Andrew Saraf, one of the students involved in the Maryland "Peace Studies" course controversy, has graciously accepted my invitation to write a guest piece for Rhymes With Right on the issue. I think you will see there are some interesting differences between how the story is reported and what he has to say about the course and his suggestions.

The reaction to Sunday's Washington Post article, in particular the critical reaction to the views I expressed therein, seem to consist of two main charges. The first is that we are conservatives, or Republican "chickenhawks" as one blogger put it, bent on the removal of liberalism from the classroom. In other words, we are witch-hunters. This is absolutely erroneous. First of all, Avishek and I are not conservatives. Avi has described himself as being quite liberal, and I consider myself to be a very traditional liberal with a skeptical take on many of the ideas that have come out of liberalism since the 1960s. Avi and I are also not on any "witch hunt" against those with certain political ideologies. My mother is a teacher; I therefore have a pretty clear understanding of the fact that teachers are human beings with political views. A certain degree of bias is to be expected in any classroom lecture. The difference is that Peace Studies is a class whose very mission is biased. Mr. McCarthy has in the last few days said such things as this: "People say, 'You don't give the other side.' And I say, 'You're exactly right'. " In classes sometimes disparagingly called 'traditional' or 'mainstream', bias is fought, and hopefully kept at a minimum. In Peace Studies, there is a resolute refusal to do so. And why? Or, at least, what is the stated reason for this? "This is the other side," Mr. McCarthy claims, to what we get elsewhere. Every other source of information has a conservative bias. In the meanwhile, as the class learned in a recent reading, we are "on a moving train", and "you can't be neutral". So the class, and its current practices, are based on two rather questionable assumptions: The first is that outside the class, the bias is a conservative one. The second is that neutrality is neither possible nor desirable because history is moving in one clear direction. The moment the existence of other points of view is acknowledged, these assumptions simply fall apart. We find that the liberals complain of a conservative bias, a "right-wing media", while the conservatives believe that the media and the public school system are controlled by left-wing radicals. Who is right? Is this issue settled? And as for the "moving train", in truth, we are not yet clear on what direction the train is moving in. What is the course of history? Who has defined it? Who has been responsible for the progress that has been made? Once again, these issues are not settled. But the class is taught as if they are. And that is the problem.

The second charge made against us is that, because we have not taken the class, we are in no position to speak on it or protest it. This is absolutely absurd. By that rationale, what has become a high visibility issue is in fact reserved to the select few who have had the privilege of being seniors at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and the infinite wisdom and good judgment required to choose to take the class. This means that parents, bloggers, commentators and all those younger than 17 or 18 have no place in this debate. What I suggest is that we be more rational. Just as a parent with a son or daughter in the class has every right to discuss it, I feel that as a student who has done extensive research into Mr. McCarthy's educational philosophy, and who has spoken at length with a number of Peace Studies students, none of them with an "Anti-Peace Studies" agenda, I too have a right to engage in discussion about this issue. And my allegations, which were much more tentative at first, have only been further confirmed in the last few weeks. We asked a student and self-described supporter of McCarthy's whether he himself ever presented facts or positions that contradicted his own ideology. The answer was "no". Not once have I heard of statistics provided in the class that would support a conservative interpretation of the issues; but again and again I have heard impassioned talk by his students on the differences in the amount of money spent "on war" and "on the poor", and on the inequalities in the distribution of wealth in the world, and so on and so forth. The only opposing speaker that has been brought in (of the many speakers), as far as I have heard, has been a parent of one of the students. His cause? He supported animal testing. On every other issue, not one student of Mr. McCarthy's has been able to produce an example of someone brought in with an alternative view. I have asked them to do so a number of times.

And, of course, there is the inevitable invocation of the class' status as an elective. This is a very appealing argument to make, because Avishek and I can thus be cast as curmudgeons who just want to keep everyone else from having fun. The problem is that it ignores two fundamental facts: First of all, Montgomery County Public Schools has a duty to apply the same basic standards of educational quality to every class that is offered, whether the class is an elective or not. Among these standards is a recognition that the major issues of our time are not settled; political ideologies are not the equivalent of algebra or physics. Mr. McCarthy has said that not everyone believes in algebra, and that not everyone believes in physics, but that they are taught anyway, but to attempt to make a comparison between science and math and political beliefs is simply ridiculous. If a only one political ideology is being taught, the class should not be offered. The second fundamental fact is the nonexistence of an alternative. Peace Studies is a class tailored to liberal tastes. The 2nd period Peace Studies class, which we have visited, has only one or two Republicans in it. So the choice is between a political class that represents left-wing views or no political class at all. This could hardly be called a choice.

I would finally like to clarify my goals with this effort. Despite the Washington Post's unfortunate misstatements, Avi and I are not calling for the "banning" of the Peace Studies class. We recognize that certain aspects of the class are of value. But we believe that alternative lecturers must be brought in, individuals who would teach with Mr. McCarthy on alternating days. That way, both sides will be presented, while the unconventional nature of the experience is preserved. In spite of what some of our critics have said, this does not mean that students will also be "taught war" or "taught violence". It simply means that more than one narrow view of peace will be presented. Most political ideologies, and surely almost all Americans, 'believe in peace'. The question is how peace is to be achieved and approached. There is more than one way, and students should be taught as such.

Frankly, I think Andrew's position is a reasonable one. The class appears to be a propaganda course, with rather nebulous academic standards. I understand that the major requirement for an A is respiration and attendance -- making this an attractive "gut course" for students seeking to inflate a GPA, which really makes it a sort of academic fraud. In a manner not dissimilar to the clown in Colorado, McCarthy is using the classroom as a pulpit from which to preach.

And Andrew's response to the "it's an elective" argument is most important. In the setting of a taxpayer-funded, government-run school, every citizen has a voice. The notion that nobody except the handful of kids in the class has a right to comment is, dare I say it, unAmerican.

Most importantly, Andrew and Avi are proposing a solution to the problem. While I don't know that the structure proposed above is a workable one, it indicates a desire to mend a course that could have merit, rather than simply sweep it aside. Andrew offers compromise, not a hardened position from which he to advocate reform -- a much tougher position than the extreme position ascribed to him and Avi.

Oh, and Andrew confirms something I suspected after I did a Google search on him the other day -- he is no conservative, and no ideologue. I found information on him at his home congregation's website (I won't disclose it -- do the legwork if you must), and can assure you that he comes from a spiritual/philosophical tradition that is a world away from the religious right. I suspect that most of the members of the congregation would disagree with him -- yet at the same time be quite proud of his actions and integrity in raising the issue. Well done, young man, and thank you for taking the time to enlighten us all.

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Posted by: Greg at 04:56 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I tread softly when it comes to politics in my classroom – the venom is saved for this blog.

My students know – generally – what my politics are, because as a social studies teacher I sometimes discuss current events along with history. But when I give opinions, I always label them as such, and I try to offer a rough balance in the discussion (including being the “devil’s advocate” for the side I disagree with if there isn’t a kid who can do it).

I cannot ever imagine doing this.

An Overland High School teacher who criticized President Bush, capitalism and U.S. foreign policy during his geography class was placed on administrative leave Wednesday afternoon after a student who recorded the session went public with the tape.

In the 20-minute recording, made on an MP3 player, teacher Jay Bennish described capitalism as a system "at odds with human rights." He also said there were "eerie similarities" between what Bush said during his Jan. 28 State of the Union address and "things that Adolf Hitler used to say."

The United States was "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth," Bennish also said on the tape.

Bennish, who has been part of Overland's social studies faculty since 2000, did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. Cherry Creek School District officials are investigating the incident, but no disciplinary action has been taken, district spokeswoman Tustin Amole said.

Bennish was placed on leave "to take some of the pressure off of him" during the investigation, which could wrap up in a week, Amole said.

I’ve got to tell you – at my school this guy would need a couple weeks off to get relief from the crap the rest of his colleagues would give him. We’re about 75% conservative, and even our socially liberal gay colleague is a Navy vet with somewhat hawkish views on foreign and military affairs. Personally, I’d be inclined to fire him for his abuse of his position, and I believe my colleagues would agree. Our objection would be his obvious ignorance and his polemical presentation, not the position he took.

Michelle Malkin has a transcript of the rant (audio here) that certainly would support terminating Bennish for cause.

Bennish: [tape begins with class already underway. Bennish completing an unintelligble statement about Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.] Why do we have troops in Colombia fighting in their civil war for over 30 years. Most Americans don't even know this. For over 30 years, America has had soldiers fighting in Colombia in a civil war. Why are we fumigating coca crops in Bolivia and Peru if we're not trying to control other parts of the world. Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! Ok. Why are we destroying the farmers' lives when we're the ones that consume that good.

Can you imagine? What is the world's number one single cause of death by a drug? What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world? Cigarettes! Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!

What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina. Alright. That's where all the cigarette capitals are. That's where a lot of them are located from. Now if we have the right to fly to Bolivia or Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

Make sure you get these definitions down.

Capitalism: If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.

Anytime you have a system that is designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive -- money -- that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc.

Why did we invade Iraq?! How do we know that the invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction-- even if weapons had been found, how would you have known, how could you prove--that that was not a real reason for us to go there.

There are dozens upon dozens of countries that have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one of dozens. There are plenty of countries that are controlled by dictators, where people have no freedom, where they have weapons of mass destruction and they could be potentially threatening to America. We're not invading any of those countries!

0345.

[Pause.]

I'll give you guys another minute or two to get some of these [definitions] down. I agree with Joey. Try to condense these a little bit. I took these straight out of the dictionary.

Anyone in here watch any of Mr. Bush's [State of the Union] speech last night? I'm gonna talk a little about some of things he had to say.

0452

...One of things that I'll bring up now, since some of you are still writing, is, you know, Condoleezza Rice said this the other day and George Bush reiterated it last night. And the implication was that the solution to the violence in the Middle East is democratization. And the implication through his language was that democracies don't go to war. Democracies aren't violent. Democracies won't want weapons of mass destruction. This is called blind, naive faith in democracy!

0530.

Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?!

Unidentified brainwashed student interjects: We are.

The United States of America! And we're a democracy. Quote-unquote.

Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States.

Who's continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak?!
The United States.

So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won't wanna be like us? Why does he think they'll just wanna be at peace with each other?! What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won't wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq?! Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future--sorry--attack? [Unintelligible.]

0625.

Why doesn't Mexico invade Guatemala? Maybe they're scared of being attacked. Ok. Why doesn't North Korea invade South Korea?! They might be afraid of being attacked. Or maybe Iran and North Korea and Saudi Arabia and what else did he add to the list last night - and Zimbabwe - maybe they're all gonna team up and try and invade us because they're afraid we might invade them. I mean, where does this cycle of violence end? You know?

This whole "do as I say, not as I do" thing. That doesn't work. What was so important about President Bush's speech last night--and it doesn't matter if it was President Clinton still it would just as important) is that it's not just a speech to America. But who? The whole world! It's very obvious that if you listen to his language, if you listen to his body language, and if you paid attention to what he was saying, he wasn't always just talking to us. He was talking to the whole planet. Addressing the whole planet!

He started off his speech talking about how America should be the country that dominates the world. That we have been blessed essentially by God to have the most civilized, most advanced, best system and that it is our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the whole world like us.

0759.

Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler use to say.

We're the only ones who are right. Everyone else is backwards. And it's our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to.

Now, I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously, they are not. Ok. But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very "ethnocentric." We're right. You're all wrong.

I just keep waiting. You know, at some point I think America and Mexico might go to war again. You know. Anytime Mexico plays the USA in a soccer match. What can be heard chanting all game long?

0841

Do all Mexicans dislike the United States? No. Do all Americans dislike Mexico? No. But there's a lot of resentment--not just in Mexico, but across the whole world--towards America right now.

We told--Condoleezza Rice said--that now that Hamas got elected to lead the Palestianians that they have to renounce their desire to eliminate Israel. And then Condoleezza Rice also went on to say that you can't be for peace and support armed struggle at the same time. You can't do that. Either you're for peace or war. But you can't be for both.

What is the problem with her saying this? That's the same thing we say. That is exactly the same thing this current administration says. We're gonna make the world safe by invading and killing and making war. So, if we can be for peace and for war, well, why can't the Palestinians be for peace and for war?!

0950.

*Student Sean Allen, who is taping Bennish's rant, speaks up:*

Allen: Isn't there a difference of, of, having Hamas being like, we wanna attack Israelis because they're Israelis, and having us say we want to attack people who are known terrorists? Isn't there a difference between saying we're going to attack innocents and we're going to attack people who are not innocent?

1007

Bennish: I think that's a good point. But you have to remember who's doing the defining of a terrorist. And what is a terrorist?

Allen: Well, when people attack us on our own soil and are actually attempting to take American lives and want to take American lives, whereas, Israelies in this situation, aren't saying we want to blow up Palestine...

Bennish: How did Israel and the modern Israeli state even come into existence in the first place?

Allen: We gave it to them.

Bennish: Sort of. Why? After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts. They assassinated the British prime minster in Palestine. They blew up buildings. They stole military equipment. Assassinated hundreds of people. Car bombings, you name it. That's how the modern state of Israel was made. Was through violence and terrorism. Eventually we did allow them to have the land. Why? Not because we really care, but because we wanted a strategic ally. We saw a way to us to get a hook into the Middle East.

