I grew up the son of a military officer during time of war. I know what it is like to have a parent gone, and the anticipation of their safe return. Most schools try hard to support such kids – and I love the way this school handled this homecoming.

Brittainy and Madison were hoping their dad, Maj. Robert Thomas, would come home from Iraq in the next couple of weeks.

So it's no wonder they were bowled over when he walked into their school's gymnasium during a student program about patriotism Thursday.

"I thought we were just going to read our (essays) about patriotism," said Brittainy, 11, and a fifth-grader at Atwood Elementary School in Macomb Township. Atwood is in the L'Anse Creuse Public Schools district.

"I had no idea my dad was going to be here," she said. "I'm just really happy my dad is home."

Madison, 6, was also surprised.

"I thought my dad would be home for my birthday on Nov. 8," she said. "I guess I was wrong."

The girls' father returned home Thursday morning after serving in the Army in Iraq for about a year.

I encourage you to read the rest of the article. I’m proud of these fellow educators who handled this special situation with class and dignity – and who turned a special family event into a special learning experience for the whole school.

And call me a sucker, but I cried while reading about the event.

Posted by: Greg at 12:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Writer and activist David Horowitz was brought in to speak at Emory University by the College Republicans as part of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. The response of those opposed to his message was not debate or discussion – instead, it was to resort to fascist tactics to silence the speech they oppose.

The most disturbing part of the report on the incident is found here.

Protesters began their efforts as soon as Horowitz was introduced with boos and chants of "Heil Hitler." Despite the people who stood with their backs to Horowitz and the shouting of obscenities and other remarks from audience members, Horowitz attempted to deliver his speech that covered academic freedom and radical Islam. The loud chants, sign-waving, and disruptive gestures continued to escalate from audience members until the atmosphere was so chaotic that even the police present were unable to subdue the crowd. Horowitz was led off stage and left the campus under tight security, and the event came to an abrupt end.

Rather than remove those engaged in harassment and disruption under relevant disorderly conduct statutes and university regulations protecting academic freedom, the authorities removed the victim instead and silenced his message. You should have tazed them, bro!

Is academic freedom dead in America? Or is it available only to those with a politically correct message and the dictators they coddle?

Is it time for the federal government to begin investigating – and prosecuting – the repeated series of civil rights violations committed by Islamists, illegals, and Leftists against conservative Americans?

Posted by: Greg at 11:55 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 . They are so insane, they would at the same time say they support GLBT Rights! Amazing! Fight back against those that stone gays to death! Democracy NOT Theocracy! STOP KUFFARPHOBIA Demonstration at Whitehall in London, 12pm Friday 10/26/07! I think we all must start calling the Islamofascists 'racists'. We should scream that they are hateful towards the Christian race, and the Jewish race, and the Hindu race, and the Atheist Race, that they are Christianityphobiasts. They will scream that Christianity is not a race, and we'll say: "See, Islam is NOT a race either. And by the way, the Bible doesn't say to convert, conquer or kill non-Christians; like the Koran says to do to non-Muslims. So there YOU RACIST hater of non-Muslims! You're a Kuffarphobic!" Be careful all you in London Friday 10/26! absurd thought - God of the Universe says don't call a spade a spade Islamist terrorism not related to Islam absurd thought - God of the Universe says you have NO rights to hate religions that demand to convert you absurd thought - God of the Universe calls for sick ideologies that deny human rights KILL adulterers and gays absurd thought - God of the Universe says be very afraid... of saying the wrong things TRUTH is especially BAD http://absurdthoughtsaboutgod.blogspot.com . .

Posted by: USpace at Thu Oct 25 17:17:50 2007 (7glBz)

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Do you really want that email read by just anyone? After all, it can happen, either through your mistake or the forwarding habits of others.

First, letÂ’s make one thing clear. Does the local superintendent of schools want to kill any of her teachers? No, she does not.

In fact, for the most part, residents seem relatively pleased with the performance of the Catskill schools superintendent, Kathleen P. Farrell, who in less than three years has gained a reputation as a can-do presence in a tough job.

* * *

Back and forth the discussion went, until Oct. 3, when Dr. Farrell wrote an e-mail message to the district’s director of facilities, John Willabay. She vented a bit and then allowed: “Please go KILL these people....Please, please, please.”

Then she sent it — not just to him — but, accidentally, to an unknown number of others as well, including Terri Dubuke, a sixth-grade teacher who was one of the critics. Ms. Dubuke read it in shock and referred it to the teachers’ union, and the matter was discussed at a closed-door school board meeting on Oct. 17.

It is stuff like this that causes our principal to caution us regularly at faculty meetings about being too quick to respond in anger or with a sarcastic tone.

But my question is this -- why does Farrell still have her job? After all, the head of the district union points out the disparity in treatment.

“If a student had written that, we would have been under lockdown and the student would have been escorted from the building,” she said. “Same thing if it had been a teacher. But when you have the person doing the policing writing it, none of that happens.”

Not only would a student or teacher have been escorted from the building, it is quite likely that a kid would have been expelled or a teacher fired. After all, we must have zero tolerance for threats of violence, even silly, blowing off steam type of threats that are not threats at all. Otherwise the little sociopath in third period could claim discrimination when his "People to slay" list is found along with detailed plans on how to assault the school.

Shouldn't the rules apply to everyone? And if not, doesn't that show the silliness of the zero tolerance rule?

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I've said it before -- we try to send too many folks to college. The result is that kids who would do well in a trade sort of tune out a high school curriculum that they don't see as relevant to them.

Why don't we have more places like this?

“How many of you guys got a hooptee, raise your hand?” Carlos Caraballo asked his senior auto shop at Automotive High School in Brooklyn.

A dozen boys, roughly half the class, raised their hands and began discussing their hooptees. The term is street slang for a cheap, functional car favored by city youths who often tinker tirelessly to make the car a speedster.

Hooptee repair prowess is not the guiding mission at Automotive High, in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, but it is a fringe benefit, said Mr. Caraballo, who teaches auto mechanics at the school, the largest auto trade school in the nation.

Besides training in repairing cars and other aspects of the industry, Automotive offers a regular high school education.

Why am I such a big fan of programs like the one at Automotive High? Maybe it has to do with seeing kids at my school light up when they talk about their co-op (our name for the vocational program) classes, and the skills they are learning there. Or maybe it is having seen the good such programs do during the years, after his retirement from the Navy, when my dad ran a Job Corps center on the West Coast. But either way, I know that we have too many students for whom college is either not an option or not their choice. Let's go back to the days when we had an educational program for them, one that got them both the basic skills they needed to be a literate, functional, educated member of society AND the skills they needed to function in the workplace.

Posted by: Greg at 10:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Good grief!

A South Carolina high school freshman has been expelled from school for possession of a butter knife.

Amber Dauge was by all accounts a good student at Goose Creek High School. She had joined the Junior ROTC program and was a member of the school's chorus. But she says officials have overreacted to an honest mistake.

"I know I made a really stupid decision, but I don't think I should be expelled for it," Amber told WCIV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Charleston, which first broke the story.

"She was at home making toast and she looked up, saw the clock, and said, "Oh I'm going to be late," her stepfather, Steven Heinz, explained to ABC News' Law & Justice Unit.

"She ran out the door and locked herself out with the butter knife still in her hand."

"Now, she could have rang the doorbell and got us up and left the butter knife at home," Heinz said.

"And she could have dropped the knife on the porch, I guess. And I guess she could have, when she got to school, walked in and turned it in [school officials] Â… but she left it in her locker and forgot about it."

Heinz said Amber opened her locker a week later, and the butter knife fell out. A fellow student made a wisecrack about the knife that was overheard by a teacher, who reported it to school officials, according to Heinz.

Amber was immediately suspended for five days, pending an expulsion hearing that officials say was mandatory under by the school's "zero tolerance" policy toward weapons or potential weapons.

I love the fact that they are giving the girl a hearing prior to the mandatory expulsion, after which the letter was mailed on the same afternoon, indicating that there was already a decision made prior to the hearing.

One school official makes it clear that this was essential, given the heinous nature of AmberÂ’s offense.

"It's not what we would consider to be a traditional butter knife," Bailey told ABC News. "Even though it's blunt on the end, it does have a serrated edge."

Bailey acknowledged Amber's clean disciplinary record — beyond a minor uniform infraction. "Despite the fact that the student was an exceptional student, this has nothing to do with how good she was in the classroom. She was in possession of a knife."

