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Student Faces Expulsion for Blog Post
ThPhox writes "A student in the Plainfield School District in New Jersey is facing expulsion from the school district for a post made on his personal blog during non school hours. From the article: "A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week, a local attorney said.""
A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week
Well, if he wasn't being bullied by the school district before, he sure is now. They just proved his argument for him!
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
...it's a good preparation for real life.
Hopefully the school board settles quickly and cans the people. Last thing they want to do is lose all that money they are going to in a clear-cut 1st amendment case....
Expel more people, I say. The pendulum needs to swing back the other way a little bit.
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we weren't using our rights anyways........ dot dot dot
yes and no.
Students have practically no rights when on the premises or using school resources. When off campus however is where the arguments are coming up these days- most would argue students are under normal law when not on school grounds or comitting crimes (making threats, etc) against the school, faculty or other students.
This is nothing new. Most schools, even in areas that are highly "liberal," try to control their students' thoughts and actions to the point of extreme.
Illinois state law says that schools are allowed to act in the best interest of a student, as a parent when the parent is not around (ie, during school days). It does not say schools can discipline students for their thoughts and actions outside of school and not during school time. However, schools are taking it upon themselves to do this regardless.
I find depriving a student of his 1st ammendment rights or his education not in his "best interest."
This must stop. The only way it will happen is having cases like this go to court, and schools finally exposed for what they are doing.
What is it with Americans and expulsion? Here in Australia if someone gets expelled it is because they have done something absolutely crazy that in America probably would have them in prison or something like that, e.g. bashing up other students. Even something like swearing in front of the teacher, depending on the school, may only get you suspended.
You're expelled.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
New Jersey doesn't have a monopoly on Plainfields. There are many other Plainfields like it, but this one is mine. ;)
Clue: it's in the CHICAGO Sun-Times.
Further clue: from TFA - "Joliet Police".
I live near there - Plainfield is where the big Tornado disaster occurred about 12-13 years ago.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
I can't imagine things have changed drastically since I graduated from high school four years ago. Our staff was afflicted with the worst type of technology paranoia. They couldn't really grasp the size of the internet; they could only understand electronic media as analogous to print, which -- given the popularity of "the internet" meant that publishing something unflattering about your school on the web was (to them) tantamount to taking a full page ad in the New York Times. These people _are_ bullies! They're afraid of the internet, so they'll compensate with administrative brawn.
We likely don't know all the facts to this story, things can sound very clear cut depending on how you synopsize them, however I think blogs will eventually have to be considered as something between public and private. Various organizations will have to be banned from acting based on any information obtained from them -- perhaps even banned from actively searching them out without legal cause.
Odd how these threats to basic rights seem to come from the Left and the Right equally. Nobody in the extreme can ever stand dissenting opinion.
Letter To Iran
[mother]:"I asked, 'If this is such a serious threat, did you call the FBI?' They said, 'No, we don't have time for this.' I asked, 'Did you call the Joliet police?' and they said, 'no.'"
Don't have time? Don't have time?!
So what you are saying basically is that, rather than going thru the annoying route of reporting to the police, you are just going to expel the kid? I guess the kid's 60 years worth of future is too unimportant compared to your job huh? I mean, we wouldn't want your daily wanking^h^h^h^h^h^h administration sessions be interrupted.
I can't believe this. We are entrusting our childen to these...educators?! No wonder Columbine happened you idiots.
Remember, to a school, there are thousand of students; To a student, however, there is only one school. So please, get it right.
Ironically, one of the books I had to read for high school was "All Quiet on the Western Front". The drill sergeant in the book was a postman prior to the war so he felt the need to abuse the recruits. He knew that outside of his position in the heirarchy, no one respected him as a person so he abused his powers as a drill sergeant to make himself feel better. Reminds me of some school administrators... Sad bastards.
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I think the problem here is power. During school hours a student is of course a student has to be expected to obey school rules, conform to standards of behaviour, respect staff etc. Unfortunately, the teachers at this school appear to have got it into their heads that this includes complete control over the student's communications. I remember at my old highschool our headteacher once suspended a pupil for having a mohican haircut, despite the school's published unifrom code stating nothing about haircuts. When parents complained she didn't seem to understand why anyone objected to her making up and enforcing rules at will.
The student should be commended for what he did. If he is genuinely being "threatened" and "bullied" by his school then he not only had a right but something of a duty to inform others of that, and yes, he should be in court, but as a plaintiff, not a defendant.