If we create a modern nation of Israel, then, and we make them dependent on us for military aid and financial aid, then we can control a part of the Middle East. We will have a country in the Middle East that will be indebted to us.

Allen: But is it ok to say it's just to attack Israel? If it's ok to attack known terrorists, it's ok to attack Israel?

Bennish: If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children. And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, we're the terrorists. We've attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.

Allen: But we did not have the intention of killing innocent people. We had the intention of killing an al Qaeda terrorist.

Bennish: Do you know that?

Allen: So, you're saying the United States has the intention to kill innocent people?

Now my basis for supporting a termination is NOT his politics. Rather, the problem comes down to the one-sided preaching of a particular ideology at students -- and one which contains repeated and obvious misrepresentations of historical facts. He was not educating his students, he was misinforming and indoctrinating them. What I do not object to is his detour into current events and government -- assuming the social studies standards in Colorado are similar to those in texas, there is a component of the standards that requires all social studies teachers to include relevant current issues and events in the course. The State of the Union address was therefore an appropriate topic -- his methods were the problem.

On the other hand, there are a couple of interesting little wrinkles here that struck me. The one is the use of the MP3 recorder. That would be forbidden at my school, under the policy forbidding the use of cell phones, CD players, radios and MP3s during the day. I wonder if the kid faces any sanctions for having brought and used the device to record the class.

The second involves Dad going to the media with the recording. I almost always oppose parents doing this, absent an immediate and serious threat to the physical well-being of the students. I suspect that this situation could have been resolved quickly without going to Mike Rosen, by a phone call to the principal or the superintendent. Heck, a call to a couple of school board members would have even been appropriate. Stay in the chain of command, folks, and try to resolve the situation there. Calling the press, especially as the first step, is like calling a lawyer – the result may be what you want, but it sets a bad precedent.

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Posted by: Greg at 03:24 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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This is really bizarre -- until we realize the level of Jew-hatred that exists through-out the anti-Semitic Muslim world.

ABU DHABI — Close on the heels of the cartoon controversy raging across the Muslim world, it is the turn of an upscale American school in Abu Dhabi to ruffle Muslim sentiments by teaching lessons that allegedly ''smell of racism.''

Over 100 copies of the social studies text book, 'World Cultures' taught to the sixth grade children were confiscated by the Ministry of Education yesterday, for allegedly presenting Islam and the Muslim countries including Gulf states in a negative light while glorifying Israel on the other hand, Khaleej Times has learnt.

And what shocking propaganda appears in this hate-filled book?

It has been accused that chapter 25 of the book running from page 599 to 614 contains a deluge of derogatory remarks against Islam and the Muslim world, for example, dubbing Middle East as one of the most dangerously explosive areas in the world and the Muslim conquest of India as the most bloodiest in the world history, to mention a few.

The sub chapters clubbed under the title 'North Africa and the Middle East' also elaborate on the religion and life-style of Israel with pictures. "Israel is one of a few democracies in North Africa and the Middle East today. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco are all kingdoms; the country of Syria has sponsored terrorism by giving aid to radicals in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, known as the PLO," read excerpts from page 610 of the book, copies of which Khaleej Times possess.

I don't see a single falsehood in the "objectionable" chapter -- though the comment about Syria is a bit heavy-handed (though 100% accurate).

The comments on the nature of education are enough to send a chill down the spine of this social studies teacher.

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Posted by: Greg at 11:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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UPDATE -- Two students from the school offer extensive comments about the class.

Does a course that explicitly advocates for a particular point of view on issues belong in a high school ?

My initial reaction is negative, but I wonder if allowing such a course as an elective is a bad thing.

For months, 17-year-old Andrew Saraf had been troubled by stories he was hearing about a Peace Studies course offered at his Bethesda high school. He wasn't enrolled in the class but had several friends and classmates who were.

Last Saturday, he decided to act. He sat down at his computer and typed out his thoughts on why the course -- offered for almost two decades as an elective to seniors at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School -- should be banned from the school.

"I know I'm not the first to bring this up but why has there been no concerted effort to remove Peace Studies from among the B-CC courses?" he wrote in his post to the school's group e-mail list. "The 'class' is headed by an individual with a political agenda, who wants to teach students the 'right' way of thinking by giving them facts that are skewed in one direction."

He hit send.

Within a few hours, the normally staid e-mail list BCCnet -- a site for announcements, job postings and other housekeeping details in the life of a school -- was ablaze with chatter. By the time Principal Sean Bulson checked his BlackBerry on Sunday evening, there were more than 150 postings from parents and students -- some ardently in support, some ardently against the course.

Sounds interesting -- but what of the charges the kid makes about the class?

Since its launch at the school in 1988, Peace Studies has provoked lively debate, but the attempt to have the course removed from the curriculum is a first, Bulson said. The challenge by two students comes as universities and even some high schools across the country are under close scrutiny by a growing number of critics who believe that the U.S. education system is being hijacked by liberal activists.

At Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Peace Studies is taught by Colman McCarthy, a former Washington Post reporter and founder and president of the Center for Teaching Peace. Though the course is taught at seven other Montgomery County high schools, some say B-CC's is perhaps the most personal and ideological of the offerings because McCarthy makes no effort to disguise his opposition to war, violence and animal testing.

So the course is, to use a phrase, biased and unbalanced, sort of like McCarthy himself during his days in journalism. I don't necessarily have a problem with a teacher being open about points of view and beliefs, but doing so brings with it a responsibility to present the other side as well. And that is what concerns me about this class. It sounds like advocacy.

What sort of things go on in the class?

The course is also offered at Montgomery Blair, James Hubert Blake, Albert Einstein, Walter Johnson, Northwest, Northwood and Rockville high schools, but the Peace Studies course at Bethesda-Chevy Chase is unique for a number of reasons. Although a staff teacher takes roll and issues grades, it is McCarthy as a volunteer, unpaid guest lecturer who does the bulk of the teaching. He does not work from lesson plans, although he does use a school system-approved textbook -- a collection of essays on peace that he edited.

For McCarthy, it seems Peace Studies is not just a cause; it is a crusade.

"Unless we teach them peace, someone else will teach them violence," he said.

Students might spend one class period listening to a guest speaker who opposes the death penalty and another, if they choose, standing along East West Highway protesting the war.

But that, students said, is part of the course's appeal.

"We're all mature enough to take it all in with a hint of skepticism," said Megan Andrews, 17. "We respect Mr. McCarthy's views, but we don't absorb them like sponges."

When they walk through the door of their fourth-floor classroom, students said, they never know what they might find. Once McCarthy brought in a live turkey to illustrate a point about animal rights. Everything went well until the turkey escaped and urinated in the hallway.

And Friday, when students opened the door, they saw Mahatma Gandhi -- or, rather, Bernard Meyer, a peace activist from Olympia, Wash., dressed as Gandhi. Meyer spent most of the class time taking questions from students about "life" as Gandhi. McCarthy, too, jumped in, quizzing Gandhi about his views on arranged marriage. At the end of the period, he jumped from his chair.

"Let's take a photo of us with Gandhi," he said, gathering the students.

I'll be honest -- i'd like to do some of this stuff in my classroom. In particular, I'd love to do the Gandhi thing with my kids, because I think it might really spark some of them to do some thinking and to reconsider the gang influence in their lives. I also think that such activities spark good learning due to their hands-on nature.

But taking the kids out for a protest or a rally? That disturbs me. Would I be permitted to take kids out of school to hold up pro-life signs? What about taking kids to stand across the street with signs supporting the war?

And does McCarthy present opposing views on capital punishment or the war? It does not sound like he does. Is such an approach intellectually honest, especially with high school kids?

I'm also curious -- does this school have an ROTC program? Does it allow military recruiters through the front door? Or is the ideology of the Peace Studies class a reflection of a wider anti-military sentiment, even though there is a large military presence in Bethesda?

Without such answers, I'm conflicted on the issue of keeping the class, although I am sceptical of it

I'm curious -- what do others think about this?

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Posted by: Greg at 11:12 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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At last! Someone writing about the current testing regime prevalent in American schools who realizes that the evil notion of “teaching to the test” is, in reality, teaching to the standards set by the state.

Those who complain are not really talking about teaching to the state test. Unless teachers sneak into the counseling office and steal a copy, which can get them fired, they don't know what's on the test. They are teaching not to the test but to the state standards -- a long list of things students are supposed to learn in each subject area, as approved by the state school board.

Hardly anybody complains about teaching to a standard. Teacher-turned-author Susan Ohanian is trying to change this, and she refers to all advocates of learning standards as "Standardistos." But she has not made much headway, mostly because standards make sense to parents like me. We are not usually included in discussions of testing policy, but we tend to vote in large numbers, and everybody knows that any governor or president who came out against standards for schools and learning would soon be looking for work in the private sector.

Those who object to such standards (including the wrong-headed Ohanian) are really objecting to good education. After all, look the standards for my 10th Grade World History classes. Do you really find anything objectionable there? Anything that should not, reasonably speaking, be a part of a World History class? If anything, these TEKS (Texas Essential knowledge and Skills) provide a pretty good overview of the subject. When looked at in the context of the overall standards for grades 1-12, you find that they provide a great scope and sequence for learning. The TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) tests to those standards – so if my colleagues and I teach to those standards, our students should pass the Exit Level test in 11th grade. That is not to say that I don’t have issues with the TAKS, but the fact that it is standards driven is not one of them.

Posted by: Greg at 11:02 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 354 words, total size 2 kb.

At last! Someone writing about the current testing regime prevalent in American schools who realizes that the evil notion of “teaching to the test” is, in reality, teaching to the standards set by the state.

Those who complain are not really talking about teaching to the state test. Unless teachers sneak into the counseling office and steal a copy, which can get them fired, they don't know what's on the test. They are teaching not to the test but to the state standards -- a long list of things students are supposed to learn in each subject area, as approved by the state school board.

Hardly anybody complains about teaching to a standard. Teacher-turned-author Susan Ohanian is trying to change this, and she refers to all advocates of learning standards as "Standardistos." But she has not made much headway, mostly because standards make sense to parents like me. We are not usually included in discussions of testing policy, but we tend to vote in large numbers, and everybody knows that any governor or president who came out against standards for schools and learning would soon be looking for work in the private sector.

Those who object to such standards (including the wrong-headed Ohanian) are really objecting to good education. After all, look the standards for my 10th Grade World History classes. Do you really find anything objectionable there? Anything that should not, reasonably speaking, be a part of a World History class? If anything, these TEKS (Texas Essential knowledge and Skills) provide a pretty good overview of the subject. When looked at in the context of the overall standards for grades 1-12, you find that they provide a great scope and sequence for learning. The TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) tests to those standards – so if my colleagues and I teach to those standards, our students should pass the Exit Level test in 11th grade. That is not to say that I don’t have issues with the TAKS, but the fact that it is standards driven is not one of them.

Posted by: Greg at 11:02 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 363 words, total size 2 kb.

HereÂ’s another case where a judge ought to dismiss the charges and sanction the prosecutor.

What started as a version of the schoolyard game of dodge ball has apparently become a legal ordeal for a 12-year-old girl and her family.

Complaints by the parents of a student injured during a game at Hermosa Elementary School prompted authorities to charge Brittney Schneiders with battery.

Five other students also accused of battery stemming from the May 8 playground game opted to take probation, but Brittney Schneiders and her parents refused.

"I don't think I did (commit a crime)," Brittney told NBC4's Mary Parks. "I thought I was just playing a dodge ball game. I never thought it would come up to this level."

For seven years, Schneiders made the honor roll and received good citizenship awards, but the teen soccer star is in a legal mess over a game of "Wall Ball."

"Wall Ball" is a game where a team throws or kicks a ball in an attempt to hit other players.

Schneiders kicked a ball that hit a boy who wore braces, giving him a fat lip.

The district attorney, probation and sheriff's departments agreed with the school that the boy was repeatedly and unnecessarily hit with the ball and they filed charges against the students.

But Brittney's father, Ray Schneiders, believes the law has gone overboard.

"We are not parents who see our princess can do no wrong," Ray Schneiders said. "It is all about power and the manic egos of those who possess and abuse it."

David Hidalgo, supervising deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County, told NBC4 that although it is illegal for his office to discuss specific cases, he notes that there is always the option of community service or a letter of apology to resolve a case.

"When parents refuse to cooperate under those circumstances and they refuse to hold a minor accountable for their criminal conduct and insist they go to court to refute the allegations, then we have no choice," Hidalgo said.

The district attorney's office also is frustrated by not being able to legally and publicly divulge all the facts in the case, Parks reported.

The case is set for trial in March.

Unless there is significantly more to this case than is being reported, it seems to me that you have a well-connected parent and an over-zealous prosecutor out to punish what appears to be a trivial injury.

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The Catholic League For Religious and Civil Rights has weighed ln on the controversy over the Mohammad cartoons being republished in the Daily Illini.

February 17, 2006

CARTOON UPSETS UNIV. OF ILLINOIS OFFICIALS

The February 9 edition of the Daily Illini, the student newspaper at the University of Illinois, republished cartoons that made fun of Muhammad. Those responsible for doing so, the editor in chief and the opinions page editor, have now been suspended.