Oh, heavens – a serrated edge! Sounds like the knives my wife and I use for dinner each night. I mean, she might have been able to engage in an act of violence like slicing a banana or cutting a sandwich in public! She had to go, especially given the flagrant disregard for uniform policies in the past. This child is clearly a menace to society who should be locked up!

At least the administrative ass in question does have some compassion for the family.

"Certainly, if it was my child, I would have a different perspective," she said. "But if you're a school administrator, your perspective has to be broader. You have to consider the safety of the entire student population."

What a moron – there was no safety issue here. But in the interest of making sure that no parent after a student starts hacking up classmates with a samurai sword, anything that bears a vague resemblance to a dangerous weapon (including a harmless kitchen utensil) must be banned and harshly punished.

What morons!

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Posted by: Greg at 12:43 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I will never minimize sexual abuse of a child. Not by a parent, not by a clergyman, not by an educator.

That said, I want to make a point about these numbers from an Associated Press article.

The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

However, the article also points out that there are some 3 million educators in the US.

Let's do the math.

2570÷3,000,000=0.000857

There you have it -- less than 1/10 of one percent of teachers received any sort of sanction for sexual misconduct. And if you factor in the total number of teachers who taught during that time, the percentage is even smaller. After all, teachers retired or left the profession or died during those five years, and they were replaced with new teachers.

But even if one assumes the number is ten times as high -- 1% -- that still puts the frequency of sexual abuse at or below the national average for groups like clergy, lawyers and doctors -- and parents.

I've had a former colleague in teaching forced from the profession due to sexual misconduct. I have no tolerance for it, and would report in a heartbeat any teacher I knew of who engaged in such activity. But I continue to be reminded of this situation that I wrote about a few years back.

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.

Some may criticize me for this, but for once in my life I'm going to agree with the NEA on an issue.

“Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations,” said NEA President Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-paragraph statement.

I want abusers out of the classroom -- but I also want real sanctions against those who make false accusations of sexual misconduct knowing that it puts them in control and let's them punish a teacher who "made the mistake" of assigning a student the grade they earned or punishing a disciplinary infraction that a student committed.

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What do you think?

Two girls at a Florida high school were booted from a football game for painting their bodies to show school spirit, even though boys with painted bodies were allowed to stay.

Manatee High School student Monica Cummings, 17, and her friend Jessyca Altenbach, 17, painted their entire bodies in school colors for a big game this week.

However, both were kicked out of the game in the first quarter.

"People think we did it to be rebellious senior teenagers but we did it because we wanted to show school spirit," student Monica Cummings said. "That's all we did it for."

School district policy states that it is up to administrators to decide whether something is appropriate or not and in this case, the principal decided that the girls' outfits were not appropriate.

Once the girls came in, there were a number of people who came up to the principal, the assistant principal and other school administrators who were very upset over their appearance, school spokeswoman Margi Nanney said. "We have never had complaints about the men or the boys."

It is ugly.

It is tacky.

But inappropriate? No more so than when guys do it – and there needs to be a “one-size-fits-all” policy for stuff like this. After all, the girls did cover all areas that they society (and the law) expects them to cover with clothing. Would those tops have gotten them kicked out if they had not done the body-painting?

Posted by: Greg at 11:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My students and I get the daily "treat" of Channel One news in our classroom during fifth period. I think it serves a small purpose, in that it does expose some of the kids to the only news they will get in an average day. And it has sparked interesting comments.

But there was a line in today's broadcast (October 16, 2007 -- at 7:55 in the video) that struck me as somewhat over the top. In discussing the current debate over the House resolution on the Armenian genocide, they explain why Turkey is so important, and include the description of the country as "a secret ally of Israel".

Secret? Not if it can be discovered by student journalists like the folks at Channel One. And certainly not after they disclose it to students at 11,000 schools. But not to worry -- the relationship between the two nations is quite public knowledge -- as this Wikipedia article shows.

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I just knew that the administration at GWU wasnÂ’t going to apply the same rules to the leftists who put up a poster containing hate speech against both Muslims and conservatives as they would have if the conservatives had been responsible for the hate speech against Muslims.

George Washington University President Steven Knapp has no plans to take disciplinary action against a group of students involved in an anti-Muslim flier hoax, a university spokeswoman said yesterday.

"We have established judicial policies and procedures," university spokeswoman Tracy Schario said. "I am confident that President Knapp will let them take their course."

However, Mr. Knapp "reserves the right to intervene" in the university's student-judicial process, she said.

Graduate student Adam Kokesh and senior Brian Tierney with five other students took responsibility Tuesday for the fliers, which contained the phrase "Hate Muslims? So Do We!" The students said the posters were "creative political action" to draw attention to the upcoming Islamo-Facism Awareness Week starting Oct. 22.

Jason Mattera, spokesman for the national conservative group Young America's Foundation said Mr. Knapp's inaction shows political bias and is unfair to the campus chapter of the group, whose name was inserted the fliers.

"He's going to expose himself as a liar," Mr. Mattera said. "When it first emerged, he said we're not going to tolerate it. Now that it turns out it's liberals he's going to show where his political views lie."

When President Knapp thought that the conservatives had made and posted these fliers, it was stated that such speech would not be tolerated and the perpetrators would be expelled. Now that a group of liberals have confessed their guilt in this case, he has backed off that statement and will let them off with a slap on the wrist.

WhereÂ’s Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to protest this injustice? Too busy protecting the Jena thugs, no doubt.

Posted by: Greg at 10:20 AM | Comments (74) | Add Comment
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You know, after making it clear that hate speech would not be tolerated and would be dealt with harshly when they thought it came from conservatives, will they impose the same penalty upon the actual perps?

A national conservative group yesterday called on George Washington University to expel students who admitted that they targeted the group in a hoax that covered the campus with hundreds of anti-Muslim posters.

"Vicious personal attacks levied on students are intolerable and should not go unpunished," Ron Robinson, president of the Young America"s Foundation, told university President Steven Knapp.

In a letter obtained by The Washington Times, Mr. Robinson cited a statement by Student Association Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger, who said he "would support expulsion" of students responsible for distributing the "heinous" posters.

After the browbeating of the Young America’s Foundation chapter leaders and demanding that they voluntarily limit their own speech activities in light of the posters “as a sign of good faith”, the GWU officials need to make sure that little clique of left-wing and Islamist students seeking to censor the conservative organization receives precisely the punishment that the administration had in mind for the victims of this attack. After all, this was hate speech against both Muslims and conservatives – and unless GWU wishes to be shown to be an intellectually and morally vacant cesspool of liberalism, they need to stand by their publicly declared standards.

Posted by: Greg at 01:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don’t know about you, but I find this shirt sort of funny – in a sick sort of way, of course.

What I don't find at all amusing is the over-reaction of the universities involved, and the chilling of speech protected by the First Amendment.

Texas Tech has banned the sale of a T-shirt bearing the likeness of Michael Vick hanging the dog mascot of rival Texas A&M.

The red and black shirts, with text that says "VICK 'EM" on the front — in an apparent reference to the Aggies' slogan "Gig 'em" — was created by a Tech student who was trying to sell them before Saturday's game in Lubbock.

The back of the shirt shows a football player wearing the No. 7 Vick jersey holding a rope with an image of the mascot Reveille at the end of a noose. Vick, who faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a federal dogfighting charge, is suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

Tech officials announced the fraternity that sold the shirts was suspended temporarily and will face judicial review for allegedly violating the solicitation section of the students' code of conduct. The school said it wouldn't allow the sale on campus of items that are "derogatory, inflammatory, insensitive, or in such bad taste."

No more shirts are being produced, the school said in a release.

A&M officials, in a statement, thanked Tech administrators for "their response and action regarding this matter."

Now I realize that the Aggies take Miss Reveille very seriously. She goes to class with a cadet handler, and if the dog barks during class the professor is required to dismiss the students. They bury her predecessors in sight of the field, so they can still watch the games. But doesnÂ’t being so offended by a t-shirt go a bit too far?

And for the school to suspend a frat and hold hearings about a shirt that is a tastelessly satirical parody is a bit of a stretch. After all, the First Amendment does protect such speech – and as a state school, Texas Tech would appear to lack the authority to take any action against this constitutionally protected activity.

If anyone knows where I can get a couple in 3X, let me know.

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Posted by: Greg at 01:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As we give the kids a half day off so that the teachers of the district can gather to work on plans to improve student test scores on the TAKS test (not student learning -- student test scores), I'm pleased by this Bob Herbert piece in the New York Times today.