This is legal. Schools are allowed to have dress codes. Schools are allowed to decide what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity to the learning environment.
...his statement (especially with a veiled threat in the name of the Columbine assholes) exudes attitude.
But schools CAN'T dictate what dress the students wear at home, and can't dictate what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity when they are sitting at their dinner tables with their families.
My reading is that the Columbine post was posted AFTER the school threatened expulsion, though the article is very unclear.
In my opinion (only) I think it's disruptive.
How so?
In what way does a post on a website that probably can't be visited on school property disrupt classroom activity?
I really wonder what the discussion was like at the school board meeting. It's like: Hey, we can't let this guy get away with calling us bullies. What should we do about it? Hmmm, lets threaten to expell him. That will teach him. The sad truth is I've seen similar things in the corporate world. Maybe this is a good lesson on how the world works (as a previous poster mentioned).
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The worst is that I feel you
You just got troll'd!
When a student makes statements that are (1) outside school hours, (2) off school property, (3) not associated with any school activities, then yes, the student has a great deal of liberty as to what he can say and do. Correspondingly, the administrators have very little say in what he can do in such circumstances. The notion of avoiding "disruption" is unlikely to fly here either. If they can control criticisms of the school in an environment completely outside of school authority, then they can pretty much dictate anything that students do.
A threat must be direct and immediate for it to fall outside of first amendment restrictions. His "threats" are vague, indirect, and unlikely to result in any real consequences.
An example:
From: http://www.webstreetcafe.com/news/4_1_JO23_FREESPE ECH_S1.htm
Everything he did he did outside of school. He used a computer from home. He used an account he created from home what was clear it was a personal activity," Yohnka said.I'm all for schools teaching kids good behavior but there are a few things they do that are both wrong and just plain illegal. Things schools should keep in mind:
Schools are mandatory. School attendance is not optional in the US. Kids have to go. There are a few who have the means to attend alternatives but those who don't are forced to attend public schools no matter what.
Schools are part of the government. Like police and judges our schools are government bodies. You can not give schools the ability to force the removal of fundamental rights. Judges can't. Police can't. Schools *MUST* be bound by the bill of rights including the right to free speech. They don't have the right to take that away much like they don't have the right to take your life away (forget detention.. you're going to the gas chamber.) You could argue that schools should be allowed to control speech in school creating short periods of time when their rights are suspended, although it's probably a bad idea. To say they have the ability to remove fundamental rights from people altogether is completely ludicrous. No federal, state or local government body can have that power. Granted, the bill of rights only specifically mentions federal government, the trend lately seems to be ruling that the 14'th amendment extends the bill of rights to state and local government. This would include schools.
The other thing that it's important to note is that speech restriction is essentially creating thought crimes and the effects are usually precisely the opposite of what was intended. Discouraging open exchange only worsens the problem that we are trying to ignore or make invisible. The first amendment exists for this reason and it's for this reason we should defend it absolutely without question always. Everyone has a right to be heard.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
A student of a school sitting at his computer at home has a right, the right to free speech as outlined in the First Amendment. This right does not come at the discretion of the school, but by the Constitution and is the supreme law of the land. The school can't come along and say, "Sorry son, we don't like what you're saying", as it occured during his own time off school property. I am too lazy to Google it, but I am certain that every school that has tried to discipline a child for speech outside of school hours and on private property has failed. There was a recent case of a teenager from Alaska that the school attempted to discipline for holding a banner during the 2002 Winter Olmypic torch relay that read, "Bong hits 4 Jesus", but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision saying:
"Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion.
The court also cleared the way for Frederick to seek damages, saying Morse was aware of relevant case law and should have known her actions violated his rights. Courtesy of MSNBC.com. (OK, I did Google for that).
The principal, Morse, was upset that the banner undermined the schools anti-drug message, among other things. The point being that a school, as a government entity, doesn't get to pick and choose what speech is permissible and what is not off of school property and not on school time.
What the hell was a school official doing reading random a students xanga? Do these people have no lives at all?
Schools impose all kinds of restrictions on students. Places of business impose all kinds of restrictions on employees. Owners of property impose restrictions on trespassers.
Schools are government bodies and attendance is mandatory. All children in this country who don't have the means to attian an alternate education are forced to be subjected to public school's rules. That makes your exmampeles irrelivant. The appropriate analogous situation would be prison. We do not allow prisons to remove inmates free speech rights, why would we let schools.