The response of school officials to this incident is the subject of Catholic League president Bill DonohueÂ’s news release:

“Richard Herman, the chancellor of the University of Illinois, is critical of the decision to reprint the anti-Muhammad cartoons. He maintains that a discussion about the controversial Danish cartoons could have taken place without republishing them. He’s right, but that is not the way the university treats anti-Catholic fare on campus.

“In March 1997, the same Urbana-Champaign campus displayed drawings by Michele Blondel that showed red glass vaginas hanging inside European Roman Catholic cathedrals; two of them had red glass holy water cruets with crosses on them. I wrote a letter to the president registering my objections, and received a reply from the chancellor, Michael Aiken.

“Aiken said he regretted that the art ‘disappointed’ me (flat beers disappoint me, not lousy art). He instructed, ‘Most viewers find Blondel’s art to be quite subtle as it invites the viewer to contemplate and reflect on topics as diverse as the body, the church, and architectural and religious symbolism.’ Stupid me—I thought it was Catholic-bashing porn. His closer was precious: ‘The University believes that true intellectual discourse extends not only to written communication but also to the visual.’ Except when Muslims get angry.

“So what’s changed? Do Catholics have to call for beheadings to get respect? How else to explain the condescending response I got, and the sympathetic response afforded Muslims? Similarly, nobody was disciplined for offending Catholics, but two kids have been suspended for offending Muslims!”

Indeed.

And the New York Times has an interesting overview about the case – including the relatively calm response at other Midwestern universities where some or all of the cartoons were published, including my alma mater, Illinois State University.

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My Aggie buddies will be pleased this story doesn't come from College Station -- it is from Kentucky. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "animal husbandry".

Some Bowling Green, Ky., police officers found more than they bargained for after stopping by a Western Kentucky University fraternity party early Thursday.

The officers discovered a live goat stuffed into a storage room of the Alpha Gamma Rho house with no food or water, standing in its own urine and feces, according to WBKO-TV in Bowling Green.

The authorities cited 19-year-old Trenton Dakota Jackson with a second-degree count of cruelty to animals.

Officials aren't sure why the goat was in the storage room and don't know how long the goat had been held captive. Some of the students told police the goat was going to be used in a hazing ritual.

Brian Peyton, the president of Western's Alpha Gamma Rho chapter, said the goat was brought in as a prank, to make some pledges think they would have to have sex with it, WBKO reported. But Peyton told the TV station that the incident wasnÂ’t related to hazing. He said that nobody actually was going to have sex with the goat, the TV station reported.

The goat was sent to the Warren County Humane Society so it could be examined by a veterinarian.

The fraternity has been ordered to stop all activities during an investigation. Alpha Gamma Rho has been cited for hazing three times since 1996.

The executive director of Alpha Gamma Rho's national organization in Kansas City, Mo., said he's also suspended the fraternity chapter. The organization will send someone to the university to investigate the allegations and cooperate with university officials, director Philip Josephson said.

Insert your fraternity joke here.

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No more will students in Ohio science classes be taught to think critically or use the scientific method to examine evidence for and against scientific theories. instead, they are to be presented only evidence in support of scientific theories, but not any evidence that may call such theories into doubt.

Why the change from good science education to indoctrination? because some fear that teaching kids to think might lead them to draw conclusions that contradict scientific orthodoxy.

The Ohio school board voted Tuesday to eliminate a passage in the stateÂ’s science standards that critics said opened the door to the teaching of intelligent design.

The Ohio Board of Education decided 11-4 to delete material encouraging students to seek evidence for and against evolution.

The 2002 science standards said students should be able to “describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” The standards included a disclaimer that they do not require the teaching of intelligent design.

So the message of the real close-minded fundamentalists to Ohio students is clear -- don't think; accept Darwinist dogma on faith.

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Do we really need to turn childhood pranks into criminal activity when there is no harm and no intent to do harm?

A 12-year-old Aurora boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed.

The sixth-grade student at Waldo Middle School was also suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.

The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said he brought the bag to school to ask his science teacher if he could run an experiment using sugar.

Two other boys asked if the bag contained cocaine after he showed it to them in the bathroom Wednesday morning, the boy's mother said.

He joked that it was cocaine, before telling them, "just kidding," she said.

Aurora police arrested the boy after a custodian at the school reported the boy's comments. The youngster was taken to the police station and detained, before being released to his parents that afternoon.

So we have a 12-year-old suspended from school and facing criminal charges for. . . behaving like a 12-year-old.

Here's hoping that the prosecutors have more sense than the cops and the school.

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Racial discrimination in official programs has been eliminated at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale under terms of a consent decree entered into with the Department of Justice. The decree requires that the University end all race-based graduate fellowships.

Southern Illinois University has a tradition of being the first and the best Illinois institute of higher learning outside Chicago to give opportunity to minorities, and president Glenn Poshard swears the tradition won't change - even as the university ends minority exclusivity in fellowships under orders from the federal government.

SIU filed a consent decree in the federal court in Benton Wednesday, the same day the U.S. Department of Justice filed its official complaint about three graduate fellowship programs it claims violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from hiring people exclusively based on race, nationality or gender. The combined effect of the two actions stops further legal proceedings, as long as the university adheres to a list of requirements set down by the agency for the next two years (see sidebar for details). SIU escaped the settlement with no fines, penalties or expenses other than its own legal costs.

During a press conference after the special board meeting Wednesday in which trustees unanimously moved to accept the consent decree, Poshard said for whatever reason the government zeroed in on SIU's practices in minority recruitment, officials were going to make the change an opportunity to commit to opening up all its graduate aid programs for all students in the system.

Excuse me, but that is an admission that the graduate aid programs were not open to all, and that you had been discriminating. There is no other way to parse that statement. For you to then cast aspersions upon the Justice Department for investigating SIU or upon the motives of those who reported your violations of federal law and the constitutional rights of every student at the school is obscene. But Poshard did exactly that – while at the same time denying that was his intent.

"I don't know the motivation of the people who maybe contacted the people of the justice department on this," Poshard said. "I don't judge their motivation, but whatever it is, we're going to do this because it is the right thing to do."

That very statement indicates that you do judge their motivations and find them wanting. You imply that there was some malignant intent, and that you folks are just the innocent victims. But that isn’t the case at all – those who reported you were clearly seeking the end to illegal racial discrimination, and you folks fought it until it was clear you were going to lose. The folks who made the report were clearly on the side of the angels, sir, and you were not. Get off your high horse, break out the sack-cloth and ashes, and start doing some serious penance.

Can and should SIU-C reach out and recruit women and minorities? You bet, and it is something that I know the school has done in a significant manner for decades (my family has over a half century of association with the University as both students and faculty). That is something that Salukis should take pride in. Racial and gender exclusion, though, betray that heritage, and must be eliminated as a matter of principle, not just as a matter of abiding by the law.

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I teach high school, but I certainly havenÂ’t encountered anything quite as outlandish as this at my school. Has anyone heard about this stuff in their part of the world?

Alair is headed for the section of the second-floor hallway where her friends gather every day during their free tenth period for the “cuddle puddle,” as she calls it. There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys. She dives into the undulating heap of backpacks and blue jeans and emerges between her two best friends, Jane and Elle, whose names have been changed at their request. They are all 16, juniors at Stuyvesant. Alair slips into Jane’s lap, and Elle reclines next to them, watching, cat-eyed. All three have hooked up with each other. All three have hooked up with boys—sometimes the same boys. But it’s not that they’re gay or bisexual, not exactly. Not always.

Their friend Nathan, a senior with John Lennon hair and glasses, is there with his guitar, strumming softly under the conversation. “So many of the girls here are lesbian or have experimented or are confused,” he says.

Ilia, another senior boy, frowns at Nathan’s use of labels. “It’s not lesbian or bisexual. It’s just, whatever . . . ”

Since the school day is winding down, things in the hallway are starting to get rowdy. Jane disappears for a while and comes back carrying a pint-size girl over her shoulder. “Now I take her off and we have gay sex!” she says gleefully, as she parades back and forth in front of the cuddle puddle. “And it’s awesome!” The hijacked girl hangs limply, a smile creeping to her lips. Ilia has stuffed papers up the front of his shirt and prances around on tiptoe, batting his eyes and sticking out his chest. Elle is watching, enthralled, as two boys lock lips across the hall. “Oh, my,” she murmurs. “Homoerotica. There’s nothing more exciting than watching two men make out.” And everyone is talking to another girl in the puddle who just “came out,” meaning she announced that she’s now open to sexual overtures from both boys and girls, which makes her a minor celebrity, for a little while.

The again, maybe it is just a question of our conscious decision to supervise our students in the halls, while “enlightened blue-state educators” in New York think group sex in the hallways is nothing more than a learning experience.

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There is a move afoot to put a stop to discrimination on our college campuses. The perpetrator of the discrimination? The American Red Cross. The proposed solution? Ban blood drives!

And while one school has refused to give in, there are other schools considering taking precisely that course of action.

The University of Vermont won't ban American Red Cross blood drives on campus despite a complaint from the school's affirmative action office that the organization violates UVM's non-discrimination policy.

"Donating blood is an individual choice and action -- not rising to the definition of protected activity in the case of discrimination or equal protection," Michael Gower, UVM's vice president for administration, wrote in a Jan. 17 letter detailing the school's position.

The letter was addressed to Kathryn Friedman, the executive director of the affirmative action office. Friedman had recommended that UVM curtail Red Cross blood drives on campus, arguing the Red Cross policy violated UVM's non-discrimination policy.

According to the letter, Friedman's office decided to oppose Red Cross campus blood drives after a former UVM student filed a complaint accusing UVM of permitting discrimination against gay men by allowing the Red Cross on campus.

Officials for the Red Cross blood center in Burlington were unavailable for comment late last week. Nationally, the organization's position has been that the Food and Drug Administration won't allow it to accept blood from sexually active gay men.

Among the many questions a prospective Red Cross blood donor is asked is whether the person is "a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977."

The policy is meant to keep HIV-positive blood from contaminating the nation's blood supply. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. The FDA last considered whether to revise its policy in 2000, when a panel of FDA specialists voted 7-6 to maintain the ban.

Peter Jacobsen, executive director of Vermont CARES, said he understood the Red Cross was bound by the FDA policy but said the time had come for the FDA to revisit its stance.

"Personally, I think it's unfortunate," he said of the policy. "HIV-testing technology has made such incredible advances. It is able to sort out any HIV-infected blood."

The university president argues that the ban would not be in the best interest of the students or the community. But since when do left-wing ideologues give a damn about anything but their cause? So what if a few thousand people die, so long as nobody gets their feelings hurt by being excluded from donating?

Other regional universities, including the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, are considering whether to allow the Red Cross to continue to stage blood drives on their campuses.

The University of Maine's student government has voted to ban Red Cross blood drives on its Orono campus. The University of New Hampshire's Student Senate last year passed a resolution calling on the Red Cross and the FDA to revise their policies.

Here is a proposal – anyone offended by the current blood donation guidelines should refuse all blood products until the ban is changed. No whole blood, not platelets, no plasma, or anything else. Have your refusal tattooed in a prominent location on your body. That way your conscience won’t be offended – and there will be blood for human beings who are less concerned about PC politics and more concerned about the health and safety of the nation’s blood supply.

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Let’s set aside the First Amendment issues here fore a moment – and they are significant – and just consider whether the punishment is appropriate for the offense in question.

PITTSBURGH - A high school senior who was transferred to an alternative school as punishment for parodying his principal on the Internet is suing the district, arguing it violated his freedom of speech.

Justin Layshock had used his grandmother's computer and the Web site MySpace.com to create a phony profile under the principal's name and photo.
The site asks questions, and Justin filled in answers peppered with vulgarities, fat jokes and, to the question "What did you do on your last birthday?" wrote "Too drunk to remember," according to the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

School officials questioned the teenager about the site on Dec. 21, and he apologized to the principal, the ACLU said.

On Jan. 6, the district suspended Justin for 10 days and transferred him to an alternative program typically reserved for students with behavior or attendance problems, according to the lawsuit. He also was banned from school events.

The lawsuit seeks Justin's immediate reinstatement to his regular school.

Alternative school? For a juvenile attempt at humor that happened off campus and outside of school hours? You must be kidding! The suspension is even an overreaction, but one could argue that it is appropriate if the site caused a major problem at the school or contained threats, but not for insults.

Looks like someone with the district, probably the principal, got his panties in a wad and decided to “make an example” of the student.

Bad move – because the taxpayers of the district will be paying for the bad judgment of the individual who made the decision.

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The New York State Conference of the American Association of University Professors is objecting to the Academic Bill of Rights proposed in the state legismature. Let’s take a look at the portions of the legislation that they find so objectionable in their correspondance with their members.

Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section 224-b to read as follows:

Academic bill of rights.

