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School Admins Demand Access to Students' Cellphones
Reverberant writes "School administrators in Framingham MA have implemented a policy allowing them to not only confiscate cell phones, but also to search through students' cell phone data as part of their anti drug/violence efforts. Students claim that the policy is an invasion of their privacy."
What these kids don't understand is that simply by attending the school they lose the majority of their rights. Since they are minors, the school becomes their de facto guardian while they are there, and thusly, it has power that supercedes their rights.
It's just a cunning plan to get lots of free ringtones.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Yes, it certainly is. Kids, if any person demands to examine the contents of your cell phone, tell him to get a warrant. Call your parents, call the local press, and call a lawyer.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't agree with the principle, I mean I certainly believe it's an invasion of privacy. But there's still always a way around it. It's pretty simple: password protect your phone. I think all cell phones have it nowadays.
this isnt gonna end up well but seriusly what jackass thought this would go over well pop you can have my cellphone i'm keeping the batterie now kthnx
Who exactly needs a cellphone at school?
What does need have to do with it? If a kid wants to carry anything with him to school that's legal to posess, and doesn't disrupt the class, it's nobody else's goddamned business. The school's entire legitimate prerogative here is to require the kid to turn it off during class.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
...and your local law enforcement/FBI/DHS will be picking you out at "random" in the mall to confiscate your cellular data. The justification? The obvious catch-all to the Deteriation of Our Privacy: Terrorism. The "while at school" and "you're just a minor" reasoning doesn't seem to hold water when you look at the obvious next step...
wow how would u like it if some kid hopped on your computer and changed everything thanks for being an asshole you'll get yours someday i'm sure
What does need have to do with it? If a kid wants to carry anything with him to school that's legal to posess, and doesn't disrupt the class, it's nobody else's goddamned business
By your logic I should be able to carry a gun around downtown, after all I want to, and it doesn't disrupt anybody, and it's "nobody else's goddamned business"
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Who exactly needs a cellphone at school?
Noone needs a cellphone. Humanity survived before we even invented them. We don't need cars either. We survived without cars. You're missing the point though.
Creating technology is a good thing and why we shouldn't we take advantage of it? It can be useful, fun or just interesting. If people want cellphones for whatever reason, why not? I can think of many reasons why having a cellphone is better than not having one. I don't see why people should have to justify it though. If someone else wants a cellphone they should be allowed to ahve one as long as they aren't breaking any laws, or in this case, school rules (such as turning them off during the classes).
The real question is are school administrators allowed to reading their pupils diaries? What if their diary is stored on their cellphone? Should we give up all our privacy for the 'thinkofthechildren' and 'terrorism' projects?
I say no. It's annoying that we are forced to use encryption to protect ourselves from our own authorities, but if that is what is required, so be it.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
You realise that technically, that's a felony, right? That's tampering with a computer system, and I'd like to see you cool your heels in jail for a bit to teach you to respect other people's property, you snotty git.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I am nearly 48 years old and I don't give a rat's ass about what some kid can or can not carry inside school grounds.
But I *do* think that current privacy laws were enacted in bad faith and they are used in bad faith.
And it is that very vagueness that allows their manipulation.
As fars as children, cell phones, and privacy... If the school permits someone to carry a device within school grounds and they want to look at the contents of that device, they can go get a warrant... or they can go fuck themselves.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I meant if I had it tucked into my belt (yes stupid way to carry a gun), or in a holster, you know I'd get the 3rd degree.
It's sad for you that you live in a country which has stupidly decided to endanger its citizens by denying your right to self-defense, but your attempt to rationalize one violation of rights with an example of another violation of rights (that you seem to think is just fine and dandy) doesn't support your position.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Since the cell phones tend to be the property of the students (whereas the lockers would be the property of the school), the school has no right to search a student's piece of property.
Maybe they have the right to search a student's piece of property if there is just cause that a crime is being committed, but as for what the procedure is to take, I don't know. Depending on what it is, probably contact the police, contact the parents, and perform a search on the cell phone if the cell phone, which is student property, is physically located on the campus at the time. I think the same can go for backpacks and whatnot. (I'd have to think about all of this though.)
I'm not suprised at all by this.
At my public high school in Texas, they do the exact same thing, in addition to a few other things...
You're not allowed to leave campus for lunch, but students do anyway. However, if you get caught by security guards driving on their golf carts patrolling the student parking lot, they will search your car. If they find any "contraband" (pocketknife, lighter, drugs, OTC medicine including cough drops) you get an instant suspension. Here in Texas they love their Zero Tolerance laws.
There is also another degredation of rights where I go to, pertaining to violence. If someone walks up to you and flat out punches you for no reason, you cannot do anything. If you fight back to defend yourself, you will be instantly suspended as well as the perpetrator. A kid last year was jumped by another student who stabbed him with a sharpened lead pencil, and when he fought back, eventually knocking the attacker to the ground and kicking him, he got suspended. He didn't even know his attacker.
So, if you are suprised by this, don't be. It's sadly nothing new.
The kids just enter names like 'pot dealer' with the principles home number. They text threatening things to their friends in jest, all pre-agreed between parties. They enter 'Osama bin laden' with the number of their local FBI field office. They text each other about fictional big-time drug deals and terrorist plots. They overload the system with so much false information that the entire exercise becomes pointless and a huge administrative burden.
The staff should give the pupils full access to their mobile phones as a gesture of good will, you never can be sure what those pesky teachers get up to in their personal lives.
Although you're taking it to extremes with something that's designed souly to injure and/or kill, cellphones have lots of uses, and although it's possible to kill somebody with one I really don't think that's the issue here.