This is legal. Schools are allowed to have dress codes. Schools are allowed to decide what constitutes "non-disruptive" activity to the learning environment.
These things are pseudo-legal and only involve behavior while within the walls of the school. To extend the schools reach to everything a student does all the time is pretty obviously wrong. You wouldn't think it was right for schools impose a dress code on kids when they were at home would you?
Some people still don't get Columbine. The lesson there is trying to suppress issues and make them go away quietly is exactly the wrong thing to do. It makes things worse. The great thing is that lots of people did learn the lesson and started to listen to kids who didn't think everything was just perfect in their schools. Sadly this seems to be a school that has forgotten the lesson and is comfortable insisting students shut up and pretend everything is great.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
I don't think I would be able to take it. Heck, one of my friends was a genius creative writer, chose macabre topics (murder, dissection, etc) and would hand out his writtings at school. Today he would be expelled. And who hasn't joked around about wanting a bomb threat to be called in so you could go home early? Now just talking about it would likely get you expelled.
It would be like going to a prison camp, being afraid of what to do, how to act, and what to say for fear of suspension and expulsion.
Thankfully my school had a program where you could go to community college instead of taking high school classes, so I didn't even spend my last two years at my highschool.
I paraphrase, you quote out of context; to each his own, I guess.
In either case, flying off the handle and jumping directly to expulsion doesn't even address the problem of an implied threat. At best, it removes the "problem", at worst, it exacerbates the issue. Maybe some counseling to make the kid think he's at least got the school's respect? Maybe they could pull the old, "Hey, we're just following the rules... we really are sorry. I'm sure there are more constructive ways to criticize the system. Would you like to attend a PTA meeting and see how this stuff works?"
There is such a thing as basic human decency. Yeah, the Columbine kids were dicks ot the highest order. Sure, this kid made a giant mistake in invoking their names. Think about his age, though. Was he even in elementary school when Columbine happened? Does he really understand the impact? Haven't you ever gotten so frustrated you just shouted out the most shocking thing you could remember in attempt to make an impact?
Here's an anecdote. Back in college, we got some new network administrators that were being asses about running services on the network, and were continuously port scanning to find offenders. I was on the college's webteam, so I had apache running, and got flagged. They told me to shut down. I told them, "How many people have to die before you notice I make the school's damn website, so I need a development system!?" Or something to that effect, I don't remember and it was quite a while ago. This was of course after they had taken away our keys to the lab we used to make the website, and imposed many other arbitrary elements that did not apply to previous years.
Did I have any intention of hurting anyone? No. Was I pissed and just as equally an ass for reacting to their prodding? Yes. Could both of us handled the situation in a better manner? Hell yes. The point here, is that had they respected the students that they depended on, and I respected their abilities as administrators, there would have been no cause for frustration, and nobody would have felt bullied or threatened.
People have their foibles, especially teenagers. I for one, am glad the admins and I later had a discussion and came to a mutual agreement, where I also apologized for blowing-up. Could they have expelled me instead? Maybe, but only if they were trying to prove some point.
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I was expelled from an Illinois public school for an online speech related issue as well. I set up a web (cgi) based proxy at home, and then informed students at school that it could be used to get around the school filter's censorship of the web. You can read about what happened here:
http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/incident.txt
The public school system is used to maintain social control, not educate. No one will stand up for the free speech rights of young people, and these rights are necessary for an informed and free society. The only solution is abandon compulsory education. Kids would be better off without being forced to go. Access to public Libraries would allow them to read; (at my school "unauthorized reading material" was banned). Libraries or homes would also give us free uncensored access to the Internet. Many leaders in unions, business, and non-profits are more then willing to hold workshops and lectures for high school aged kids. Their real world experience could replace incompetent teachers. There is nothing wrong with using public resources to teach young people, but forcing kids to spend their days being coerced into memorizing minutia, and detaining or expelling anyone with the capability for independent thought, that just further perpetuates the sort of passive obedience that makes American workers and consumers so easily manipulated.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Talk about over reaction though. Why not just bug the police to bust his ass for underage drinking? If that's what the district really wants. Or, why not just take this to its logical conclusion and expell almost every teenager for, well, being a teenager.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Hopefully the Plainfield School District will learn from the folly of the nearby Oceanport School District and end this before they, too, are forced to settle out of court with the student and his family for an exorbitant amount of money that would have been better spent on books and teachers.
