though some teachers union officials are against the bill.

I can guess where Ken has come up with this idea. He has no doubt taken the much ballyhooed suspension of a number of HISD teachers after drug dogs hit on their cars and decided to call for drug testing. But they were a mere handful of the thousands of teachers and other district employees – under two dozen. A number of them were exonerated when they were able to prove that the drugs were prescribed to them or another user of the vehicle. It has all been a tempest in a teapot. I therefore don’t view this as a cost effective measure – just as I don’t view my district’s decision to test huge numbers of students in extracurricular activities for drug use to be worth the cost – especially since this legislation, like my district’s policy, doesn’t really spell out the consequences of failure in such a clear manner to facilitate consistent enforcement.

UPDATE: A quick note to folks from John's blog -- please note that nowhere do I mention any violation of constitutional rights. I've tried to comment to that effect at his blog, but he won't approve my comments. Is that a sign of cowardice or dishonesty? You decide.

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Looks like the teachers of the district may have a union representative forced upon them, even though this is a right-to-work state.

The leader of the Houston school districtÂ’s most powerful teachers union is flexing her muscle to force smaller employee groups out of the bargaining room with top-level administrators.

Gayle Fallon, the longtime president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, wants her union and an affiliated union for blue-collar workers to be the lone groups at the negotiating table with the Houston ISD administration.

Currently, several employee groups are guaranteed seats at private monthly meetings, where issues involving wages and working conditions are hashed out. FallonÂ’s union, because it is the biggest, has three of the five seats reserved for teachers groups at those meetings.

Yeah, that’s right – you will still be able to join any group you want, but if this proposal passes you will have no voice unless you join HFT/ That certainly goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of the law here in Texas. It also serves as a preview of the sort of thing we can expect in the future under the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” passes in Washington.

And before you ask, I am a member (indeed, IÂ’m the building representative) of one of the major teacher organizations in this state. IÂ’m not opposed to the existence of such groups, but I do object to one being able to crowd out the competing voices in this way.

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Well, more a matter of sour grapes.

British-Indian author Salman Rushdie has attacked the plot of multiple Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as a "patently ridiculous conceit".

Rushdie wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the central feature of the film -- that a boy from the Mumbai slums manages to succeed on the Indian TV version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- "beggars belief."

"This is a patently ridiculous conceit, the kind of fantasy writing that gives fantasy writing a bad name," the author of "The Satanic Verses" said in the article published Saturday.

The point that Rushdie misses, of course, is that the fantasy of it all is precisely what appeals to people about the plot of both the original book (Vikas Swarup’s "Q&A") and movie is that it is an outrageous fantasy. Who does not root for the underdog (or, in this case, the underSlumdog)? We want to see the little guy win against all odds. And that is why more people will love the book and film versions of “Slumdog Millionaire” than will even like Rushdie’s novels, including the fatwa-worthy “Satanic Verses”. Reading and movies are often the way that we seek a release from our own lives and an escape from our problems, not a time of deep thought and contemplation upon the larger issues of life, the universe, and everything. That is not to say that Salman Rusdie is not an Important Author – merely that there is an appropriate place for both the serious works of Rusdie and the lighter fare of Swarup.

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