1. A student enrolled in an institution of higher education has the right to expect:

a. A learning environment in which the student has access to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects the student studies in which, in the humanities, the social sciences and the arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly methodologies and perspectives has a significant institutional purpose;

In other words, they are objecting to a mandate to provide students with a well-rounded education.

b. To be graded solely on the basis of the student's reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects the student studies and to not be discriminated against on the basis of the student's political or religious beliefs;

It seems that the students wish to permit grades to be based upon the student’s conformity to religious or political ideologies rather than their knowledge of the material and their demonstrated scholarship. This is at odds with the traditions of Western liberal education, which had as its goal the liberation of the individual mind rather than it’s shackling.

c. That the student's academic freedom and the quality of education will not be infringed upon by instructors who persistently introduce controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to the subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose;

The professors seem to think that students have no right to expect that they will be taught the subject matter of the course and not the personal opinions and philosophy of the professor on matters unrelated to the subject matter of the class. They view students as a captive audience to be indoctrinated. The irony is that this clause is based upon a 1940 statement of the AAUP on academic freedom.

d. That the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations are not infringed upon by administrators, student government organizations or institutional policies, rules or procedures; and

Contrary to the Bill of Rights and the repeated rulings of the Supreme Court, the AAUP believes that college students shed their civil liberties when they enter the campus.

e. That the student's academic institution distributes student fee funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and maintains a posture of neutrality with respect to substantive political and religious disagreements, differences and opinions.

A fair and equitable distribution of mandatory student fees is somehow threatening to academic freedom?

2. A faculty member or instructor at an institution of higher education has the right to expect:

a. Academic freedom in the classroom in discussing subjects while making the students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than that of the faculty member or instructor and encouraging intellectual honesty, civil debate and the critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth;

I cannot understand what is objectionable here – unless the requirement that a professor provide students with a well-rounded education is a threat to current practices.

b. To be hired, fired, promoted, denied promotion, granted tenure or denied tenure on the basis of competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of expertise of the faculty member or instructor and not on the basis of political or religious beliefs; and
b. To not be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees on the basis of political or religious beliefs.

Non-discrimination is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Left. Could it be that they hypocritically apply such matters only to themselves and their favored groups, and not to those who do not share their worldview?

3. An institution of higher education shall fully inform students, faculty and instructors of the rights under this section and of the institution's grievance procedures for violations of academic freedom by notices prominently displayed in course catalogs or student handbooks and on the institutional publicly accessible site on the Internet

4. The governing board of an institution of higher education shall develop institutional guidelines and policies to protect the academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty under this section and shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student or faculty member may seek redress of grievance for an alleged violation of a right specified in this section..

A governing board under this subdivision shall:

Publicize the grievance procedure developed pursuant to this subdivision
To the students and faculty on every campus that is under the control 27 and direction of the governing board. .

We can’t be telling students that they have rights, can we? That would threaten the ability of the unbalanced professor to indoctrinate his captive audience!

In light of the inoffensive and reasonable nature of these provisions that the AAUP is objecting to in NY State, it can only be assumed that the requirement of professional conduct is offensive to the groups and that the legitimate rights and expectations of students need protection.

Maybe the time has come for the New York taxpauyers to cut the public college and university system loose as irredeemable corrupt, and see if the one-sided and biased faculty can survive on their own in the marketplace.

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The New York State Conference of the American Association of University Professors is objecting to the Academic Bill of Rights proposed in the state legismature. LetÂ’s take a look at the portions of the legislation that they find so objectionable in their correspondance with their members.

Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section 224-b to read as follows:

Academic bill of rights.

1. A student enrolled in an institution of higher education has the right to expect:

a. A learning environment in which the student has access to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects the student studies in which, in the humanities, the social sciences and the arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly methodologies and perspectives has a significant institutional purpose;

In other words, they are objecting to a mandate to provide students with a well-rounded education.

b. To be graded solely on the basis of the student's reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects the student studies and to not be discriminated against on the basis of the student's political or religious beliefs;

It seems that the students wish to permit grades to be based upon the studentÂ’s conformity to religious or political ideologies rather than their knowledge of the material and their demonstrated scholarship. This is at odds with the traditions of Western liberal education, which had as its goal the liberation of the individual mind rather than itÂ’s shackling.

c. That the student's academic freedom and the quality of education will not be infringed upon by instructors who persistently introduce controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to the subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose;

The professors seem to think that students have no right to expect that they will be taught the subject matter of the course and not the personal opinions and philosophy of the professor on matters unrelated to the subject matter of the class. They view students as a captive audience to be indoctrinated. The irony is that this clause is based upon a 1940 statement of the AAUP on academic freedom.

d. That the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations are not infringed upon by administrators, student government organizations or institutional policies, rules or procedures; and

Contrary to the Bill of Rights and the repeated rulings of the Supreme Court, the AAUP believes that college students shed their civil liberties when they enter the campus.

e. That the student's academic institution distributes student fee funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and maintains a posture of neutrality with respect to substantive political and religious disagreements, differences and opinions.

A fair and equitable distribution of mandatory student fees is somehow threatening to academic freedom?

2. A faculty member or instructor at an institution of higher education has the right to expect:

a. Academic freedom in the classroom in discussing subjects while making the students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than that of the faculty member or instructor and encouraging intellectual honesty, civil debate and the critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth;

I cannot understand what is objectionable here – unless the requirement that a professor provide students with a well-rounded education is a threat to current practices.

b. To be hired, fired, promoted, denied promotion, granted tenure or denied tenure on the basis of competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of expertise of the faculty member or instructor and not on the basis of political or religious beliefs; and
b. To not be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees on the basis of political or religious beliefs.

Non-discrimination is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Left. Could it be that they hypocritically apply such matters only to themselves and their favored groups, and not to those who do not share their worldview?

3. An institution of higher education shall fully inform students, faculty and instructors of the rights under this section and of the institution's grievance procedures for violations of academic freedom by notices prominently displayed in course catalogs or student handbooks and on the institutional publicly accessible site on the Internet

4. The governing board of an institution of higher education shall develop institutional guidelines and policies to protect the academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty under this section and shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student or faculty member may seek redress of grievance for an alleged violation of a right specified in this section..

A governing board under this subdivision shall:

Publicize the grievance procedure developed pursuant to this subdivision
To the students and faculty on every campus that is under the control 27 and direction of the governing board. .

We canÂ’t be telling students that they have rights, can we? That would threaten the ability of the unbalanced professor to indoctrinate his captive audience!

In light of the inoffensive and reasonable nature of these provisions that the AAUP is objecting to in NY State, it can only be assumed that the requirement of professional conduct is offensive to the groups and that the legitimate rights and expectations of students need protection.

Maybe the time has come for the New York taxpauyers to cut the public college and university system loose as irredeemable corrupt, and see if the one-sided and biased faculty can survive on their own in the marketplace.

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That is what one Florida radio station has termed Dave F. Swafford, who walked into a classroom and punched out a teacher's aide who his daughter accuses of inappropriately touching her.

An angry father who marched into a classroom and punched a teacher's assistant in the face said Wednesday he was protecting his 15-year-old daughter, who had accused the man of inappropriately touching her.

Dave F. Swafford, 42, was charged with felony battery on a school employee after he hit the 35-year-old aide in front of a class full of students at Lakewood Ranch High School near Bradenton Tuesday morning, authorities said. He was also named ``Father of the Year'' by a local radio station for his actions.

``I'm not real proud of what I did,'' Swafford told The Associated Press Wednesday. ``You have to protect your children, and my daughter does not lie to me.''

It seems Mr. Swafford was unwilling to allow school procedures to be invoked and investigations to be made. He wanted action taken immediately – because, after all, his daughter doesn’t lie to him.

And that is why I think he is a sad and pathetic excuse for a parent (and for a man, for that matter). This is the situation that led to his assault.

Swafford, the part owner of an air conditioning company, said he came to the school to meet with officials about allegations made by his daughter and other female students about the assistant's inappropriate touching and conduct. When he saw that the man was not in the meeting, he asked his daughter to take him to the classroom.

``I wanted to know why the guy was in a classroom teaching after my daughter came forward,'' he said.

A verbal exchange became heated, and ``I lost control,'' he said. He spent about 10 hours in jail and got out later Tuesday after posting bond.

You see, he wanted the man to lose his job based solely on his daughter's say-so. No need to investigate, no need to find the facts -- take the word of a 15-year-old and a couple of her friends and just fire the guy. This guy is such a hot-head that he didn't even bother to wait for his meeting with the administration -- he had his daughter lead him down to the guy's room so he could assault him. After all, his daughter has spoken, and she doesn't lie to him.

You may ask why I am not taking a hard line against child abuse. Quite simply, it is because I am not sure that there is abuse here. What I am sure is that we have another case of a parent walking into a school and committing an act of violence against school personnel. That isn't acceptable.

And as for the accusation made, I'd rather wait for there to be some investigation before drawing a conclusion. After all, kids do lie to their parents, even about this sort of stuff

I watched a colleague suffer through such an accusation a few years ago. A decent, compassionate, dedicated man, he had a trio of girls who were doing poorly in his class accuse him of giving them lewd looks and groping them. It wasn't true -- they just wanted out of his class so they could get As instead of Bs. He was suspended from work, and had to go home and tell his pregnant wife about the accusation (it was a difficult pregnancy, and his wife lost the baby that week). Once cleared, he was still the subject of rumors -- even though one of the girls admitted that she had lied. Even today, four years later, there still lingers a hint of scandal around his name, and certain parents will insist that their children be assigned to other classes. It is certain that he will never be hired as an administrator in this or any other district, despite completing his certification requirements a few weeks after the accusation was made; I wonder if he could even get a teaching job outside of the district. After all, there will always be those who will remember the accusation and be certain that these girls didn't lie.

So I'll be honest here -- I hope Swafford ends up serving the maximum sentence for the felony he committed, regardless of the guilt of the guy accused by his daughter. No one should be able to walk into a school and assault an employee, no matter how righteous their cause is alleged to be.

UPDATE: O'Reilly says the school has tape of the accused in a different location at the time of the incident -- and daddy has a violent rap sheet.

This report makes it clear that the "Father of the Year" attacked a man who was falsely accused by his lying daughter.

It turns out the daughter made it all up, the Manatee School District says.

The parent of a Lakewood Ranch High School student punched a teaching assistant at the school Tuesday, and said he was justified because his daughter claimed the teacher had touched her inappropriately.

But the girl's entire story was made up, school officials said today, and now the father faces a felony battery charge that could bring prison time.

The girl, who had been in a school-suspension classroom at the high school, was apparently motivated by revenge, Superintendent Roger Dearing said.

The teacher assistant, Deon W. Mathis, had turned the girl in to the office after seeing her pour soda onto another student from the second floor of a school stairwell.

Dearing said the district has statements from several other students and footage from a school security camera that proves the teaching assistant did nothing wrong. Video tapes show Mathis wasn't even in the classroom at the time the girl claimed the sex harassment took place.

Dearing said the district would pursue criminal charges against the parent, Dave F. Swafford, who has been making national TV rounds justifying the violence. He was slated to appear on the O'Reilly Factor tonight.

Dearing called Mathis a respected and caring educator. He is expected to return to work Monday after being put on paid administrative leave.

Oh, and by the way -- daddy was still defending his daughter and accusing the teacher on national television (O'Reilly) after the evidence was released. here's hoping for a big-time libel award in addition to a long jail sentence.

MORE COMMENARY (including much that is misguided): Southchild, Unknown Professor, PC540, Attu, Opinion Bug, Just Iggy, Evil Overlord, Right Thinking from the Left Coast, Teacher Children Hell, It's All Greek To Me, The Political Teen

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Posted by: Greg at 01:20 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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but heaven forbid that a citizen enroll is child on the “wrong” side of a school district border.

In San Jose, Calif., many parents want to get their kids in Fremont Union schools because they're so much better than neighboring schools. So parents sometimes cheat to get their kids in. At least cheating is what local officials call it. Steve Rowley, district superintendent, said, "We have maybe hundreds of kids who are here illegally, under false pretenses."

Illegally. False pretenses. Sounds like the kids are criminals. All they're doing is trying to get a good public-school education. Don't the public schools' defenders insist all children have a right to a good public-school education?

And that is exactly the argument used for education border-jumpers and their offspring – they need a good education to succeed. But we won’t allow America kids to jump the borders of school districts to get one.

Read John StosselÂ’s column and you will be truly and righteously outraged.

Posted by: Greg at 03:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bravo to these five teachers who refuse to place a pro-gay poster in their classrooms, despite a district mandate.

Five teachers at San Leandro High School have refused to comply with a school district order to display a rainbow-flag poster in their classrooms that reads, " This is a safe place to be who you are," because they say homosexuality violates their religious beliefs, Principal Amy Furtado said.

The high school's Gay-Straight Alliance designed the poster, which includes pink triangles and other symbols of gay pride. In December the school board approved a policy requiring all district teachers to hang the posters in their classrooms.

District officials said the poster is an effort to comply with state laws requiring schools to ensure students' safety and curb discrimination and harassment. They say that too often teachers do not reprimand students who use derogatory slurs or refer to homosexuality in a negative way.

"This is not about religion, sex, or a belief system,'' said district Superintendent Christine Lim, who initiated the poster policy. "This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation."

“Not about religion, sex, or a belief system”? Really? So if a student expresses his firmly held religious belief that homosexual activity is immoral and that practitioners thereof are going to burn in Hell, they won’t be reprimanded? Heck, given the official endorsement of homosexuals as a protected class, will students who adhere to traditional moral and religious beliefs feel that “this is a safe place to be who you are”? I don’t think so.