Not only has high-stakes testing largely failed to magically swing open the gates to successful learning, it is questionable in many cases whether the tests themselves are anything more than a shell game.

Daniel Koretz, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, told me in a recent interview that it’s important to ask “whether you can trust improvements in test scores when you are holding people accountable for the tests.”

The short answer, he said, is no.

If teachers, administrators, politicians and others have a stake in raising the test scores of students — as opposed to improving student learning, which is not the same thing — there are all kinds of incentives to raise those scores by any means necessary.

“We’ve now had four or five different waves of educational reform,” said Dr. Koretz, “that were based on the idea that if we can just get a good test in place and beat people up to raise scores, kids will learn more. That’s really what No Child Left Behind is.”

The problem is that you can raise scores the hard way by teaching more effectively and getting the students to work harder, or you can take shortcuts and start figuring out ways, as Dr. Koretz put it, to “game” the system.

Time and again I have been run through the latest fad training system designed to help me improve student test scores. The problem, though, is that some of these practices run directly contrary to encouraging the higher order thinking skills we ought to be encouraging. And what's worse, teaching everything that is (or could be) on the test for my students means short-changing them on what everyone agrees is more important material. That is why world history students in many districts get less than two weeks -- combined -- studying ancient Greece and Rome. And since my grade level test is 50% American history (and they haven't taken US History since 8th grade), I have to devote time going back and re-teaching that content, further short-changing mastery of the world history content my students ought to be learning.

I'm all for standards, but I just don't se our current system as working. And that isn't a Texas thing. It is a national problem.

Posted by: Greg at 10:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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They have in every single state , every single time.

Lotteries have raised billions of dollars, and of the 42 states that have them, 23 earmark all or some of the money for education.

For years, those states have heard complaints that not enough of their lottery revenue is used for education. Now, a New York Times examination of lottery documents, as well as interviews with lottery administrators and analysts, finds that lotteries accounted for less than 1 percent to 5 percent of the total revenue for K-12 education last year in the states that use this money for schools.

In reality, most of the money raised by lotteries is used simply to sustain the games themselves, including marketing, prizes and vendor commissions. And as lotteries compete for a small number of core players and try to persuade occasional customers to play more, nearly every state has increased, or is considering increasing, the size of its prizes — further shrinking the percentage of each dollar going to education and other programs.

In some states, lottery dollars have merely replaced money for education. Also, states eager for more players are introducing games that emphasize instant gratification and more potentially addictive forms of gambling.

I'll set aside the moral issues of gambling, because I do not believe gambling to be, per se, immoral. What i will point to instead is that little bit you may have missed in that last paragraph. The lottery dollars haven't supplemented the education budget -- they have simply changed the source of those dollars. This legislature appropriates those dollars for education and then shouts "Hallelujah! Look how generous we are being with the schools and the children." What they leave out is that they then shift an equal amount away from education and use it for other state expenditures, meaning that the schools in Texas really get a big nothing burger. And that is the case in many other states as well. When voters approved the lottery in those states, they were sold a bill of goods.

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Posted by: Greg at 01:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Or at least get someone to watch for you.

After all, you are responsible for what happens when you aren't there, too.

ome parents in Fort Bend County are outraged after their children said they witnessed a pair of eighth-graders engaged in a sex act, right in the middle of class.

Parents told KPRC Local 2 that they received the unsettling news about an incident at Crockett Middle School in a letter that went home on Friday.

"My mouth flew open when you told me just a few minutes ago," Lubergha Munson said. "I didn't expect you to say anything like that. I thought you were going to say they were fighting or something."

The principal sent letters home with some students explaining a situation that was reported to campus administrators last week.

The principal reported that the students, a boy and a girl, made inappropriate sexual contact with each other while other students watched.

The kids have been given appropriate discipline. I can only imagine the impact of this incident on the teachers present employment and future career.

Posted by: Greg at 09:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If these useless idiots want to have a socialist club in their school, so be it.

A new group at Roosevelt High School discusses socialism every Thursday morning. Not everyone is comfortable with the Young Socialist Club's views, but federal law says school districts must allow all student organizations.

The Young Socialists Club at Roosevelt High School is looking for new members. Their flyer asks for students to quote "Come explore the vast realm that is socialism." But also on the flyer is a picture of Karl Marx, who is best known as a revolutionary communist. One of his famous quotes, "Workers of the World Unite," is printed boldly on the handout. But Roosevelt Principal Don Ryswyk says those references do not concern him.

He says, “At Roosevelt we have young Democrats club, we have the young Republicans club and they were asking for a young Socialists club and so I saw it as an equity issue and the students talked to me about some of the things they were going to research and I also saw it as an educational club.”

Under the Equal Access Act passed in 1984, no school administrator can pass judgment on school clubs.

I’m just curious – will the Young Socialists make a point of studying Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot? How about the Cultural Revolution? And let’s not forget the glories of national Socialism, while they are at it.

And IÂ’m rather curious about this statement.

But he says if a club harms students, or is based on hate, it will not be accepted.

Ryswyk says, “I'm not going to allow a club into my school that's gonna be harmful or hateful or anything like that and there needs to be some good.”

So I guess this means that Ryswyk considers socialism to be a harmless thing, despite the many ills it has caused. And I wonder who gets to set the standard of what is harmful or hateful? Does he have an objective standard, or will it be his own personal opinions?

Posted by: Greg at 12:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You folks know I'm an ardent supporter of student First Amendment rights -- but I recognize that there are limits. So when I first saw information about this incident, I wanted more details.

Well, now we have more details -- and I come down on the side of the school here.

A Texas high school sophomore's parents might sue after the school booted the student from campus for wearing a John Edwards for 2008 president T-shirt.

Pete Palmer, a sophomore at Waxahachie High School, says he didnÂ’t think he was doing anything wrong wearing the political shirt to school.

But according to the Waxahachie Independent School District dress code, students can't wear shirts with political slogans.

“T-shirts, other than WISD clubs, organizations, sports, or spirit t-shirts, college or university t-shirts or solid-colored t-shirts, are prohibited," according to the policy.

Peter and his folks, however, claim the regs interfere with free speech -- and they are correct. The problem, however, is that it does not IMPERMISSIBLY interfere with free speech.

You see, dress codes -- even school uniforms -- are generally acceptable, provided that they are applied in an even-handed manner. In a case like this, where we have a school creating a rule that bans all but school-related t-shirts and college/university t-shirts with writing on them, you have a clearly defined policy. Assuming that it is consistently applied in an even-handed fashion, there can be no argument made that the speech ban that results was content-based, and so the regulation would pass constitutional muster.

It would be nice if Palmer's dad, a lawyer, actually cited more extensive precedent to support his position. Instead, we get only this shallow reasoning that is based more on emotion than the law.

“It’s a first amendment constitutional right that people have fought and died for and I don’t know why he should give it up just because Waxahachie thinks it would be okay or neat for him to do so,” Paul Palmer said.

Paul referenced a recent Vermont case where a student wore an anti-Bush shirt to school and the courts ruled in his favor.

Well, if the school were arguing that it is "ok or neat" for kids to surrender their rights, that would be one thing -- but that isn't the argument. Instead, the argument is that for valid disciplinary and academic reasons, the school restricts dress to promote student safety and academic performance. Such regulations of student dress are regularly upheld by the courts.

But what about Tinker and all the other cases I cite on a regular basis? Well, all of them note that schools may impose content-neutral restrictions upon student speech so as to maintain order and discipline in a school setting. None of them goes so far as to suggest that any regulation that impinges upon student speech is inherently invalid. Based upon this, I would expect any suit to be dismissed on its merits before trial.

This is not to say that I think the policy is everything it should be. If the Palmer family has a problem with it, I'd suggest running for the school board on a platform that calls for the elimination or modification of the dress code.

And then there is always this neat suggestion from Capitol Annex, which I think is the perfect way to creatively comply with the policy and still get your message across. Heck, as I read the policy I see nothing to prohibit the young man from wearing a polo shirt with an Edwards logo on it, or from wearing a campaign button on his shirt and a bumper sticker on his backpack. In short, it isn't the message that is the problem here, it is the means he is choosing to communicate it. That fact will certainly doom any litigation.

Others blogging include The Right Side, Right Voices, Austinist, Right on the Left Coast, Dallas Blog, Stop The ACLU

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Posted by: Greg at 10:53 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Twenty-five years ago, my father was intimately involved in arranging college credit for advanced technical training completed by sailors at Service School Command Great lakes and other Navy training programs around the country. It therefore warms my heart to see this bit of news about the expansion of a similar program in the Army.