I actually was a student in the Oceanport School District not all that long ago, and lived not all that far from Plainfield; let me tell you, there's nothing unusual about these towns at all. They're your average run-of-the-mill suburbs. I point out just how normal these towns are to underscore that this kind of free-speech-violating-bullshit can and will happen everywhere unless we actually shout and scream and go out of our way to stop it from happening.
Our high school had a student-run newspaper, run anonymously by students who were fed up with the bias in the teacher-run one -- one of the reporters was caught and threatened with expulsion unless the school was allowed to look over the paper and approve it before publication (which was agreed to, as long as all stories were still available in full on the website (seems to be down due to web host issues. web mania suck btw.)). Then they threatened to expel unless the editors made themselves known to senior staff (which was agreed to). Then they threatened to expel unless the paper was stopped entirely, which it eventually was :-(
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
What's wrong with this? Rich people are actually good for the economy, while poor people are a liability. It's only fair that society would favour rich people.
BZZZZZZZZZT - WRONG. It is all about distribution of wealth.
The rich have power to decide where the money of the poor must flow. They (banks, insurance companies etc) take money from the poor by raising high interest on loans etc, making the rich richer and the poor poorer- effectively *causing* poverty. This is a very desireable situation for them because more people will need loans.
If you're saying the poor are to blame for this, you're either happily ignorant middle-class or your rich daddy never told you where the money came from.
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Recently we had a story of a local student facing suit over his posting about his teacher. I figure that if schools cannot get to students on first amendment grounds they may follow the route of defamation of character if any names are mentioned in posting. The suit was eventually dropped but the threat was made known. Post something negative about a teacher and you can expect a bunch of grief.
One other area brought up is that not only would the student have problems but as they are minors it is possible that the parents would have to bear financial responsibility.
I wonder how long before public school students are no longer allowed to post on subjects that are not life threatening but school threatening like vouchers and such?
Apparently not long...
In Chicago, Community High School District 128 voted unanimously on Monday to require that all students participating in extracurricular activities sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of "illegal or inappropriate" behavior posted on the Internet could be grounds for disciplinary action.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Tell the world he didn't bring a date to the prom?
Freespeech always seems to be onsided.
Frankly in this case I don't know what to think. I myself have once done a school project where we had to make a brochure about something. I parodied the school brochure but highlighted stuff like the fact the computer room could not be used outside class hours and other lacking facilities.
Got called into the directors office but nothing major, he just wanted to ask wich of them were true, and they were corrected. Turned out that the stuff I found stupid were never intended to be that way but had just evolved over the years.
Granted this was holland and nobody had heard of school shootings. Then again I used humor and didn't insult anyone.
As always there is probably a fine line with the case of what people are allowed to say, I just wonder if all the people defending the right of students to insult teachers feel that teachers have the same right to insult their students. Cause I am pretty sure that if teachers were allowed they have some real cursing to get off their chest.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1. The school can't suspend a student for what they say in a blog, UNLESS the student was using a school computer during school time to do the blog. If he wasn't, they can't probably legally do anything unless the student's charges are disprovable, in which case they could sue him for libel, maybe.
2. It IS true that schools do NOT fully understand the Internet and they ARE afraid of it. In many cases they are overreacting to issues such as kids talking to each other on myspace. But part of the reason for that is that if a kid were to get into trouble outside of school because of something they read or did on myspace on a school computer, the parents would attempt to sue the school. Folks are really quick to point blame the schools for their kids making stupid decisions.
3. It's popular to hate schools and teachers here on slashdot, and I didn't really think too highly of my high school education either, but really most of the people I work with care about their jobs, and they're good people. I feel sorry for them, because they teach all the students - not just the bright, well behaved ones but also the obnoxious surly defiant unthankful disrespectful teens who think they know everything and don't care about anyone but themselves. They know that this stage of life is notorious for testing boundries and rebelling against authority. And they come into work each day and do the best they can, most of the folks. Most of the people here on slashdot couldn't do their job for a week without running home and crying into their huggy pillow. Blame the curriculum, or blame the bad teachers, but please don't lump all teachers into that category. Seeing posts saying all teachers suck get moderated high makes those of us here who are mature just sorta shake our heads. Slashdot readers and mods will argue for logic in one sentence and fail to apply it in the next.