Speaking as a teacher, I don’t accept anyone giving crap to anyone else over sexual orientation, race, or any of the other protected statuses. Not because these kids are “special”, but because all kids are special. My kids know that they will not get away with that sort of crap in my presence – and they learned that from their older siblings and cousins before they ever set foot in my room.

But I wouldnÂ’t put the poster up. It gives an imprimatur to one side of the homosexual rights issue that I think should not be given in a classroom setting. It is implicitly a tool of indoctrination.

And if you disagree with me, consider this – how long would this poster be allowed to remain in any public school classroom anywhere in the United States?

You want to tell me again that this isn't about special treatment for one group based upon their sexual practices, or the disfavoring of a point of view -- especially if it is religious?

UPDATE: I found the poster online. Look close and see what is missing.

Yep, that is right -- straight kids are pointedly not included among those for who the classroom is declared to be a safe place to be themselves.

UPDATE – 1/27/06: Looks like the teachers have given in. That is too bad.

"We are a diverse staff. We have teachers here who are active in their churches, and we respect their beliefs," Furtado said Wednesday. "But none of those teachers have said they won't put up the posters because of that."

Teachers have a week to hang the 8 1/2-by-11 posters, which were designed by the 30 or so students in the school's Gay-Straight Alliance. Furtado will check all 200 classrooms next week to see if the posters are visible, and she said she'd have "a private conversation" with teachers who don't comply.

"The expectation is compliance," she said. "It's board policy. But what's great is that today we have some very conservative teachers who've already put it up."

Too bad than none had the guts to stand their ground. The poster’s contents are exclusive, divisive, and oppressive – not inclusive, uniting, and liberating.

MORE AT: Right on the Left Coast, Joanne Jacobs, Dispatches From The Culture War, California Conservative

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Posted by: Greg at 03:44 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I criticized the initial plan – this change is an improvement, though the earlier version will make this plan tainted in the eyes of many on both the Left and Right.

A conservative activist dropped his offer to pay students up to $100 per class for providing information on what he called "radical" professors at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The activist, Andrew Jones, said Monday he would continue his effort with unpaid volunteers.

Jones' Bruin Alumni Association had offered UCLA students up to $100 to supply tapes and notes from classes to expose professors he considered to be pushing liberal political views on their students.

After news reports about the plan, Jones was criticized by faculty members who complained of a "witch hunt." Several prominent members of his organization's advisory board, including a former congressman, resigned from the group after details of the payment plan became public.

Jones, 24, a 2003 graduate and former head of the campus Republicans, said he was concerned about the level of professionalism among teachers at the university. He said the payment offer had become "a distraction from the real problem, which has been all along the issue of classroom indoctrination by UCLA professors."

The University is still opposed – and implicitly threatening to punish any student who dares to speak out and supply proof of classroom bias.

Lawrence H. Lokman, a UCLA spokesman, said University of California rules bar the distribution of course materials unless permission is granted by the instructor and campus chancellor. As a result, he said, Jones' campaign violates UC policy even if no payments are involved.

IÂ’m suspicious of this rule, because it prevents the public from finding out about the workplace conduct of public employees. Does that not constitute an unconstitutional restriction on the right to speak on a matter of public concern, and to petition for the redress of grievances?

And besides, wouldn’t the students in question be whistleblowers – who are, we are told, nothing less than patriots out to secure the public’s “right to know” and disclose the unsavory actions of government institutions and officials.

Posted by: Greg at 03:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Mike Adams reports on this coalition of conservative and libertarian students to overturn a rule at University of North Carolina-Greensboro that infringes upon freedom of association.

“The Anti-Discrimination statement must include that student organizations may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, gender, age, national origin, disability, military, veteran status, political affiliation or sexual orientation.”

After reading your report, members of the College Libertarians and College Republicans recognized that their rights as political organizations are being circumvented by this patently unconstitutional policy.

It is clearly unreasonable to request political organizations to admit members of opposing political parties. To require them to do so would sabotage the level of political discourse on campus. Therefore, these two groups have asked UNCG to change this policy. They have asked that the anti-discrimination statement be altered to except political groups from the political affiliation portion of the statement and religious groups from the religion portion of the statement.

Until the anti-discrimination statement is officially altered, the Republicans and Libertarians are refusing to include the full statement in their respective organizational constitutions. They are also refusing to otherwise comply with the unconstitutional policy. And, best of all, they have warned the UNCG administration that they are prepared to pursue legal action to remedy the situation.

The university is retaliating, recently billing them $238 for copying a few dozen pages of public records related to donors to UNCG. I’d like to encourage folks to help defray the cost of copying – and other related expenses – by donating a couple of bucks their way. You can do so at the following address: UNCG College Republicans, Elliot University Center, Box N3, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170. If you would rather have your money go to the UNCG College Libertarians, they can be reached here: UNCG College Libertarians, 110 Odell Place, Greensboro 27403 (make checks payable to Guilford County Libertarian Party). Give what you can to help advance reasoned political debate on one campus.

Posted by: Greg at 03:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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What possesses supposedly professional educators to do stuff like this?

BEAVER FALLS -- A 17-year-old high school student said he was humiliated when a teacher made him sit on the floor during a midterm exam in his ethnicity class -- for wearing a Denver Broncos jersey.

The teacher, John Kelly, forced Joshua Vannoy to sit on the floor to take the test on Friday -- two days before the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Broncos 34-17 in the AFC Championship game. Kelly also made other students throw crumpled up paper at Vannoy, whom he called a "stinking Denver fan," Vannoy told The Associated Press.

Kelly said Vannoy, a junior at Beaver Area Senior High School, just didn't get the joke.

"If he felt uncomfortable, then that's a lesson; that's what (the class) is designed to do," Kelly told The Denver Post. "It was silly fun. I can't believe he was upset."

Fire this idiot for unprofessional conduct.

Yeah, it might make him uncomfortable -- that will be a lesson, and what the his termination is designed to do.

Posted by: Greg at 11:39 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The Washington Post covers the dispute over when to start school -- an issue being faced in many parts of the country.

The pressures of federally mandated exams have pushed public schools here and in several other states to begin classes weeks earlier than usual to squeeze in more days of instruction before the critical tests, sometimes striking August entirely from vacation calendars and devoting the month, traditionally left open for childhood leisure, to class time.

But a widespread backlash, led by disgruntled parents organized into loosely affiliated Save Our Summers groups across the country, is underway.

Legislators in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Pennsylvania are weighing bills this year that would peg school start dates to Labor Day. North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota and Wisconsin passed similar measures in recent years.

The issue is one of the most controversial aspects in the debate over the exams used to comply with the No Child Left Behind law, leading to widening opposition and adding to the litany of complaints about the side effects of what critics call "high-stakes" testing.

Public schools here, for example, began classes at the beginning of August; essentially wiping out a month many had counted on for a spell of unhurried pleasure. Sherry Sturner, a mother of two in Miami-Dade County, had been looking forward to a family reunion up north and time at the swimming pool. But the new schedule did not accommodate them.

Now I won't waste my time teeing off on Mama Sherry, who seems to forget that there are two other entire months for her to spend at family reunions and lounging by poolside with the kids. Instead, I'll deal with the real issue -- the unreasonable expectations of parents and legislators on issues of school calendars and testing dates.

You see, the length of the school year has grown increasingly longer over the years. When I was a kid, the length of the school year was 170 days. Now it is 180 days here in Texas -- but parents and legislators still want us to fit everything into the same neat little "Labor Day to Memorial Day" package that existed when we were kids. The school year has lengthened as we have tried to increase standards in education, to reclaim the high rankings the US once had in academic performance.

And, of course, there is the issue of testing. If the state is going to tell us that we test in February (as we do here in Texas), then we want to get in the maximum number of days before testing, especially since promotion and placement decisions for students may be riding on test results which take weeks to be scored and returned by the state and its contractors.

But mostly it is a question of the number of available days for instruction, as well as certain cultural/traditional calendar issues, that give rise to early starts. This is especially true when districts wish to place semester exams before the Christmas holiday.

Let's look at this example of a school calendar, from what we will call "Generic Independent School District". It is typical of districts here in Texas.

This district already has a problem -- next year it needs to start in the week of August 21, given legislation passed in the last session of the Texas Legislature. I suppose that would not be too difficult to do. Eliminate the Staff Development Day on October 10, sending the kids to school on Veterans Day. Cut three days at Thanksgiving, giving kids only Thanksgiving and the day after -- I hope Grandma is only over the river and through the woods and not in another state or country. Push semester exams back a day, keeping the kids in school through December 16 -- teachers will just have to stay late to get their grades in before break, or perhaps finish on that January 2 Staff Development day. I guess that wasn't that hard.

But what about this idea that we should not start school until after Labor Day and be out by Memorial Day? How will we get the additional 10 instructional days? This is where it gets trickier -- for that involves taking 10 more days out of First Semester and finding days to replace them. That is impossible, as we have left only two non-instructional days after Labor Day and before Winter Break (which, for purposes of this discussion, cannot be touched -- imagine the parental uproar).

This new change already means that we are going to have to move some of First Semester into January. Kids will have one week of review followed by semester exams. To facilitate this, we need to eliminate the January 2 staff development day. That is one day out of the way, so we need nine more.

We have eleven possible days available. They are January 16 (MLK Day), February 13 (Presidents Day), March 6-10 (five days of Spring Break), April 14 (Good Friday), April 28 (Staff Development), May 25 & 26 (Thurdsay and Friday prior to Memorial Day).

Our first casualty has to be Spring Break. After all, it eliminates more than half of the deficit. Similarly, the two days in May are obvious choices, because they are just slack days before the Memorial Day deadline. We still need two days, so we must get rid of the Staff Development day in April (don't worry -- teachers will just do all of the eliminated days in August before the school year starts).

And so, we need just one more school day. Take your pick -- MLK Day, President's Day, or Good Friday (a likely high absentee day). Which do you get rid of? Do you offend blacks, Christians, or patriotic Americans? Personally, I'd get rid of MLK Day on the basis of its closeness to Christmas break, since it makes no sense to have a day off two weeks after a two-week break. But I doubt that any school board would have the testicular fortitude to stand by such a reasonable decision in the face of complaints from outraged black citizens. Similarly, I don't think that most Texas school boards would be willing to fight the battle over Good Friday -- especially given the financial hit that the district could take over the low attendance that day. So, we will eliminate Presidents Day.

What does that leave us? School starts on September 6, and students will attend every weekday until November 24. They will be back in session fro November 28-December 16, and then break for two weeks. School resumes on January 2, and the semester ends on January 13. Following MLK Day, school runs continuously until April 14, and from April 17 through May 26. Parents will, of course, complain that the lack of days off leaves their children tired and overworked, but what can be done? After all, they wanted that full three months off in the summer -- Memorial Day to Labor Day, just like when they were young. We cannot add days to the calendar.

So parents, legislators, tourism industry representatives and other interested individuals -- you have a choice. We must have kids in school at least 180 days (personally, I advocate more). The question is where to put those days. You can have a full three months of school vacation in the summer -- but if you get that, you will sacrifice those other days off you have come to expect during the year. If you take a count, the calendar I proposed had exactly fourteen weekdays off from Labor Day to Memorial Day -- and ten of them were during the Christmas season. Of the remaining four, two are customary vacation days at Thanksgiving, one is an ethnically sensitive national holiday and the other is part of a major religious celebration. That is not my choice -- it is yours. And it doesn't change my work schedule at all -- I will still have to report for Orientation and Staff Development during August, though perhaps a few days later.

But this calendar does something that those advocates do not realize -- it eliminates eight days of instruction before the TAKS test (February 21-23) and shifts them after TAKS. Does this help the students, or does it harm them? Does the elimination of a week-and-a-half of instructional time before the test make them more or less likely to pass? Given that students will be denied a diploma, retained a grade, or required to attend summer school or take remedial classes based upon their performance, I think it harms them. And like it or not, these tests -- and the consequences of low student performance -- are not going away any time soon.

You folks decide -- just tell me when and where I'll find a classroom full of kids with my name on their schedules and I will give them my all. I just hope you will give up the unrealistic dream of fitting a 180-day school year into a package designed for a 170-day (or shorter) school year.

UPDATE -- 1/24/06: Looks like the issue is rearing its head in Washington DC, where the School Board is debating an August 14 start date.

Posted by: Greg at 12:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I believe something needs to be done about biased teaching and the unprofessional politicization of classrooms. But I find the techniques used by this group to be disturbing.

A fledgling alumni group headed by a former campus Republican leader is offering students payments of up to $100 per class to provide information on instructors who are "abusive, one-sided or off-topic" in advocating political ideologies.

The year-old Bruin Alumni Assn. says its "Exposing UCLA's Radical Professors" initiative takes aim at faculty "actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom, whether or not the commentary is relevant to the class topic." Although the group says it is concerned about radical professors of any political stripe, it has named an initial "Dirty 30" of teachers it identifies with left-wing or liberal causes.

Some of the instructors mentioned accuse the association of conducting a witch hunt that threatens to harm the teaching atmosphere, and at least one of the group's advisory board members has resigned because he considers the bounty offers inappropriate. The university said it will warn the association that selling copies of professors' lectures would violate campus rules and raise copyright issues.