The Army plans to offer accredited college credit hours for its training programs with enough offerings that a soldier could retire with a bachelor's degree.

The program is called the College of the American Soldier and is viewed as a recruitment tool as the Army seeks to expand its force.

With the offering, the Army will be able to tell recruits to come in to learn a skill and to obtain an education, said Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, who outlined the program during a breakfast meeting Tuesday with reporters.

Freakley is head of Army Accession Command, which is responsible for recruiting and the initial training of soldiers. He said the Army is working with colleges to gets its training programs accredited, and hopes to begin the program in February.

Under it, every new recruit in basic training will have the option of obtaining a technical certification in a skill such as welding or potentially 17 hours of college credit in leadership, first aid and other areas, he said.

"The idea would be, by the time you are a staff sergeant, somewhere between six and 10 years in the Army, you're going to have your associate's degree," Freakley said.

Soldiers who attend the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy could get 45 hours of credit because they have to write and take classes in areas such as literature and public speaking, he said. Those who retire as a master sergeant or sergeant major could have a bachelor's degree through the program, he said.

My only questions -- who will issue this degree, and will these credits be accepted for transfer by colleges and universities? The program my father was involved in creating actually counted these courses for college credit through several different schools, and were accepted as a part of their degree programs. Will these be captive credits that will only earn you a degree through the College of the American Soldier, or will you be able to get out with that associate's degree and transfer to Podunk State College, Big State University or Prestigious East Coast University?

Posted by: Greg at 10:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Of all the districts in the Houston area, there is one that really ought to be closed -- North Forest ISD. They have been through superintendent after superintendent in the last 20 years, having fired them over poor performance ratings for the schools, financial mismanagement, and the color of their skin (they canned a white superintendent because he "did not understand the community because he was white". The schools are a mess, the district is a mess, and there seems to be little hope of the place getting better. It really ought to be closed down, with a neighboring district taking over the area. But given the racial makeup of the district, it won't happen because it would be "racially insensitive" (I guess it is more racially sensitive to leave minority kids in failing schools run by minorities).

Well, now they are searching for another superintendent.

Leaders of the North Forest school district soon will pen their "help wanted" ad for a new superintendent, beginning a nationwide search that could prove difficult.

Given the problems facing the northeast Houston district, the job posting could read: Change agent needed to turn around an urban system with declining enrollment, shaky finances and numerous underperforming campuses.

The district's newly hired search consultant, Benjamin Canada of the Texas Association of School Boards, said the pursuit of a top-notch leader will be challenging, but achievable.

"It is a district that doesn't have the best reputation, but it has some outstanding students. It has some outstanding staff," said Canada, a former superintendent. ''But like all districts, it has a need for significant change."

The board has fired or forced out four of its past five permanent superintendents, the last being James Simpson in March.

You can see in the sidebar how rough things have been in the district -- and why any candidate for the job would be nuts to take it.

Add to that the fact that 5 of 11 schools are rated as "academically unacceptable" -- and that is an improvement from a year ago, when 8 of them received that ranking -- and you can see what awful shape the district is in. Indeed, it is probably the only district in the Houston area I would not apply in.

Still, I wish them well -- and can only hope that they find a good leader who can help turn the schools around. And that the racist, over-bearing school board members will allow the new leader to do the job for which he or she is hired without bringing in petty political and personal agendas like those that have brought the district to its current woeful state.

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I suppose that she would have been welcome if she were denying the Holocaust, calling for the destruction of Israel, and giving support to those killing Americans – at least if the principal were adhering to the Columbia University understanding of free speech and academic freedom. Instead, a few parental complaints were sufficient to get Alveda King’s speech cancelled.

A decision to cancel a speech by an anti-abortion activist at a Des Moines high school is sparking criticism.

The principal of Roosevelt High School, Kathie Danielson, says she canceled Friday's appearance by Alveda King because some parents complained about her message.

The Iowa chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says it implies the school is taking sides on the abortion issue. Spokesman Ben Stone says Danielson is doing a "disservice" when she decides she must protect students from controversial viewpoints.

King is a niece of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Danielson says it was a good opportunity to hear King on issues such as diversity. But parents complained about her political and social views.

Of interest, though, is the fact that King was not scheduled to speak on abortion at all. Her topic was, by all indication, her lifetime involved with civil rights. After all, as an author and minister and former college professor and state legislator, she might just have something of importance to teach these students on that subject—and about her uncle, whose life and work in that area ought to be an inspiration to every American. Add to the fact that attendance a the speech was voluntary, it seems hard to believe that anyone was going to be coerced, indoctrinated, or proselytized as a member of a captive audience of students.

However, that was not good enough for some.

Danielson explained the decision in an e-mail to the parents. When the school scheduled King in August, the plan was for King to speak about her civil rights journey.

Then Monday, "several community members" called to complain about King's allegiance to anti-abortion issues and abstinence. There was also the sticky possibility of King's expressing her religious beliefs in a public-school setting.

Those still wishing to hear King's message, Danielson added, could see her at either Iowa State or Drake.

Danielson said she called King, had a nice talk and came away impressed.

"She is a wonderful person," Danielson e-mailed, "and our conversation was meaningful and enlightening. We will visit in the near future about the possibility of scheduling a time when she could speak to our parents."

That's good, because King has a compelling story to tell. The students should be allowed to hear it.

The irony of this situation is not lost on me. You see my knowledge of history and constitutional law makes Roosevelt High School in Des Moines a familiar name to me – and it ought to be to any educator.

After all, Roosevelt High School was one of the schools at which the events occurred that gave rise to the Supreme CourtÂ’s seminal decision of freedom of speech in schools, Tinker v. Des Moines. And while the circumstances are different, we again see a small group deciding that there are some ideas, well-within the mainstream of American political belief, that must be suppressed at all cost in the public schools. Such actions were wrong then, and are wrong now.

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In light of recent controversies on California colleges campuses regarding controversial speakers and faculty members and the Columbia University speech by Mahmoud the Mad, Victor David Hanson offers up a criteria regarding who should be welcomed and given a platform at such prestigious institutions of higher learning.

In each of the above cases, the general public has had to remind these universities that their campuses should welcome thinkers who have distinguished themselves in their fields, regardless of politics and ideology. The liberal Chemerinsky, the Clinton Democrat Summers and the conservative Rumsfeld have all courted controversy -- and all alike met the criterion of eminent achievement.

But the propagandist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not. Unlike Chemerinsky, Rumsfeld and Summers, he used the prestige of an Ivy-League forum solely to popularize his violent views -- and to sugarcoat the mayhem his terrorists inflict on Americans and his promises to wipe out Israel.

Here's a simple tip to the clueless tenured class about why a Larry Summers or Donald Rumsfeld should be welcome to speak, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shunned: former Cabinet secretaries -- yes; homicidal dictators killing Americans -- no.

Sounds like a reasonable standard to me -- what do you think?

Posted by: Greg at 10:14 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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As a seminary-trained Christian who is also an educator, I find this story quite troubling.

A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.

Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday.

“I’m just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master’s degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job,” Bitterman said.

What, exactly, did Bitterman say?

Bitterman, who taught part time at Southwestern and OmahaÂ’s Metropolitan Community College, said he uses the Old Testament in his western civilization course and always teaches it from an academic standpoint.

Bitterman’s Tuesday course was telecast to students in Osceola over the Iowa Communications Network. A few students in the Osceola classroom, he said, thought the lesson was “denigrating their religion.”

“I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn’t given any more credibility than any other god,” Bitterman said. “I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there.”

Bitterman said called the story of Adam and Eve a “fairy tale” in a conversation with a student after the class and was told the students had threatened to see an attorney. He declined to identify any of the students in the class.

“I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here,” he said. “From my point of view, what they’re doing is essentially teaching their students very well to function in the 8th century.”

Now his words are harsh, impolitic, and maybe even mildly offensive -- but that does not mean they are wrong or that they should lead to discipline against him -- especially because they are, in my opinion, more or less correct.

The Genesis account of the creation cannot and should not be taken literally in light of the fossil record. It is best understood as an allegorical tale that communicates the essential truth that everything was created by God, and that our free will leads us to disobey God and to sever/strain our relationship with him. The story of Adam and Eve and the snake is therefore a myth -- but it is also true at its core.