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Frankly, this kind of thing happens all the time. High Schools are becoming less an institution of learning and more an institution of mass propaganda, control, and, dare I say it? tyranny. In the country school I hail from, there are less than a thousand students, and almost ten employees at the school whose sole purpose is to keep the 200 students at a time who are at lunch under firm control. If I had a dollar for every time a "Nazi" as we call them told me to take off my presription glasses because of their tint (to reduce glare due to hours in front of a computer screen daily), I would most certainly not be pinching pennies to buy a car that fits the school parking lot specs. Recently, a pair of freshmen were suspended for two weeks for alleged homosexual promiscuity that managed to find its way to the net. As for the students being harrassed because of the closed minded opinions towards anybody who isn't straight and narrow, we more frequently get treated to disciplinary actions due to our responses in self-defense than those who harrass us (Even though there's a "Zero Tolerance" policy towards harrassment in our school manual).
I'm glad that decision was overturned, or think of the message it sends:
At home, you can call the president a Nazi. You can mock spiritual leaders all you want. But for Christ's sake, don't say your school principal wears a dumb looking suit.
Hands down, across the board school systems have always empowered the bullies. And anyone who is bullied who tries to do something about it gets victimized twice over.
Schools, the press & the public are so concerned over issues like Columbine that they still just don't get it. These poor kids keep on getting abused over & over again. The teachers won't do anything, the principal won't do anything even when you bring it to their attention.
Being at the bottom of the pecking order at school, no one ever told me it was OK to fight back (except for one gym teacher & that was later in my school career when. I was afraid I would get in trouble. Which I would have, but the end result would have been better. Back then I didn't have the perspective that a detention here or there would not have been that big of a deal. It certainly doesn't faze the bullies.
If you are young & in school & being bullied. Here is what I suggest:
1. First stop go ahead & tell a teacher & your parents.
2. If that teacher does nothing, tell another teacher. Keep on telling all the teachers you have until one listens to you.
3. If that fails, tell the principal.
4. If that fails & you go to a religious school tell the pastor, rabbi, priest or whomever is in charge of the congregation. This is essentially going up the chain of command.
5. If you are being physically assaulted in any way off of school grounds & the school does nothing call the cops. The cops might try to blow you off, but insist on filing an assault complaint. Do the same if the assault occurs on school ground and the school refuses do anything about it.
6. Keep a log of the abuse. Who you told about it & what that person did about it if anything.
7. If you have run through all these options, start fighting back against physical abuse. Yes. You will get in trouble. But bullies prefer to go after the ones who don't fight back. You will probably get pummeled. Just make sure you get in a good right hook. Try not to be a spaze. Bullies love to get a reaction out of you.
8. Don't become the bully yourself. Fight back is defense, not offense.
9. Consider some self-defense classes (For defense, don't become the aggressor). Bullies will pass you over for easier targets.
10. Do something about your social awkwardness. Get involved with some clubs. Being social is a skill to learn. Bullies prefer victims who don't have friends. Boy scouts, soccer, gaming clubs, archery, swimming, find a way to interact with more people. You'll get better at it.
11. Keep in mind that you will grow out of this. As people get older, they tend to appreciate other's differences. What made you the bottom of the gene pool in grade school will probably be really cool in college.
no, all this takes is parents willing to stand up for their kids instead of acting like the onther 900 unattentive soccer mom's and SUV dad's.
I personally did this for my child, she was to be suspended for "pushing" and after talking to her and her friends and who was involved (I.E. I Did the principals job for him) I informed my daughter to ignore the suspension notice and gave verbal notice to the principal that I will not honor his suspension request and I will bring lawyers into it if he chooses to ignore me.
She does not have a suspension on her record, Another fight of mine to inspect her record for errors once a year, and she recieved an apology from the principal.
You can not treat the people that run the schools as professionals because they typically are not. They shoot from the hip and make broad assumptions in order to make it a very easy day for them. Teachers typically do not give a rats ass about teaching and the administrators simply get "annoyed" when something is brought up to them for attention. Many cases of hallway mugging and other incidents come home with the kids, the teachers care less that it is happening so I did 2 things. 1- teach my child to defend herself very effictively. 2- she is going to a private school for the rest of her grade school time.