I don’t have a problem with documenting who is “abusive, one-sided, or off-topic”. I do have a problem with issuing a hit-list before beginning the process of documenting the problems. And I’ve got an even bigger problem with the payments being made to students for turning over notes and tapes. There is just something unsavory about it – and it undercuts the notion that the students making the reports are acting as whistleblowers rather than ideologically-motivated mercenaries.

I urge the Bruin Alumni Association to rethink their methods.

Posted by: Greg at 01:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Education is not a right.

That is what federal courts have held consistently.

They are right, and we should resist any altruistic impulse to place a “right to an education” in the Constitution, as proposed by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. While his heart may be in the right place, he clearly hasn’t considered the implications of his proposal.

In an attempt to better achieve the ideal of genuine equal opportunity, I've proposed an education amendment to the Constitution. It says: (1) All persons shall enjoy the right to a public education of equal high quality; and (2) The Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.

Speaking as a teacher, I have to shout out my opposition.

First, it is vague. Up to what age are individuals entitled to a public education? Up to what level of educational attainment? Are we talking about education through grade 12 for those under the age of 21, as currently exists in most states? Or are we talking a right to education through a bachelorÂ’s degree? Or does that right go on through a Ph.D. and beyond? There is absolutely nothing there that answers the question, or which constrains some judge somewhere from decreeing that the individual right to education extends throughout an individualÂ’s entire lifespan.

Secondly, this proposal is a major expansion of federal power. It effectively destroys state and local control over education and federalizes it. Will federal funds accompany the federal mandates? Or will the state and local education authorities be expected to do the heavy lifting of funding the dictates of the federal government? It seems clear that there will be mandatory higher taxes on all Americans to fund this power grab, while the local schools will be less answerable to the local community.

Third, there is the question of the status of private and home schools. Will this amendment result in the end of such alternative educational programs? We do know that private schools and home schools generally adhere to higher standards than public schools, and that the students enrolled in such programs generally do better on standardized assessments than their publicly schooled peers. Why exclude the most effective educational programs from federal funding? That cannot be justified on any legitimate educational basis – and isn’t the goal here to ensure a high quality education for all children?

Lastly, there comes the question of school discipline. Once the right to an education is constitutionalized, it will be unconstitutional to remove a disruptive student from a school. After all, they have a right to that education, and a right to be at that school. Expulsion as a means of dealing with major disciplinary infractions will be gone. So, too, will be suspension, for that will also be a denial of the studentÂ’s right to an education. Will there be any disciplinary tools left to those of us on the frontlines of education around the country, or will the right of a particular student, no matter how disruptive or dangerous, to attend school trump the right of every other student in the school to be safe and to learn?

None of this is meant to say that education is unimportant. As a teacher, I would have to argue exactly the opposite. But expanding the sphere of federal power with an unlimited mandate for expenditures and no clear limits on the extent of this new right is not the solution.

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Posted by: Greg at 12:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I may be a conservative Republican, but I've yet to see a merit pay system that I think would work. That includes the one adopted in the big district that borders mine, HISD.

Houston is about to become the biggest school district in the nation to tie teachers' pay to their students' test scores.

School Superintendent Abe Saavedra wants to offer teachers as much as $3,000 more per school year if their students improve on state and national tests. The program could eventually grow to as much as $10,000 in merit pay.

The school board is set to vote on the plan Thursday. Five of the nine board members have said they support it.

"School systems traditionally have been paying the best teacher the same amount as we pay the worst teacher, based on the number of years they have been teaching," Saavedra said. "It doesn't make sense that we would pay the best what we're paying the worst. That's why it's going to change."

Opponents argue that the plan focuses too much on test scores and would be unfair to teachers outside core subjects.

Count me as one of the opponents. I've never seen a merit system that cannot be manipulated by administrators to play favorites or screw teachers out of favor. Basing the pay on test scores unintentionally encourages cheating, and does have the effect of leaving elective teachers (and even some teachers of required classes) ineligible.

The plan is divided into three sections, with as much as $1,000 in bonus pay each.

The first would award bonuses to all teachers in schools rated acceptable or higher, based on scores on the state's main standardized test. The second ties pay to student improvement on a standardized test that compares performance to nationwide norms.

In the third section, reading and math teachers whose students fare well compared with others in the district would be eligible for bonuses.

Bonuses for all sections will be given only if students show improvement in the top half of scores.

Fallon said the plan is unfair to teachers in such subjects as art and music.

Now there is a bonus for all teachers. I think that is good. But it is also the smallest part of the bonus program, and so really undervalues the work done by teachers outside of the core subjects.

The second component introduces an additional test into the school year. That's right, students will lose more instructional time so that the bonus test will be given. That is because the TAKS test mandated by state law is not given nationally, and so provides no basis for comparison between states.

The third element offers a special bonus to reading and math teachers, but ignores the other two TAKS components -- science and social studies. Which test has the best performance statewide? Social studies. And the worst? Science. Reading is has room to improve, but math scores have been bad statewide. It just seems somewhat illogical to me to reward one section of the test but not another.

I'm also curious if there will be a reward by individual teacher. If there is, there is a simp;e way to play favorites. A principal has complete discretion over what classes a teacher has. Give the favorite the AP classes, and the teacher who is a thorn in the side a bunch of rmedial classes. I've been there -- one year I had four sections of kids 11th graders who had failed 10th grade English. I had one class that was usually 50% empty because of skippers and discipline cases. Want to guess what my test scores looked like? They were good, all things considered -- but a 76% passing rate was pretty anemic when the district-wide passing rate for the 10th grade test was 93%. Never mind that my three classes of regular 11th grade English passed at a 95% rate. Overall I was at an 82%, making me -- by the numbers -- one of the worst teachers in the district.

Oh, and while we are at it, I want to point out something in this article, for those who go on about union ifluence on education.

Traditionally, Houston teachers' experience and education levels have determined their pay scale. Starting teachers make about $36,000 a year. Salaries can rise to about $45,000 with advanced degrees and more experience.

Texas has no collective bargaining, meaning the teachers union can lobby the district for raises but cannot strike.

Houston area districts also pay quite well -- in other parts of the state, the numbers can be about $10K lower on the salary front. Statewide, we average nearly $7K below the national average salary for teachers. And as far as lobbying goes, many districts don't even decide on the next year's pay scale until mid-summer -- months after contracts must be signed, and sometimes after the state deadline for resignation. While salaries rarely go down, you can never be sure if there will be a salary increase for the following year -- or how much of one. Also, there is no tenure in any school district I am aware of. So you will understand why I look askance at this plan that is being imposed without significant teacher input.

I'm hoping my district gets no ideas from HISD.

Posted by: Greg at 03:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I cannot believe that this boy (his behavior shows him to be anything but a man) has messed up again so quickly.

Former Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick turned himself into the Suffolk Magistrate's Office in Suffolk, Va., this afternoon after three warrants were issued for his arrest for waving a firearm at three men in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant on Sunday night.

Vick, the younger brother of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, was charged with three misdemeanor counts of brandishing a firearm. He was jailed at Western Tidewater Regional Jail around 2 p.m. today and was released on $10,000 bond, according to Magistrate Lisa Noel.

Vick is scheduled to appear Jan. 12 in Suffolk General Court.

Vick, 21, was dismissed from Virginia Tech's football team last Friday "due to a cumulative effect of legal infractions and unsportsmanlike play," according to Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger. Vick had faced a two-game suspension at the beginning of the 2006 season as discipline for stomping the leg of Louisville defensive end Elvis Dumervil during the Hokies' 35-24 victory over the Cardinals in the Jan. 2 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.

But Virginia Tech officials dismissed him from the team after they learned he had been cited Dec. 17 for driving with a suspended or revoked driver's license and speeding in Hampton, Va. -- the eighth and ninth traffic offenses since he enrolled at Virginia Tech in 2002.

Good grief -- it has been just a couple days since he was dumped by Virginia Tech for his thuggish criminality and his subsequent declaration of his intent to turn pro!

I don't see how any team could justify spending an early draft pick on this guy. He is a loose canon, just waiting to commit a crime of violence that puts him behind bars for an extended period.

You'll love the comments over at Every Day Should Be Saturday.

Posted by: Greg at 02:51 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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That was the question asked by Ray Donovan, Reagan's Labor Secretary, after he was found not guilty of corruption charges. It is the question that many folks found not guilty ask. And I suspect that it was the question asked by Virginia teacher who was accused of sexual abuse of a student, found not guilty, but who was fired anyway.

His answer? Back to court.

But things have gone quite wrong for him in the process -- not only has he been denied his day in court, but he and his lawyer have been sanctioned by the judge!

After all the difficulties David Perino encountered as a teacher -- his arrest on charges of sexually abusing a student, his acquittal in court and his firing in spite of that -- he thought he had one last recourse: Sue. Sue them all.

And so he did. Last summer, Perino filed eight lawsuits against the Prince William County school system and several of its employees, including former superintendent Edward L. Kelly, who died Thursday night.

But last week, Perino's quest to win his job back and clear his name was smacked off course when Prince William Circuit Court Judge William D. Hamblen ordered sanctions against him and his attorney. Hamblen declared that the lawsuits constituted harassment, the school system's attorney said. The judge ordered the pair to pay more than $14,000 to cover the school system's legal fees.

Perino and lawyer Pamela Cave have less than 30 days to appeal the sanctions. They say they intend to.

Such sanctions are quite rare, which leaves some observers wndering why the judge took this course of action.

"I don't recall one of our attorneys ever being sanctioned," said Robert Chanin, who has been general counsel for the National Education Association since 1968. "They are ordered if a lawyer truly brings a frivolous case without good faith or a legal basis. Don't harass the other side and waste the court's time."

And let's be honest here -- the damage to this man's good name and the loss of his job are pretty substantial damages, especially when a group of public officials state that they don't care what a jury of his peers had to say on the matter.

The dispute between Perino and the school system began Dec. 12, 2003, when a 20-year-old student with Down syndrome accused the 16-year veteran of sexually abusing her inside his empty classroom during school hours. The woman alleged that Perino tried to sodomize her; Perino said they talked about photographs on his wall before he ordered her to return to her regular classroom.

His first trial, in May 2004, resulted in a hung jury. Months later, a second jury found him not guilty of aggravated sexual battery and attempted forcible sodomy.

Last spring, Perino faced a School Board grievance hearing to keep his job. But School Board members voted to fire him, saying they believed he was guilty of sexual abuse. They also discovered pornographic images on his classroom computer and accused him of downloading the items. Perino denied doing any of it and said other people had access to his computer.

No I will grant that there is a different burden of proof at a criminal trial and an employment hearing. But this just points out the problem of allowing additional hearings and sanctions against an individual found not guilty. It strikes me that the concept of "res judicata" should apply here -- the matter has been decided by a court, and is not to be reexamined in another setting.

And therein lies the problem, especially in this age when there are more and more accusations of sexual misconduct by teachers coming to light -- how do we deal with those falsely accused, and where do they go to get their reputations (not to mention their careers) back?

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To read the beginning of this article, we have a serious crime against kids committed by someone in a special position of trust with kids -- don't we?

FBI agents on Friday arrested a former Baldwin County principal on child pornography charges, accusing him of having graphic phone and electronic conversations with a convicted sex offender in which the men discussed abducting and killing two young girls.

Authorities said they have no evidence at this point that Steve Dennis Thomas, who served as an elementary school principal in Stapleton and Bay Minette and later worked in the system's central office, carried out any of those actions.

"The charge is limited at this time to the child pornography. The investigation is continuing," said Special Agent Craig Dahle, a spokesman for the FBI's Mobile field office.

Now I do have a very simple question about the charges -- does any of this involve actual pornographic images, or is it just text/spoken words? I would think that words alone -- absent any action -- might be hard to prosecute for First Amendment reasons. But regardless, we don't want this freak anywhere near kids, and parents should be concerned about his presence at any school.

Not that he is currently employed by the school district.

You see, it has been over three years since he worked for the school district -- possibly five years or more.

The Baldwin County school board voted in 1999 to remove Thomas from his principal position in Bay Minette. Although officials provided no explanation for the move at the time, longtime board member Bob Wills said Friday it was because of deficiencies in Thomas' work.

"He was moved from the position because he was not following board policy in a number of areas," Wills said.

Thomas was moved to the system's administrative office in Loxley, possibly overseeing the distribution of textbooks, Wills said he recalled.

It is unclear exactly when Thomas left the system. Other school officials contacted after 5 p.m. Friday said it has been years since Thomas has worked for the system.

Faron Hollinger said when he returned to the school system as superintendent in 2002, Thomas was no longer employed there.

Thomas is currently employed at a retail store in Spanish Fort, but he was not at work Friday, according to a manager who would not say how long Thomas worked there.

So my big question is this -- how long does someone have to be out of education for them to quit being identified as an educator, especially if their alleged misdeeds happened years later and not in the context of their teaching career?

Posted by: Greg at 04:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I frankly do not understand how the Washington, DC public schools can even be taken seriously after reading this story.

D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey has notified 1,100 uncertified teachers -- about 25 percent of the system's teaching force -- that they will lose their jobs if they do not obtain proper credentials by June 30.