And for those of you who object that the Bible is the revealed word of God (a contention which i whole-heartedly affirm), I offer this for your consideration -- if I can write an allegory, don't you suppose that the omnipotent God we both worship is able to do the same?

But regardless of whether we agree or disagree, and regardless of whether either of us agrees with Bitterman, there remains the question of academic freedom. There is a great body of academic literature which agrees with his position, and to fire him for citing it and teaching about it is not only wrong, but positively anti-intellectual.

It strikes me that Southwest Community College needs to offer a more public explanation of this personnel decision -- and that Bitterman should explicitly authorize them to do so. And if the comments on genesis have anything to do with the firing, Bitterman should be immediately reinstated.

And on a personnel note, I have more than a passing interest in such controversies. I've actually had a parent call my school and demand their child be removed from my class over a similar issue -- the inclusion of evolution in my World History class. Silencing truth in the name of religious sensitivity is simply wrong, whether the perpetrators of Christian, Muslim, or atheist.

A different viewpoint at Stop the ACLU

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Columbia welcomes Mahmoud the Mad, but bans the founder of the Minutemen.

Because after all, it wouldnÂ’t do for a university to welcome a hostage-taking, Holocaust-denying, international law-violating, genocide-advocating anti-Semite.

Oh – they ARE welcoming that one.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has accepted an invitation to speak at Columbia University on Monday afternoon at a forum sponsored by the university's School of International and Public Affairs, a spokesman for the university said last night.

The Iranian Mission to the United Nations requested the invitation through a professor in the Middle East department, Richard Bulliet, who is a specialist on Iran.

"Opportunities to hear, challenge, and learn from controversial speakers of different views are central to the education and training of students for citizenship in a shrinking and dangerous world," the dean of SIPA, John Coatsworth, said in a statement. Mr. Coastworth invited Mr. Ahmadinejad to kick off a series of lectures and events about Iran, he said in a statement. The president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, is scheduled to introduce Mr. Ahmadinejad on Monday to an audience that will be made up exclusively of Columbia students, faculty, and a few invited guests.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was invited by SIPA to speak at Columbia last fall, but Mr. Bollinger revoked the invitation on the grounds that he could not ensure that the program would reflect the academic values of the university. In his talk on Monday, Mr. Ahmadinejad will field questions from the audience and from Mr. Bollinger on his government, as well as his views on Israel and the Holocaust. Mr. Ahmadinejad has stated in the past that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and that the Holocaust did not happen.

But on the other hand, it is not in keeping with the values of Columbia to allow an American who loves America to speak after he was driven from the stage by criminals for advocating the defense of American borders and the enforcement of American law.

Jim Gilchrist, founder of the anti-illegal immigration Minuteman Project who was forced off a Columbia University stage last year, will not be coming back for a return engagement at the school.

The Columbia Political Union, a nonpartisan student group that had been planning the forum, said in a statement on its Web site Tuesday that "it has become clear that this event cannot take the form we had originally hoped it would and could not effectively accomplish the goals we had hoped it might."

Last Oct. 4, Gilchrist had to cut short his talk at the school after students from the Chicano Caucus and other groups climbed on stage with banners denouncing the Minutemen Project, which is based in Laguna Hills, Calif., and advocates action to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico.

If Columbia were truly committed to freedom and the free presentation of ideas, Bollinger would be introducing Gilchrist at an officially hosted university forum, and Mahmoud the Mad would be driven from campus by outraged students.

But then again, this is a school which (contrary to the claim of a commenter on an earlier thread), does not permit ROTC to operate on its campus.

As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

So got that -- there is no place at Columbia for patriots -- but terrorists and other enemies of America are more than welcome.

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Posted by: Greg at 12:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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In light of the handling of the Chemerinsky hiring, there is only one conclusion.

The University of California at Irvine clearly has misdirected its search efforts. It has been looking for a law school dean. But what it really needs is a new chancellor.

Now for all I take issue with Scott Horton's "right wing kooks" assertion in the paragraph before his conclusion, it is beyond doubt that he is correct in his conclusion. But I wonder -- would Horton be so ready to leap to the defense of a conservative scholar whose politics were opposed by "left wing kooks"? Or more to the point, as so often happens on campus, by left-wing faculty members (many of whom might reasonably be described as kooks)? Is it only the right wing which Horton believes should not have a veto? Or is it his belief that no political interest group should be permitted a veto in academic matters?

And would Horton care to engage in a little bit of intellectual honesty and note that many of us "right wing kooks", including some of the most respected voices on the right side of the blogosphere, who spoke out in defense of Chemerinsky?

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I long ago came to the conclusion that we send too many students off to college. I know that sounds like heresy coming from a teacher, but the reality is that there are too many students seeking college degrees who donÂ’t have the intellectual or academic capacity to do the work.

Ove at NRO, George Leef makes an excellent case that we need to send fewer, not more, kids on to higher education.

First, it isn’t true that the economy is undergoing some dramatic shift to “knowledge work” that can only be performed by people who have college educations. When we hear that more and more jobs “require” a college degree, that isn’t because most of them are so technically demanding that an intelligent high school graduate couldn’t learn to do the work. Rather, what it means is that more employers are using educational credentials as a screening mechanism. As James Engell and Anthony Dangerfield write in their book Saving Higher Education in the Age of Money, “the United States has become the most rigidly credentialized society in the world. A B.A. is required for jobs that by no stretch of imagination need two years of full-time training, let alone four.”

Second, the needless pressure to get educational credentials draws a large number of academically weak and intellectually disengaged students into college. All they want is the piece of paper that gets them past the screening. Most schools have quietly lowered their academic standards so that such students
will stay happy and remain enrolled. Consequently, they seldom learn much — many employers complain that college graduates they hire can’t even write a coherent sentence — but most eventually get their degrees.

Third, due to the overselling of higher education, we find substantial numbers of college graduates taking “high school” jobs like retail sales. It’s not that there is anything wrong with well-educated clerks or truck drivers, but to a great extent college is no longer about providing a solid, rounded education. The courses that once were the pillars of the curriculum, such as history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts, have been watered down and are usually optional. Sadly, college education is now generally sold as a stepping stone to good employment rather than as an intellectually broadening experience. Sometimes it manages to do both, but often it does neither.

Fourth, itÂ’s a mistake to assume that the traditional college setting is the best or only way for people to learn the things they need to know in order to become successful workers. On-the-job training, self-directed studies, and courses taken with a particular end in mind (such as those offered in fields like accounting or finance at proprietary schools) usually lead to much more educational gain than do courses taken just because they fill degree requirements.

How many of our young people would be better prepared for their future with a solid vocational program at the high school level? How many would instead find themselves struggling for an academic credential (whether a bachelors or associates degree) with general studies requirements that are beyond their interest or ability and which serve as an obstacle o their success?

Posted by: Greg at 12:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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When I got my masters degree 20 years ago, my area of focus was US Constitutional law. Over the years, I've worked to keep current in that field. And while I've not always agreed with him, I've always respected the work of Erwin Chemerinsky. His expertise and competence are beyond question, even if his conclusions are not. That is why I am outraged by the decision to dump him from the position of dean of the new University of California -- Irvine law school.

In a showdown over academic freedom, a prominent legal scholar said Wednesday that the University of California, Irvine's chancellor had succumbed to conservative political pressure in rescinding his contract to head the university's new law school, a charge the chancellor vehemently denied.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known liberal expert on constitutional law, said he had signed a contract Sept. 4, only to be told Tuesday by Chancellor Michael V. Drake that he was voiding their deal because Chemerinsky was too liberal and the university had underestimated "conservatives out to get me."

Later Wednesday, however, Drake said there had been no outside pressure and that he had decided to reject Chemerinsky, now of Duke University and formerly of the University of Southern California, because he felt the law professor's commentaries were "polarizing" and would not serve the interests of California's first new public law school in 40 years.

Whether or not there was political pressure brought to bear, the firing of Chemerinsky by a public educational institution over his political orientation is simply wrong. And just as I would in the case of a conservative legal scholar, I wish to register my disgust with the decision to do so. It is clear that Chancellor Drake, not Professor Chemerinsky, needs to go.

And I'm not alone on the right in registering my opposition to this move. They include Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Reynolds, John Leo, Steven Greenhut, Stephen Bainbridge the esteemed crew from Volokh Conspiracy, B. Daniel Blatt (of GayPatriot), and Ed Morissey. I'm proud to stand in such company

UPDATE -- 9/14/07: Today's Washington Post has an interesting overview of the controversy.