Public schools in America = lowest quality education you can possibly get for your child. Yes there are exceptions of teachers that do care and make a difference but they are outnumbered by the crappy ones 20 to 1 and it is getting worse as the years go by. EVERYONE remembers the teacher that was retiring that year. You did nothing in his/her class. It was either nothing but movies or "self guided study" and the tests were all open book.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This was not my experience in public school. In fact, I received a generally excellent education and attended a private college where I did just fine keeping up with the students who had attended exclusive private schools for their pre-college work. In fact, with the Advanced Placement credits I had earned, I entered with nearly a semester of college credit.
I also was taught by two retiring teachers. Both changed nothing in their grading policiees or teaching methods in their respective final years. Hell, my physics teacher actually enjoyed teaching that he applied to for an exemption to the mandatory retirement which was never processed as he managed to die over the summer vacation after I graduated.
There. Now we have dueling anecdotes, which is one reason that anecdotal arguments prove nothing. I learned that in a public high school logic class.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
He need not write well. He just needs to learn to plagiarize.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
When you read that, you saw a comparison to "a group of mass murderers".
When he wrote that, he was making a comparison to a group that was pushed so far, and couldn't stand up for themselves in any other way, that they simply had nothing left to lose. I think this context is pretty clear in his words.
Do you have any idea what it's like to feel that you're being opressed, and there isn't a thing in the world you can do about it? It grinds down your soul, until there is either nothing left, or you are forced to make a (often terrible) stand for what you believe in.
Your interpretation of what he said says just as much about YOU (and the school district, which clearly took the same interpretation) as what he wrote says about HIM.
The answer here is not to shut him up, it's not to expel him, and it's not even to suspend him. It's to properly address his complaints, preferrably in a public forum, until both sides are happy.
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You know, that may not entirely be true. I come from a very poor family. My grandparents were sharecroppers (they worked other people's land for a share of the yeild) and my parents struggled to make ends meet. We were evicted from a half a dozen homes, and moved from a dozen or so before we could be evicted, because we could not pay the rent. I clearly remember wondering if we were going to eat on Christmas (much less get any presents,) one year.
Still, even with alcoholism, prescription drug addiction, infidelity and the inability to keep jobs, my family worked it's way out of poverty to a decent middle-class life.
My sister left home at 15, got pregnant by 17 by a resident-alien (here legally, but not a citizen,) and was married and divorced before the baby was a year old. That baby is now 16, is an honor student at a decent high school, dances classical ballet, tap, jazz, etc, and was awarded the "best student of her year" by her principal last week.
With a little hard work and some principles, anyone can work his way out of poverty and into a decent life. Children who are cared for and taught the right principles can excel, even in public schools.
I ended up joining the armed forces, then getting out and using the Montgomery GI bill to go to school. I'm now a professional with a Masters degree, earning a six figure income and have a bright future ahead of me. Don't say the poor are being univerisally exploited by the rich. They are being held back by their own habits.
America is the land of opportunity, where anyone can be rich. No one is going to hand it to you, it takes hard work and perseverance, and a clear understanding that one's choices define one's circumstances, not the other way around.
It's true that it's harder for someone with no resources to climb out of poverty. I'm not claiming that isn't. Also, I acknowlege that there are plenty of soft rich kids out there who will do just fine because they had every advantage given to them. Also, I will be a working stiff all of my life, where some people will get to dabble in whatever suits their fancy because Daddy gave them an huge inheritance.
All of that having been said, there is some truth in the statement, "The rich are getting richer because they are doing those things that made them rich, while the poor are getting poorer because they continue to do those things that made them poor."
There is a growing descrepancy between the rich and the poor in this country, but it is NOT because the poor are getting poorer. The poor are not any more poor than they were in the 1930's, the 1940's or the 1950's. In fact, when was the last time anyone has seen mass starvation in the US? People boiling their shoes for the leather? The biggest problems among the "poor" in America seem to be obesity and drug use.
The rich are getting richer, and it is primarily because they can invest their money in business, and the value of business is growing. Their investments grow, so EVERYONE who has invested in them gets richer. That includes people in the lower middle class who invest what little they can, and the "merchant class" who own small businesses or farms.
When someone comes to me and says, "the poor are only poor because the rich made them that way" they are also saying, "anyone who has achieved a comfortable life is evil, because they are repressing the poor." Does this mean that all of my hard work and sacrifice have been a sham, and I'm really part of a secret conspiracy to exploit the innocent poor? I beg to differ. We have to get away from cult of the repressed, and start encouraging "the poor" to do those things that will make them more productive and more comfortable.