Most of those teachers have expired provisional licenses or have not submitted proof of a valid D.C. teaching license. Janey said yesterday that he took the action because the teachers had been warned repeatedly that they were in danger of being dismissed if they did not comply.

He also cited teacher standards in the federal No Child Left Behind law. But Janey acknowledged that his dismissal plan goes well beyond what that law requires. According to that law, school districts must demonstrate by June that they are making a good-faith effort to put only "highly qualified" teachers in their classrooms, a standard that includes full state certification.

"The question for us is how long can we wait for individuals who have known about the expectation to become fully certified but fail to meet it, irrespective" of the No Child law, Janey said. "We want to send an unambiguous message about the importance of becoming fully certified. This recognizes the kind of impact a good teacher has on the quality of life of children. We are putting a premium on teacher quality."

Now I understand that there are folks on various and sundry temporary certificates in classrooms. When I moved to Texas from Illinois, I was put on such a certificate until I passed the state certification test down here. I have colleagues who are on such certificates as they go through intesively monitored alternative certification programs. But none of us would have ever been allowed to stay in the classroom past the expiration of such a certificate unless we could produce a valid permanent certificate! How is it that so many folks in Washington have been allowed to do so?

It is not clear how many of the 1,100 can meet Janey's deadline. School and teachers union officials said some of the teachers simply need to pass the District's licensing exam, while others need more college credit hours in the subject they are teaching and might have trouble getting them in time. Officials could not say how many teachers are in each of those categories.

Janey said that according to school system records, 545 of the teachers have never had a valid D.C. license. Union officials dispute that figure, saying that the system has a history of poor record-keeping and has likely lost some files.

Half of these teachers have never had a valid certificate in the District of Columbia? How did that happen? I cannot believe the union's explanation, because any teacher in such a situation should be able to easily produc their original certificate or their test scores or other evidence of certification.

But the union goes furhter.

George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers' Union, agreed that the number of uncertified teachers likely will drop by June. But he questioned whether the system will be able to recruit enough certified teachers to fill vacancies.

Parker said that exceeding the federal requirements is "a good objective" but that school officials "have the responsibility to put in place professional development and training to help teachers become certified."

Like many states, the District uses the Praxis teacher licensing exam, which assesses general competency in reading, math and English as well as knowledge in the area of expertise. Some English teachers, for example, might need tutoring to pass the math section, Parker said.

I disagree with you, George. The school district does not have a responsibility to operate such a program. If anything, the union does -- after all, you extort hndreds of dollars out of the paychecks of teachers each year under color of law. Shouldn't you be doing someting to help them maintain their employment?

How bad is teh situation in Washington? This little bit at the end of the article tells a lot of the story. Look at the little detail (I've put it in bold) that doesn't show up until the last line of the article.

Janey also said 58 uncertified teachers were notified yesterday that they will be laid off at the end of this month because enrollment has fallen. Enrollment dropped from about 62,700 last year to 59,600 this year, continuing a steady decline.

The District routinely adjusts staffing levels during the school year when official enrollment figures are released, but individual schools normally decide which positions to cut. Janey said he targeted the uncertified teachers as part of the system's effort to raise teacher standards. All 58 have been working with three-year provisional certifications that expired between 1999 and 2002, he said. To keep working, they must produce a credential by the end of next week.

Excuse me -- certificate between three and six years out of date and they are STILL employed in Washington classrooms? There needs to be some serious housecleaning in that district if sucha situation has been allowed to fester.

Posted by: Greg at 03:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I had never heard of this before.

This is no ordinary boot camp.

These are no ordinary recruits.

It takes just four days for the U.S. Marine Corps to transform 80 teachers, guidance counselors and principals from South Florida schools into a more patriotic, informed group armed with an attitude to help it recruit students.

Twelve weeks a year, the Marines invite teachers from anywhere east of the Mississippi to visit their training depot on marshy Parris Island in South Carolina. During the all-expense-paid trip, teachers watch recruits at nearly every phase of training, from initial physical-strength tests to a grueling 54-hour segment called The Crucible.

Teachers fire rifles with live ammunition. Alongside recruits, they eat prepackaged meals that can be heated without stoves, the kind eaten on the battlefield. They see recruits reunite with their families. They tackle parts of an obstacle course and battle each other with giant Q-tips called pugil sticks to practice martial arts.

The Marines ask only that they set aside their political views about the current war and their skepticism.

Before the trip, Kane More didn't know a lot about the Marines. "Now I know they are Marines, not soldiers," said More, who teaches at West Boca Raton High. "I now know Marines are more real, normal kinds of people who very much believe in what they are doing."

Although Marines from the Fort Lauderdale recruiting station are regulars at 133 high schools in South Florida, giving teachers a recruit's-eye view of boot camp is a way to create a legion of advocates when Marines aren't around.

Especially when some Iraq war critics are campaigning to bar recruiters from campuses.

"The purpose of the educators' visits is to help our recruiting," said Maj. Guillermo Canedo, public affairs director at Parris Island. "It's such a different world. It's such an insular world to some extent. It's hard for the American public to understand."

I have a couple of questions.

1) Is this program available in other parts of the country?

2) Do the other branches of the military have such programs?

3) Who do I call to apply?

Posted by: Greg at 09:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hazing by fraternities and other groups on college campuses is ILLEGAL.

When caught, those involved are subject to criminal penalties, and the organizations involved are ordinarily suspended for some period of time, often until all current members have graduated.

That is why the decision to ban the Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Texas came as no surprise when it was determined that an 18-year-old pledge died as a result of alcohol poisoning as a result of hazing activities.

In fact, any other penalty would have been a surprise.

But Lambda Phi Epsilon is special, don't you know. After all, it is a fraternity that is ovewhelmingly Asian, and therefore deserves special treatment -- at least acording to the only Asian in the Texas legislature.

Rep. Hubert Vo wrote UT President Larry Faulkner last week that the university should consider alternative punishments such as probation, community service or alcohol abuse training for the members of Lambda Phi Epsilon, rather than canceling the registration of the entire group.

Group punishment, Vo said, is unfair and could send the wrong message to the Asian community by destroying an important social and support network for Asian students, many of whom are children of immigrants and first-generation college students.

Vo said Tuesday his concern has nothing to do with race and that he doesn't expect Asians to get special treatment at UT.

"This is not about Asians or black or brown or white," he said. "This is about education and cutting off these resources from all the students. It's a big blow for all the students who might have to look for some alternative ways to complete their college degrees."

"The University has stopped short of saying that hazing caused young Mr. Phoummarath's sad death," Vo wrote in the Dec. 22 letter. "Surely there is a solution to this tragic circumstance that also stops short of canceling the fraternity's status while paying tribute to Phanta Jack Phoummarath's yearning for a better future."

So, it has nothing to do with race or ethnicity -- but normal procedures shouldn't be followed because applying standard policy sends the wrong message? Which isit, Hubert? Is it about race or isn't it? You have said it is and it isn't. Would you be taking this position if the fraternity were predominantly white?

And let's not overlook the others who support giving special treatment to a group which is morally culpable in the death of a young man.

But Vo, a Democrat who emigrated from Vietnam about 30 years ago, said UT's decision may discourage Asian students who need all the resources they can get while pursuing their education. "Cutting off a fraternity like this means cutting off the support network for the students," Vo said.

For many Asian students, Vo said, fraternities provide moral support, educational guidance and career advice that parents may not be able to give. He said they also offer vital networking opportunities for minority groups who need a leg up in today's competitive job market.

Lily Truong, board director of the Asian Alumni Association at the University of Houston, agreed that UT should try to find a way to keep the Asian fraternity intact. "They look forward to these fraternities. I know the fraternities are helping them," Truong said of students. "If they don't have the fraternity, they could get lost and I don't think they would know what they're going to do next."

So, Asian students have special needs that should exempt them and their organizations from the same rules and laws that apply to other students. If required to follow the same rules, they will not have the support they need to succeed -- despite the fact that Asian students are among the most successful on any college campus.

Shame on you, Representative Vo. A young man is dead -- one of those very Asian students you claim to support -- and you want those who created teh contditions that led to his death held to a lower standard because they are Asian. Shame!

Posted by: Greg at 04:03 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I've wondered how they would cover the failure to remove the perjuring, justice-obstructing adulterer.

The topic is covered briefly in middle school texts. McGraw Hill's "The American Journey" offers a description that is representative of other accounts — balanced and methodical.

"Although there was general agreement that the president had lied, Congress was divided over whether his actions justified impeachment," the book says.

In McDougal Littell's "The Americans," a high school text, the topic merits two paragraphs. The same book gave more space to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

"The American Vision," a McGraw Hill high school book written by Brinkley and others, spends five paragraphs on Clinton's impeachment and one more on his uncertain legacy.

"Compression is a tremendous challenge," Brinkley said. "Five paragraphs on a topic is a lot for all but the most important issues."

Sometimes, the language gets blunt.

"A History of the United States," a Pearson Prentice Hall high school text, refers to the impeachment scandal as "a sorry mess" that diminished Clinton and his rivals.

Polls showed most Americans did not believe Clinton's "tortured explanations of his behavior," the book says, but also did not think his offenses warranted his removal.

By the time students get to college, the textbooks, as expected, offer more sophisticated detail of the impeachment and the way it all changed American public life.

Yet at all levels, the salacious details of the Lewinsky affair are nowhere to be found.

Middle school texts describe it as "a personal relationship between the president and a White House intern." In high school books, it is Clinton's "improper relationship with a young White House intern," or Clinton "denied having sexual relations" with an intern.

As a practical matter, I wonder how many US History classes will even reach the 1990s -- and how many teachers will choose to skip the only impeachement of an elected president in US history, out of concern for discussing the pronographic details.

And will the approach change if the Hildebeast is elected in 2008?

Posted by: Greg at 12:43 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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More from the education front of the War on Christmas, courtesy of Hub Politics and Blogs for Bush. Seems that one Massachusetts school(couldn't you have guessed that) removed all mention of Christmas from its holiday program -- and even ordered that red trim on elf hats be replaced with white so as to not use traditional Christmas colors!

Even those who are supporteers of the false "sensitivity" of political correctness can recognize the absurdity of the decision.

A Grinch-like Medway middle school has ordered children to ditch religious songs in tonight’s holiday concert, refer to Christmas trees as “magical trees” and even purge the red from their elf hats.

“I can see a religious holiday being offensive to those who don’t celebrate it,” said Dale Fingar, whose sixth-grade son brought home 10 red and green elf hats and requested she replace the red fabric with white. “But red and green hats? Come on.”

Frankly, I don't see how a religious holiday can be offensive to those who don't celibrate it. After all, I'm not offended by Chaunakah or Diwali, despite not being Jewish or Hindu -- and I'm not even offended by Ramadan, except for the fact that some schools go to incredible lengths to acommodate muslim students whild suppressing Christian expression. Frankly, one would have to be a hete-filled bigot (and usually a Leftist) to take offense at someone markign a day that is of significance to them.

The flap has made Medway the new battleground for the Florida-based Liberty

Counsel, a group backed by evangelical Christian minister Jerry Falwell that has waged a nationwide war to protect Christmas.

“What is going through the school administrator’s mind?” said Liberty Counsel president Matthew Staver. “It’s ridiculous and an act of stupidity to call something green and prickly a magical tree when all of the children know that it’s a Christmas tree.

“These actions by the school administrator are not mere ignorance of the law. No one in their right mind thinks the law requires this kind of censorship or hostility,” said Staver, whose group forced Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino to acknowledge that the city’s holiday tree is a Christmas tree.

I'll take it a step further -- such actions are indicative of a blatant hostility toward religion, and particularly towards Christianity, whichis the dominant faith in this country and the one usually marked for such suppression.

Medway parent Tracy Goldrick and her 11-year-old daughter Tess were both disturbed by the schoolÂ’s decision, which came after two parents complained about references to Christmas in the program.

“Aren’t we supposed to embrace each others differences?” said Goldrick, who said she has spoken to at least 20 other parents who are annoyed at “the watering down of Christmas.”

“The solution isn’t to take Christmas out of the (school events). The solution is telling people to lighten up,” she said.

No, Tracy, you haven't got the latest Leftist talking points. You are supposed to embrace the differences of minorities, and cower like a whipped cur in the face of the mavens of political correctness who have decreed that traditional American culture can never be acceptable -- especially when it has Christian roots.

And now comes the idiot educarat -- the sort that this teacher despises and does his best to ignore when one is encountered.

But Medway Superintendent Richard Grandmont said the decisions to pull “Jesus Christ Superstar” songs from the sixth-grade holiday pageant and have the kids switch the red in their elf hats to white is, in fact, the district’s way of embracing diversity.

“In general, it is expected that the staff be sensitive to the culturally diverse environment in which they work and cognizant of their responsibility to avoid activites that could be perceived as a school endorsement of religion,” he said.

Someone was doing "Jesus Christ Superstar" at a Christmas concert? I don't know why, since that is a musical all about holy Week and the death of Jesus the Christ, not his birth. I rather suspect that his reference to "Jesus Christ Superstar" songs is a dismissal of the importance of Christianity and Christian beliefs. His idea of "embracing diversity" and being "sensitive to the culturally diverse environment" is to denigrate the beliefs of the majority as no more relevant than those of the minority -- a demand that we all be diverse in the same way.