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Depending on whether or not the judges in Oregon follow the clear and unambiguous language of the statutes passed by the legislature, concealed carry by teachers may be an option in the state very soon.

A high school teacher wanting to carry a gun on campus is fueling a challenge against a Medford School District policy that prohibits possession of a weapon on school grounds.

Portland-based lawyer Jim Leuenberger, with backing from the Oregon Firearms Federation, said in an e-mail sent Friday to the Mail Tribune that he intends to ask a Jackson County Circuit Court judge to declare the policy "illegal and void" for holders of concealed handgun licenaes.

"There is a state statute that prohibits local governments — including school boards — from restricting possession of firearms by concealed firearm permit holders," Leuenberger said. "The state statute says any such local restrictions are void."

Leuenberger identified the woman only as a high school teacher and said he will file the complaint using "Jane Doe" as the plaintiff.

This particular teacher has a concealed carry permit and a restraining order against her ex-husband. She needs the gun for personal protection.

But the school sees matters differently.

"It's our responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for our students and a safe working environment for our employees," Gerking said. "We feel that would not be fostered by allowing folks, whether they have the authority or not, to bring weapons onto campus, in particular firearms — loaded firearms. We believe that's a recipe for potential disaster."

I guess that means that the school district believes that its policy trumps state law and the Second Amendment. Their lawyers should tell them that such is not the case.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with trained, licensed individuals having weapons on campus – if you look at the statistics in every state, such individuals have a significantly lower rate of abusing those weapons than other citizens. Indeed, here in Texas the number is miniscule during the entire lifetime of the concealed carry statute. I suspect that the same is true in Oregon.

The problem, you see, is not legal, registered guns carried by licensed individuals in schools – it is those carried illegally by unlicensed individuals seeking to do violence.

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Posted by: Greg at 09:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The alumni elect board members who object to the direction of a liberal administration. The solution -- stack the board with administration appointees.

Dartmouth College announced late Saturday night that its board of trustees would expand to 24 members, two-thirds chosen by the college and one-third elected by the alumni.

Since 1891, Dartmouth alumni have elected eight trustees and the administration has appointed an additional eight, giving the college an unusually small board and an unusual level of alumni power.

The changes come largely in reaction to divisive trustee campaigns over the past three years, in which alumni rejected the candidates officially nominated by the alumni association and instead elected four libertarian or conservative alumni who got onto the ballot through a petition process.

The most telling comment comes from the president of the board, Charles E. Haldeman Jr.

“Dartmouth’s trustee elections have become increasingly politicized, costly and divisive,” he said. “It’s not the results of these elections that are the problem, but the process itself.”

“I know some will ask why we didn’t simply expand the board through an equal number of charter and alumni trustee seats,” he said. “Given the divisiveness of recent elections we did not believe that having more elections would be good for Dartmouth.”

Yeah -- a self-perpetuating oligarchy does have advantages over a democracy.

The main one being that those who govern need not listen to the voice of the people.

So let's just call this what it is -- a coup.

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Because after all, they inculcate discipline, patriotism, and train people to protect her right to trash the military.

I know why I chose Columbia: the campus is magnificent, the education is top-tier, and my peers are intelligent. I could look at a stranger, tell him or her that I went to Columbia, and hear the predictable, “Wow, you must be smart.”

* * *

My brother ended up liking Annapolis and he has decided to stay. While it has been difficult for me to accept that I have a brother in the military, I must allow him to pursue whatever path he is drawn toward, and he has admitted to me that he feels called to being there. However, for anyone else out there considering a career in the academy, let it be known: the U.S. Naval Academy is not an elite college; it is first and foremost a branch of the U.S. military and the prestige comes at a big price—it taxes parents, siblings, and participants if they do not understand what they were signing up for.

Imagine that -- the service academies are a part of the military! I guess it takes a little left-wing snob from a school that does not even allow its students the option of an ROTC program to tell the rest of us that incredibly insightful observation. Her decision to trash them as "not an elite college" shows her lack of respect for diversity -- it is an elite college, just not in the way that her school is. Indeed it is better, and reflects a call to a purpose higher than that of her school: the preservation of our country.

So while Idris Leppla is busy sucking down her lattes and attending her rallies against the war and mourning the fact that her brother didn't respond to her efforts to get him out of the Naval Academy AGAINST HIS WILL, it is her brother and those like him who are defending the right of ms. Leppla to spit on them with her unAmerican words and actions from the hallowed halls of her "elite" university.

Posted by: Greg at 12:06 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm glad that folks are taking notice of the Avery Doninger case and its potential impact on student rights everywhere. And that support spreads far beyond her Connecticut home.

Support, both financial and moral, for Avery Doninger's appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has spread across the country.

Doninger is seeking an injunction to overturn the 2008 class officer election results of Lewis S. Mills High School on the grounds that school officials unconstitutionally denied her candidacy. Although she won the election with write-in votes by her classmates, school officials still refuse to allow her to take the 2008 class secretary position.

Doninger alleges she was stripped of her junior class secretary title and not allowed to run for senior class office because she exercised her right to free speech and expressed a grievance on a blog site from her home computer.

On Aug. 31, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kravitz denied Doninger's motion for a temporary injunction, issuing a 34-page memorandum on his ruling 45 minutes after the close of court.

"A battle is lost, the war is not over," said Avery's mother, Lauren. "We now head to the 2nd Circuit to appeal the denial and continue to seek injunctive relief. Additionally, we will file trial paperwork. Unlike the very rushed hearing, this will be a jury trial."

With the appeal expected to cost approximately $20,000, not including payment to attorney John Schoenhorn for his representation, Doninger set up an online donation site. She did not expect support for her appeal would ripple across the nation.

As I've pointed out in previous posts, this is a decision with potentially devastating effects upon the First Amendment rights of students -- after all the speech for which this student is being punished took place away from school outside of school hours, but the school wants to regulate it and discipline based upon it.

I'm particularly struck by the wisdom of this commentator.

Greg Aydt, a world history high school teacher and right-wing conservative from Houston, Texas, also posted a link to Doninger's fund on his site, http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu. He said he put the link on his site because very often he sees school administrators take a very narrow and cramped view of students' rights.

"When you are in your home at [9 p.m.] on your computer, that's not a place the school has any right to intrude, unless it presents a direct threat to student or school safety," Aydt said. "In this case, we have administrators who got their knickers in a twist because you have a student who isn't deferential to them 24 hours a day."

Yeah, I was contacted the other day requesting an interview. I'll concede, its a first. And while I don't know why Jacqueline Manning chose to describe me as a "right-wing conservative" rather than merely as a conservative (I'm the only person whose political orientation is noted). But that's neither here nor there. I was honored to be asked and even more honored to be included in the article. Heck, I'm simply honored to be able to lend my voice in support of a good cause.

And by the way, here is a way to help Avery and her mom continue their fight for freedom of speech.

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Posted by: Greg at 01:16 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ask any teacher -- a good substitute is worth his or her weight in diamonds and gold. And when retired teachers come back into the classroom as substitutes, they are usually the ones you want to get.

Especially since qualifications to work as a substitute are even lower than the pay for the work.

Qualifications for substitutes vary from system to system, with some requiring a bachelor's degree and others only a minimum number of college credits. The pay also varies, from about $75 a day to $103 for retired teachers.

My district does require some college to substitute -- a whole 30 hours of college credit. In other words, you can have kids who graduated the previous year coming back as substitutes if they took a couple of summer school classes and AP or dual-credit during their high school career. Fortunately, the district tries to keep them out of the high schools.

And don't fool yourself -- substitutes are a big expense for a district. Mine spent $1.7 million on subs last year -- for a variety of reasons, ranging from personal days and conferences to illnesses and maternity leave. And as it was, there were still classes that were covered by administrators, teacher, and even secretaries if there was no substitute available through our system.

Probably the best news I've gotten is that one of my recently retired colleagues is coming back as a substitute after a year of retirement. I know I will fight to schedule him into my class if i know in advance that I will be out of school.

Posted by: Greg at 03:30 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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And if the decision in Avery Doninger's case is upheld down the road, it appears that this ruling will effectively mean that no student has First Amendment rights to speak on any matter related to school at any time or in any place free from the heavy hand of censorship and punishment by the school administration.

Avery Doninger may have been off campus when she wrote an Internet post calling officials in her Burlington school district a derogatory name.

But school officials were within their rights when they punished her for the comment as if she had made it on campus, a federal judge ruled Friday, because Doninger's writing related to school and was likely to be read by other students.