In an ideal world, we would not have a "poor" class. We would have a baseline of people who live a simple, yet comfortable life and a rising level of families who strive for more. We would stop using the word "poor" to describe an economic status, because it would be recognized that the people in the lower income bracket (in our ideal world) are content with the level of income they make, or are just beginning their climb to higher incomes and a more expensive lifestyle.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Once again, we take a legitimate concern like bullying, and overreact such that anyone who feels the slightest bit offended by something someone else does screams "I'm being bullied!" Bullying is a real problem. To shout "Bully!" when someone in a position of authority exercises that authority, however, diminishes the real cases of bullying.
This kid made very public, albeit veiled threats of violence against the school administration simply because he "felt bullied." The threats were so veiled, I'm not really sure they cross the line. However, the administration has a responsibility to provide a safe environment for the staff and student body in order to facilitate the primary mission, which is to advance student learning. They must, in many cases, use their best judgment in discerning what constitutes a threat of violence against the staff and/or student body.
The principal knows this kid, and his history. We, the random readers of Slashdot, do not. The principal is in the thick of this situation, whereas all we know is what one reporter has written about it. The principal is charged with the responsibility of protecting the school. We are not.
If this kid took it further, and actually did something to which he had been alluding, the argument would now be that the administration is inept for not taking action when he had clearly made threats. To prevent action simply based on the notion that the principal is "bullying" the kid is grotesque.
Give the principal the slack his position deserves.
Joe Mainusch http://www.weber-amps.com
The deputy chief of police of Joliet said there wasn't a threat. The school was asked "If you thought there was a threat, did you call the police or FBI?". The school said they didn't contact FBI or Police. How threatened did the school admins really feel? apparently not much. Comparing your current situation to a past situation where something really bad happened is not threatening. It's a comparison.
Regardless of the kid's history, the school has *no*frickin*authority* to control the behavior of kids outside of school. NONE WHATEVER, even if the kids are talking about school or using school books to do homework, or whatever.
No level of government, from school teachers to the US president, has the authority to dictate to anyone what they put on their own website outside of school.
And yes, this constitutes governmental bullying of someone with a dissenting opinion.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
In fact, on such case was decided right here in Des Moines, Iowa, my home town.
The Case was "TINKER v. DES MOINES SCHOOL DIST., 393 U.S. 503 (1969)" http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=393&invol=503
Let me quote a little of the decision:
Looks to me as if the school board in this case should apologize immediately. Maybe they can avoid the law suit I see on the horizon.
For those of you too young to remember, or too lazy to read the case notes: A couple of High School students wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school suspended them. They sued. They took it to the Supreme Court which said it WAS a Free Speech Issue. The school lost, the kids won.
Maybe the school board needs a refresher course in American History?
People need to stop saying this, because it makes them sound like idiots.
First of all, it doesn't matter what the Constitution says. The whole basis of constitutional law is how the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution.
Yes, the First Amendment originally applied only to Congress. However, more came after that. Specifically, I refer the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This has been interpreted, on more than one occasion, to refer to the fact that the states must uphold many of the same rights as the federal government does. This has been referred to as the "Nationalization of the Constitution."
Read up a bit before you spout off nonsense.
> Well, he did admit to drinking and he did ask to be suspended.
He also said that Miller Light was delicious ?!!
Not sure how this illness is called, but it damn sure has to be a brain disease.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Isn't it ironic that a song entitled "Isn't it Ironic" contains no irony? But that makes it ironic, which means it does contain irony. Which means that it isn't ironic...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I wholely disagree with your last part also. When in school there was this bully. I met him through school. He would not beat me up before during or after school. He would wait until he saw me at the bowling ally on saturday night and beat me up. It is the schools business to help protect me, and I am glad they did.
I wholely disagree with this. A school isn't there to protect me, from myself or others, when I am not engaged in school related activities. If the bully attacked me on school grounds, it would be their job to intervene and punish this kid before handing him over to the police. But since he attacked you at non-school functions off of school district property, they have no business being involved.
Responsibility for your safety rests squarely in your hands. If the bully was attacking you at the bowling alley, drive in, or McDonalds, you need to report it to the responsible authorities - the management of the establishment and the police. You also need to learn how to defend yourself by taking martial arts or some other form of self-defense.
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