One parent, Paul Dehaney, was angry yesterday after leaving a third-grade holiday concert at Memorial School when he heard the tots sing “We wish you a swinging Holiday,” in place of “We wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“I’m not adovocating for a Christian-based celebration,” he said. “But don’t ignore the white elephant in the corner called Christmas.”

And I don't know of anyone who wants schools having religiously-based celebrations. But when the sensitivity police of the political correctness movement insist that we can celebrate a "swinging holiday" without ever mentioning any of the holiday's in question -- not even the one celebrated by all but a pathetically small handful of Americans -- the we have really turned the notion of inclusion on its head and created a system of exclusion.

(LINK TO: Pirates! Man Your Women!)

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A column in today's Washigton Post points out how the decision in the Dover case tries to differentiate between science and religion.

The opinion written by Judge John E. Jones III in the Dover evolution trial is a two-in-one document that offers both philosophical and practical arguments against "intelligent design" likely to be useful to far more than a school board in a small Pennsylvania town.

Jones gives a clear definition of science, and recounts how this vaunted mode of inquiry has evolved over the centuries. He describes how scientists go about the task of supporting or challenging ideas about the world of the senses -- all that can be observed and measured. And he reaches the unwavering conclusion that intelligent design is a religious idea, not a scientific one.

This case is of great interest to me, because the issue it grapples with is an issue I have to deal with as a history teacher. After all, my course involves the origins of homo sapiens sapiens. How do you deal with that issue in a class in which a percentage of students accept the first couple of chapters of Genesis as history rather than allegory? What does one say when a student takes a stance which claims that the entire first week of your class is an assault upon their religion? Those are serious questions -- especially as a teacher whose understanding of human origins are best classified as theistic evolution.

To begin with, I take the bull by the horns. On the first day of class I state that we will be dealing with the origins of mankind from an evolutionary perspective. I acknowledge that there are other belief systems out there, but that evolution is the dominant view within the fields of history and science. I further explain that regardless of whether or not they accept the evolutionary model, they will need to be familiar with it for my class and on the college level. Understanding a point of view is not the same as accepting it. And ineveitably, some kid raises, usually without realizing it, an issue of metaphysics (which includes both the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science as a part of its overarching mandate).

The same sorts of issue get raised again and againin my world history class. The syllabus does not give me the time to look at the philosophies of Socrates. Plato, or Aristotle in any great depth. Ditto the Renaissance humanists, or the great minds of the Enlightenment. We spend a disproportionate amount of time on Marx, but pnly because students are tested on sociaism and communism as a part of the TAKS test.. Jean-Paul Sartre? No way.

It should be obvious by now what ithink is missing in American education today -- the study of philosophy. Philosophy is a field that teaches the individual not what to think but how to engage in thought. It is a starting point for questioning, not an ending point. It helps to provide a framework for asking the questions that mankind has asked over the ages. And yes, that includes the questions of being that underlie Intelligent Design -- for such question have been asked by philosophers since at least Socrates.

So what say you, my friends -- is there a place for philosophy in the school curriculum today? I, for one, hope so.

(AN INTERESTING POST on whether this decision constitutes an establishment of atheism is found at Blogs for Bush -- and I disagree with Matt on the isue)

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Once kids reach high school, they tend to slack off in the “teacher gift” department. I’m glad, given the number of cheesy Christmas mugs and ugly Dollar Tree ornaments I’ve received, not to mention one pair of truly strange Christmas socks one I received my first year of teaching. After all, my student count usually exceeds 150 each year, and I would rapidly be drowned in mountains of “stuff” that serves no purpose but it would be rude to dispose of via the circular file. It was with this thought in mind that I read the following in today’s Houston Chronicle.

Now, before parents of school-age children indignantly huff and cross me off their holiday shopping list, or worse, send me a lump of coal, hear me out. I am one of you.

I am a parent. For years before I entered the classroom full time as a teacher, I sent my own elementary children to school toting beautifully wrapped packages containing that cute useless junk. In exchange, a thank you note dutifully penned by exhausted teachers returned home, and I patted myself on the back for my well-meaning gestures.

Until my second full year of teaching, I didn't understand the magnitude of holiday junk that visits elementary teachers each year, the variety of stuff that pours in! And the candy — we mustn't forget the candy! Towers of Chocolate (delicious, expensive, but obscene), candy that can't go to the attic, candy I'm no longer permitted to share with my students per the "Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value" policies. And try as I may to make my family eat it all, it beckons me until it is purged from my home. And then more candy and sweets magically appear, abandoned in the teacher's lounge. Even my big jeans won't fit until March. Trust me, your kids don't need an overweight, sugar-tripping, chocolate-high teacher.

So the non-edible holiday haul accumulates in my dining room. Eventually, it makes its way up to the attic with the rest of the holiday "stuff," and then it reappears the next holiday season as we pull Christmas down for decorating. It gets sent to my kids' school for their class holiday auction, to the nursing home, to Goodwill — or dare I say it, it gets regifted!

But wait — not all of it. That Starbucks card really came to the rescue the morning after that late-night grading marathon, and the movie gift card sure was a treat. The mall or department store gift certificate was an indulgence; I could pick what I wanted. How nice to have La Madeleine, Chili's, Panera, Pizza Hut and even a couple of those McDonald's "dollars" that gave me a night off from cooking dinner for my kids when I had a ton of papers to grade. The manicure gift certificate was prized, as were the gift cards for the bookstore, even the grocery store. One dollar, five dollars, 10 dollars — none of those gifts went to the attic, or to someone else.

I am a reformed Christmas junk-giver. I have taken the oath. My kids' teachers, scout leaders, Sunday school teachers, piano teacher and others get gift cards now, as generous as I can be (and believe me, I do understand the multiplication, with three children times five to seven school teachers each).

Let me say that I donÂ’t feel that students have to give me gifts at all, especially given the socio-economic situation of some of their families. But if they do, I would much rather have it be something useful than something cute. Let it be something I can use in the classroom.

And no more mugs.

(Actually, I got a great gift last night. I ran into a former student last night at Walmart, having not seen her in four or five years. I got to catch up on old times and laugh with her as she was getting of work. It did my heart a world of good to be able to see that she had grown up into the very dear young woman I knew she would be – and to share some of her joys and pains. God bless you, Stephanie – and good luck as you start back to college in a few weeks.)

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HereÂ’s a suit I hope succeeds. After all, why should immigration criminals get btter tuition than American citizens?

About three dozen students sued the University of California on Wednesday, charging that it had violated federal law by allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates while maintaining higher rates for out-of-state students.

The students, all from out of state, are represented by a legal team that includes Kris Kobach, a former Justice Department official who shaped national immigration policy under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Kobach said the policy discriminates against out-of-state students who are U.S. citizens and pay higher tuition than students who are in this country illegally.

The move plunges California into the midst of a national debate over how to handle the millions of students living in this country illegally.

Federal law requires state universities that offer in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants to do the same for students from other states, imposing a steep financial barrier to the policy. But since 2001, nine states, including California, have passed laws to circumvent that requirement.

Sadly, Texas is one of those states that passed such a law. Hopefully this lawsuit will lead to the overturning of this travesty.

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There are two different versions of the resignation of Professor Paul Mirecki from his position as department chair of the Religious Studies Department at the Kansas University.

One paints the resignation as voluntary.

KU spokeswoman Lynn Bretz, in an e-mail to the Journal-World, said Mirecki met with Romzek on Dec. 6 to discuss the department’s recommendation that he resign from the chairman’s post. After the talk, Mirecki concluded he should submit a resignation, she said.

“At a computer in Strong Hall, away from his departmental office in Smith Hall, Professor Mirecki composed and typed the letter himself, with no one else in the room,” Bretz wrote. “He pushed the print command button, sending the letter to a printer in another room, next to a secretary’s desk. The letter was printed on the letterhead at hand. Professor Mirecki retrieved the printed letter from the secretary, signed it in front of the secretary and left it there. … In addition, Professor Mirecki had told at least one KU administrator on Dec. 5, following the departmental faculty meeting that day, that he felt the need to step down as chair.”

The other, put forth by Mirecki and his lawyer, is a bit different.

In a fiery statement to the Journal-World on Friday, Mirecki said he had “no choice about signing the resignation” and he pointed out the resignation letter was typed on stationery from the office of Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Mirecki’s attorney, David J. Brown, said the issue was a frequent matter of dispute in labor situations.

“If you’re forced to sign a resignation letter, have you voluntarily resigned or have you been fired?” Brown said. “If he’d typed his own resignation letter, it would probably have been on his stationery.”

* * *

“It’s not how he described things to me,” Brown said. “The point he made was very clear that the dean and another administrator made it clear to him that he had to resign.”

In the end, I do not see the differences as significant. The important thin is that Mirecki is out of a position in which he could no longer be effective. His colleagues in the department told him that they wanted him out, presumably because the controversy rendered him tainted goods that would harm the department.

I’ve offered an analogy other places in the blogosphere in comment sections. Imagine that a professor was chairman of the Department of Ethnic Studies at a major university and had a major gripe with the direction that the civil rights establishment was headed. Imagine that he submitted a letter to a semi-public internet forum in which he said he was going to offer a course demolishing the mythology of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as a “slap in the face” to the “darkies” (or some other slur), and that the letter made it into the press. How long could this professor effectively continue to serve as department chair? How long, in fact, would he be likely to last as a member of the department at all, given his apparent hostility towards a major segment of those about whom he was teaching?

That is precisely the situation in which Mirecki finds himself – caught out in the open as hostile to a major segment of Christianity, using his position to push a hostile agenda, and using bigoted slurs to lash out at those he clearly despises. Personally, I have no problem with dealing with creation stories as mythology in a class – my Old Testament professors did as much when I was in the seminary.

What I see as problematic is the unprofessional agenda-driven nature of the proposal, which he intended to use to discredit the beliefs in a one-sided manner so as to denigrate those who hold them. That is simply unacceptable – and is ample reason for Mirecki’s departure, whether it was voluntary or not. Indeed, I would hope that such unprofessional behavior would be grounds for dismissal.

Posted by: Greg at 02:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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There are two different versions of the resignation of Professor Paul Mirecki from his position as department chair of the Religious Studies Department at the Kansas University.

One paints the resignation as voluntary.

KU spokeswoman Lynn Bretz, in an e-mail to the Journal-World, said Mirecki met with Romzek on Dec. 6 to discuss the departmentÂ’s recommendation that he resign from the chairmanÂ’s post. After the talk, Mirecki concluded he should submit a resignation, she said.

“At a computer in Strong Hall, away from his departmental office in Smith Hall, Professor Mirecki composed and typed the letter himself, with no one else in the room,” Bretz wrote. “He pushed the print command button, sending the letter to a printer in another room, next to a secretary’s desk. The letter was printed on the letterhead at hand. Professor Mirecki retrieved the printed letter from the secretary, signed it in front of the secretary and left it there. … In addition, Professor Mirecki had told at least one KU administrator on Dec. 5, following the departmental faculty meeting that day, that he felt the need to step down as chair.”

The other, put forth by Mirecki and his lawyer, is a bit different.

In a fiery statement to the Journal-World on Friday, Mirecki said he had “no choice about signing the resignation” and he pointed out the resignation letter was typed on stationery from the office of Barbara Romzek, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

MireckiÂ’s attorney, David J. Brown, said the issue was a frequent matter of dispute in labor situations.

“If you’re forced to sign a resignation letter, have you voluntarily resigned or have you been fired?” Brown said. “If he’d typed his own resignation letter, it would probably have been on his stationery.”

* * *

“It’s not how he described things to me,” Brown said. “The point he made was very clear that the dean and another administrator made it clear to him that he had to resign.”

In the end, I do not see the differences as significant. The important thin is that Mirecki is out of a position in which he could no longer be effective. His colleagues in the department told him that they wanted him out, presumably because the controversy rendered him tainted goods that would harm the department.

I’ve offered an analogy other places in the blogosphere in comment sections. Imagine that a professor was chairman of the Department of Ethnic Studies at a major university and had a major gripe with the direction that the civil rights establishment was headed. Imagine that he submitted a letter to a semi-public internet forum in which he said he was going to offer a course demolishing the mythology of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as a “slap in the face” to the “darkies” (or some other slur), and that the letter made it into the press. How long could this professor effectively continue to serve as department chair? How long, in fact, would he be likely to last as a member of the department at all, given his apparent hostility towards a major segment of those about whom he was teaching?

That is precisely the situation in which Mirecki finds himself – caught out in the open as hostile to a major segment of Christianity, using his position to push a hostile agenda, and using bigoted slurs to lash out at those he clearly despises. Personally, I have no problem with dealing with creation stories as mythology in a class – my Old Testament professors did as much when I was in the seminary.

What I see as problematic is the unprofessional agenda-driven nature of the proposal, which he intended to use to discredit the beliefs in a one-sided manner so as to denigrate those who hold them. That is simply unacceptable – and is ample reason for Mirecki’s departure, whether it was voluntary or not. Indeed, I would hope that such unprofessional behavior would be grounds for dismissal.

Posted by: Greg at 02:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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