U.S. District Judge Mark Kravitz's ruling marked the court's first stance on a lawsuit that Doninger's mother, Lauren, filed against two officials in the Region 10 school district after Avery Doninger, then 16, was prohibited from seeking re-election as secretary for her class at Lewis S. Mills High School in May. Punishing Avery Doninger for the comment - she called school officials "douchbags" (sic) in her Internet blog - violated her right to free speech, the Doningers argued.

Friday's ruling didn't decide the case, but resolved a request by Doninger's attorney for an injunction to allow Avery Doninger to run for class secretary. Kravitz's ruling denying the request noted that Doninger had not shown "substantial likelihood" that she would succeed in challenging the constitutional validity of her punishment.

But Kravitz's ruling also foreshadowed a case involving far more than a misspelled insult posted on the Internet. It concerns what kind of expression schools can regulate, whether schools can sanction behavior outside school, and just what can be considered on- or off-campus in the Internet age.

"The whole issue of blogs and off-campus e-mails is coming to the fore. Courts themselves are kind of feeling their way along," Kravitz said in court Friday. "These are difficult issues."

Now as one commentator notes, the Courant article is not completely accurate in its characterization of this decision, because this decision dealt with the issue of a pretrial injunction rather than the actual merits of the case. However, it does show that the judge is initially predisposed to rule in favor of the district based upon an initial presentation and examination of the facts at hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATE: I've been in touch with Avery's mom, and she assures me that they are appealing to the Second Circuit. However, the pursuit of this lawsuit is a financial drain. Would you consider helping out?

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Posted by: Greg at 10:09 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Could you imagine the outrage if any mainstream publication were to publish an article like this about any racial or ethnic group?

A new working paper from economists Victor Lavy of Hebrew University and Analía Schlosser of Princeton attempts to unpick the peer effects associated with gender, using data on nearly half a million students passing through Israel's school system in the 1990s. They compared consecutive year groups passing through the same school, figuring that if one year's group was 55 percent boys and the next year's was 55 percent girls, that difference was very likely to be random and thus susceptible to meaningful number crunching.

Their answer chimes perfectly with the conventional wisdom: Boys benefit from being in a classroom with girls, but girls do not benefit from being in a classroom with boys. What is interesting about Lavy and Schlosser's work is that it uses survey data provided by the children to work out what is causing the effects. The survey questions ask, for example, about violence in school, respect for teachers, classroom distractions, and relations among students.

Boys pollute the educational system, it seems, for a number of unmysterious reasons: They wear down teachers, disrupt classes, and ruin the atmosphere for everyone. And more boys are worse than fewer boys, not because they egg each other on but simply because more of them can cause more trouble in total.

One could, using the same sort of evidence, make similar claims regarding racially-mixed educations. A look at disciplinary records and academic performance data would likely bear that out. But is that a basis for advocating a return to racially segregated education? No -- and indeed, it has been the basis for arguing that there is a crisis in schools and that more resources need to be devoted to making sure that minorities do better in school and that steps be taken to end the "bias" in discipline.

And then there is this little gem at the end.

A social planner might thus conclude that all education should be single-sex. The difficulty is to combine this perspective with the principle of parental choice. I have the answer: a congestion-charge-style tax on parents who insist on polluting girls' education with their testosterone-fuelled little monsters. The money could go toward hiring extra teachers—and riot police.

Again, could you imagine the outrage if someone were to write an argument arguing that there should be a congestion-charge-style tax on parents who insist on polluting whites' education with their Spanish and Ebonics speaking little gang-bangers? But in this case, the silence will be deafening.

I guess you just have to choose the right target for your bigotry.

Posted by: Greg at 03:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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A part of me admires the ingenuity and dedication of this kid in pulling off a classic sports prank. Is a suspension really an appropriate punishment here? Is any punishment warranted?

A high school student who tricked football fans from a crosstown rival into holding up signs that together spelled out, "We Suck," was suspended for the prank, students said.

Kyle Garchar, a senior at Hilliard Davidson High School in suburban Columbus, said he spent about 20 hours over three days plotting the trick, which was captured on video and posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. He said he was inspired by a similar prank pulled by Yale students in 2004, when Harvard fans were duped into holding up cards with the same message.

At the end of the video, Garchar wryly thanks the 800 Hilliard Darby High School supporters who raised the cards at the start of the third quarter during last Friday's football game.

"It couldn't have been done without you," reads the closing frame of the video.

Garchar, 17, created a grid to plan how the message would be spelled out once fans in three sections held up either a black or white piece of construction paper.

Directions left on stadium seats instructed fans to check that the number listed on their papers matched their seat numbers. Darby supporters were told the message would read "Go Darby."

"It was tedious," Garchar said. "I didn't really think it was going to work."

There was a day, not many years past, when folks would have found this humorous and the kid would have become one of those school legends that is talked about for years to come. Faculty and administration would have been at least marginally approving of the show of school spirit that went into the prank.

Today we make it a matter for serious discipline.

What do you think -- is the punishment appropriate or not?

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Posted by: Greg at 10:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I don't agree with their challenge to the policy, but I respect their willingness to stand up for what they believe.

The leaders of a student group at Montgomery County's Wissahickon High School that opposes a new rule requiring backpacks worn inside the school to be made of mesh or clear plastic won praise from the school board and administration at a board meeting Tuesday night, but got no change in the policy.

The students vowed to continue the fight; they are calling for a "Day of Silence" on Sept. 12, when they will refuse to talk during classes. The board agreed to take another look at the policy after school starts.

The new rule was part of a 13-page list of school safety recommendations released in July by a school safety task force convened by Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. Several other Montgomery County school districts already either require see-through backpacks or have banned backpacks altogether from school hallways.

Principal William Hayes decided over the summer to implement the clear or mesh backpack policy, saying that while it was not a surefire way of keeping weapons out of the school, it would "make kids think twice" about bringing contraband into the school.

The move unleashed a wave of protest from students who formed an online group calling itself "Hell No I'm Not Wearing a See-Through Backpack."

What is particularly nice here is that the school board is taking its responsibility to encourage good citizenship quite seriously. Rather than dismissing the complaints and punishing the students, they offer nothing but praise for the kids and express a willingness to discuss – but not necessarily change – the policy.

Posted by: Greg at 12:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As classes start today, I'm pleased to say that we don't have a single vacancy in my building. That is not the case at many schools around the country.

The retirement of thousands of baby boomer teachers coupled with the departure of younger teachers frustrated by the stress of working in low-performing schools is fueling a crisis in teacher turnover that is costing school districts substantial amounts of money as they scramble to fill their ranks for the fall term.

Superintendents and recruiters across the nation say the challenge of putting a qualified teacher in every classroom is heightened in subjects like math and science and is a particular struggle in high-poverty schools, where the turnover is highest. Thousands of classes in such schools have opened with substitute teachers in recent years.

Of course, there are ways of fixing the problem -- starting with higher salaries to entice more and better-qualified teachers into the classroom. Giving teachers more support instead of adopting the attitude that the student and parent are always right would help as well. Too many teachers I know walk away from the field in the first five years because they are imply beat down by the constant expectation that they accomplish miracles while standards of conduct and achievement are lowered for students. Until we see a return to the day when teachers were treated as respected professionals, the shortage will continue.

Posted by: Greg at 10:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It is great to see someone you know get good coverage in the paper.

And Al Bates certainly deserves it.

He worked long hours for more than three decades, making good money in the restaurant business. But Al Bates says there was always something more he wanted to accomplish.

Now he's getting his chance. He had to take a detour from his executive's job to a stint as a substitute janitor, but he got there.

Bates, who is 53 and has eight grandchildren, is preparing his classroom for the big day Monday — when he starts his new career as a fifth-grade teacher.

He achieved his dream job at the Galena Park school district's new Sam Houston Elementary by working as a janitor, and later in the warehouse, so he could study in his off hours and earn his alternative certification, an increasingly popular source of new teachers in Texas.

Like many of the pupils who'll show up Monday, Bates expects to have a case of jitters.

"It's new and different," he said as workers scurried to finish the school at 4101 E. Sam Houston Parkway North. "I'm sure, after a couple days and I'm into it, I'll be just fine. For me, it's a huge, huge change, career-wise."

Bates substituted around the district, including my school. We all knew he was seeking his certification, but not all of us knew his story.

I'm glad to see him get the sort of recognition he deserves, and know that his students are getting a fantastic individual as a teacher.

Welcome to the profession.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sounds like there are a number of good recommendations -- but none that would allow students to defend themselves against a killer on the loose.

Officials at Virginia Tech University issued a set of mild recommendations for campus security Wednesday, suggesting the university provide more counseling for mentally troubled students, erect Internet-based message boards across campus to alert students of emergencies and install more surveillance cameras and better internal door locks.

These are all good, as far as thy go. But until students and staff are permitted to freely exercise their rights under the Second Amendment -- especially those already holding a concealed carry permit -- there is no safety on the Virginia Tech campus.

Posted by: Greg at 10:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As a teacher, my only reaction is scorn for those who made this absurd decision.

Chandler school officials have suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching a picture that resembled a gun, saying it posed a threat to classmates.

But parents of the Payne Junior High School student said the drawing was a harmless doodle of a fake laser, and school officials overreacted.

"I just can't believe that there wasn't another way to resolve this," said Paula Mosteller, the boy's mother. "He's so upset. The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good."

The Mostellers said the drawing did not show blood, bullets, injuries, or target any human. They said it was just a drawing that resembled a gun.

But Payne Junior High administrators thought the sketch was enough of a threat and gave the boy a five-day suspension, later reduced to three days.

Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the sketch was "absolutely considered a threat," and threatening words or pictures are punishable.

The school did not contact police and did not provide counseling or an evaluate the boy to determine if he intended the drawing as a threat.

The clincher is that last sentence above. If this were considered a real threat, the school would be morally and legally obligated to call in the police. If this student were believed to be somehow dangerous, a psychological evaluation would be mandated before he could return to campus. The fact that neither of these took place settles the matter for me.

Does my school have a similar sort of weapons policy? Yes, especially insofar as the dress code is concerned. And yes, I have been obligated to send a kid to the office for wearing a Marvin the Martian t-shirt if the cartoon character has his ray gun out (the same for Scarface shirts with a weapon shown)-- but the punishment is a stern warning (detention for repeat offenses) and being required to wear a day-glo yellow shirt with "Dress Code Violation" printed on it until the end of the day. But a suspension? Good Lord -- not in a million years!

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Posted by: Greg at 12:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Speaking as a history teacher, I have a startling confession -- I hate Black History Month. Hispanic History Month, too. Ditto all the other special months that "celebrate" homosexuals, disabled individuals, women, Asians and the oppressed minority du jour.

I also hate special days and weeks for different groups. I'm also not particularly fond of Constitution Day and the federal mandate imposed upon me as an educator to teach about the Constitution on a given day in September.

Does that make me a bigot? Does it mean I hate everyone but for white men? No to both questions.

Instead, it means that I have a problem with agenda-driven history and curricula. And while I don't like the reasons for dropping the designations of special months in the Philadelphia School District, I do like the result.

Consider what I teach -- World History. Now this may come as a surprise to some of you, but history is generally taught in a somewhat linear fashion due to the shocking reality that time itself is linear in nature. As a result, I find it somewhat absurd to drop a less on on the Constitution in the middle of my unit on the early river valley civilizations. Similarly, Dr. King and the civil rights movement really fit better in May when I deal with the contemporary era of history, not back in February during the French Revolution. And as for the noted (alleged and presumed) homosexuals of history, I gladly deal with them in their respective historical context.

In a history classroom, content should not be balkanized in the name of promoting pride. I may have to deviate from a strict chronology from time to time (I deal with Alexander the Great before the Roman Republic because he fits better in the context of Greek Civilization before I chart the rise of Rome, which I concede began over a century before the Macedonian conqueror's death), but a chronological approach does make sense in a subject built, in large part, on chronology.

More to the point, the history of each and every one of these groups is the common heritage of all humanity. Properly taught, history provides us lessons on the common struggles and triumphs of various people's around the world, leading to the global society in which we live. Decontextualizing these groups and their achievements undercuts that message, no matter how much the advocates of these groups claim otherwise.

"It is appalling that a school district would drop months that recognize and educate our school children about the history and contributions of America's diverse fabric," said Malcolm Lazin, executive director of the homosexual advocacy group Equality Forum, in a news release.

"GLBT History Month is important for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) students and for the mainstream community," he said. "The GLBT community is uniquely disadvantaged because it does not learn its history at home or in public schools.

"It is important for young people to have role models, know their history, and take pride in the national and international contributions of their community," Lazin said.

I'm sorry, but that is dead wrong -- the diversity of the fabric is only seen when the threads are blended together to create the whole, while unraveling those threads destroys the fabric. These "separate but equal" months and celebrations, like "separate but equal" schools, do an injustice to our students and sow division, not unity.

Posted by: Greg at 09:50 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Here's a story I can sure identify with. And sadly, it exposes the sort of thing that happens all too often in education today -- minimum grades even for students who do no work at all.

Several weeks into his first year of teaching math at the High School of Arts and Technology in Manhattan, Austin Lampros received a copy of the schoolÂ’s grading policy. He took particular note of the stipulation that a student who attended class even once during a semester, who did absolutely nothing else, was to be given 45 points on the 100-point scale, just 20 short of a passing mark.

Now I can identify with this -- my district decrees no grade lower than a 50 with a state-mandated 70 as teh minimum passing grade. Of course, we are not permitted to assign a grade of 68 or 69, so we then have to decide which way to manipulate a student's average to determine whether or not the kid passes or fails -- and I've listened to more than one principal offer the not-so-subtle guidance that "if a kid is that close, I don't know how you can really argue he deserves to fail."

Now what this means, of course, is that under our grading system (we have three terms per semester) a student can get an 80 for each of the first two marking periods and then do nothing during the final one and end with a 70 before taking the final. Then if the kid hits even a 60 on the final, there is that subtle pressure to pass the student on the theory that "one test shouldn't be the difference between passing and failing."

This leads me to the case of a student some years ago who did well during the first two marking periods of her final semester of senior year, and then "checked out" because she figured that she had a 73 average going into the final once she averaged in that gift of a 50. She literally did nothing for six weeks -- and then scored a 38 on her final exam, earning her a 67 for the semester. Despite all the pressure brought to bear on me by the administration and the athletic department, I stuck to my guns -- and the girl had to take summer school to graduate so that she could take her volleyball scholarship. Fortunately, state law forbids anyone other than me to change teh grade, so it did stick.

I don't know what I would have done if something like this happened.

Mr. LamprosÂ’s introduction to the high schoolÂ’s academic standards proved a fitting preamble to a disastrous year. It reached its low point in late June, when Arts and TechnologyÂ’s principal, Anne Geiger, overruled Mr. Lampros and passed a senior whom he had failed in a required math course.

That student, Indira Fernandez, had missed dozens of class sessions and failed to turn in numerous homework assignments, according to Mr. LamprosÂ’s meticulous records, which he provided to The New York Times. She had not even shown up to take the final exam. She did, however, attend the senior prom.

Through the intercession of Ms. Geiger, Miss Fernandez was permitted to retake the final after receiving two days of personal tutoring from another math teacher. Even though her score of 66 still left her with a failing grade for the course as a whole by Mr. LamprosÂ’s calculations, Ms. Geiger gave the student a passing mark, which allowed her to graduate.

Ms. Geiger declined to be interviewed for this column and said that federal law forbade her to speak about a specific student’s performance. But in a written reply to questions, she characterized her actions as part of a “standard procedure” of “encouraging teachers to support students’ efforts to achieve academic success.”

Frankly, such a decision by a principal is outrageous -- and any policy that allows for it is immoral and unethical. I won't even get into this frightening response by the parent in this case.

Samantha Fernandez, Indira’s mother, spoke on her behalf. “My daughter earned everything she got,” she said. Of Mr. Lampros, she said, “He needs to grow up and be a man.”

Three thoughts.

1) No, she didn't.

2) He is the only one acting like an adult and a professional in this situation.

3) It's a pity you didn't see fit to act like a parent during either of your daughter's two senior years.

Indeed, this sort of situation is precisely why every state should have a law making the classroom teacher the final arbiter of grades, unless there is substantiated proof of a calculation error or a violation of district grading policy. Allowing administrative grade changes under any other circumstances constitutes academic fraud.

I am, however, troubled by one aspect of this story. There is information disclosed here, connected with the name of a student, that I don't believe should ordinarily ever be released to the public. Where, exactly, did the new York Times get the grade and attendance information? Was permission granted for the paper to obtain that information? Depending on where this information came from, I believe that there may be grounds for both legal action and sanctions against the professional licenses of those involved.

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Posted by: Greg at 12:02 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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