Lets stop people from carrying pornography on them as it may fall out of their bag and cause mental anguish to passers by for the rest of their lives.
The point is cellphones are widely accepted and used, but piss people off in cinemas, churches and other places where concentration or quiet is needed; schools need step back from their authoritarian power trip and just deal with it as they've been doing for the past few hundered years (e.g. if you piss of the teacher you get beaten/caned/detention depending on which century you were born in).
Everybody has things that other people don't and shouldn't need to know about, what if a teacher sees a picture of a 14 year olds girlfriend naked on their confiscated mobile phone or if a mother has sent a txt message about something highly confidential (e.g. clinic appointment, death etc.).
>There was a time when you got CANED for even breathing out of turn.
And there was also a time when 'niggers' couldn't sit in the same place in a bus as the whites. What's your goddamn point? That because kids were regularly abused in the past in schools, they should be thankful that trampling their privacy is the worst they get?
School doesn't allow cell phone in the premises? Then the teachers take the phones. There's a whole world of difference between that and messing with the contents.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
"Cell phone data" (depending on the device) could also mean stored info used to help with tests (as opposed to actual studying and learning) or "texting" answers to other students. Anti-drug/violence has nothing to do with this, but perhaps local, state or federal funding comes into play when schools get strapped for cash, so this is one way to get the money.
This is a somewhat odd story, does Framingham have a serious drug-dealer problem or are they trolling for funding and government money?
0) Before it happens: Set a password/pin code on your phone.
...?
When a teacher asks you to hand it over:
1) Remove the battery (the switches the phone off _fast_, requiring password/pin to start it again)
2) Hand over the phone ("You asked for the phone, you got the phone. You want the battery too..? Here you are.")
3) When asked for the password/pin advise whoever is asking that you didn't bother remember it, but you have it at home. I doubt that the school has a right to search your home or demand things from it.
4)
5) Profit!
That doesn't matter. Them breaking the school rules does not give you the right to break the law.
The Computer Misuse Act 1990 says:
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Of course they are right to search these phones. You never know where the terrorists are hiding. These evil students could make one sms message and bam! A building falls down for no good reason. ;)
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Jane - Why don't I just go to Ms. Li and expose this whole cell phone spying thing?
Ms. Morris - She already knows.
Jane - Okay then back off or I'll tell the PTA.
Ms. Morris - They know too.
Jane - Congress?
Ms. Morris - You're beaten Lane.
Jane - How about if I call the three local TV stations and tell each one that the other two are running the story?
Ms. Morris - Damn.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Sure. I'm sure it does exists, even in the US : call the Police, submit the clues you have, and let them get a warrant from a judge. The trouble is, if the school point a finger against an innocent, he could rightly fight back for libellous practice (or whatever a lawyer would call it). Well, I hope. Anyway, there's no need for an intermediate as there's already one entitled by law for that purpose. The school is just trying to escape its responsability for what is basically bullying its own pupils, and as far as education goes, I don't think it's an appropriate behaviour for a teaching authority to show students how to escape the bounds of your liability.
By your logic I should be able to carry a gun around downtown, after all I want to, and it doesn't disrupt anybody, and it's "nobody else's goddamned business"
Maybe you already know this, but hey, I'll point it out to be sure.
You can do that in 2/3 of the United States.
Bloodshed does not ensue.
Why are you take issue with inanimate objects? Wether it's a gun or a cell phone or a car or a baseball bat, the object does nothing on it's own. He or she that posseses and uses it- makes all the difference in the world.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
How am I supposed to arrange my drug deals then? Smartass!
What about the kids who drive to school? I never drive anywhere without a cell phone. A better plan would be to bring it, have it off, and don't tell the world about it.
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/home.asp?mode=so&ot=5 &o=636&so=649-6
Michael J Welch, Principal
Mailing Address: 115 A Street
Framingham, MA 01701-4195
Phone: (508) 620-4963
FAX: (508) 877-6603
E-mail: mwelch1@framingham.k12.ma.us
One thing that has been common among "progressive schools" is that parents lose many of their rights governing the activities of their children once they cross the threshold of the school. For a society which likes to admonish parents for not holding their children accountable, discipling them, many think its okay for schools to usurp the parents choices. If you diminish the values of parents the children will lose respect for those values and you get the problem you claim you were trying to avoid.
In many areas of the country the schools have been too invasive into families and worse they are nearly immune to correction. This is just another symptom of failing schools. When on the downward spiral you make damn sure all those who can criticize you fear you in one way or another. An "unusual" mark on a child - automatic suspicion of child abuse. Too thin, child abuse. Too fat, child abuse. DFACs should know!!! Bad grades, must be from a bad home environment; again child abuse!
Want absurd? One guy at work mentioned that a neighbor got a letter from the school's counselor. Seems the kid didn't like what he did or did not get in his lunch his mom sent him to school with. The school actually wrote a letter suggesting that the parents aceed to their child's wishes or give him money to buy a school lunch or snacks!!!
Too many of the schools are run by arrogant self style intellectuals. Another person at work recently moved so his wife could teach in a new school district all to get out from overbearing peers whose views of how children and parents should be handled came close to being unethical. There are many good teachers and administrators but too many are cowed by those who know the system and use it againts "non-conforming teachers", students, and even parents.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Guess I'm a little surprised how little value freedom has in America these days.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Well, it seems Principle Michael Welch didn't have this policy at his previous station, Newton South HS (fairly rich and very, very, very white), but created it at Framingham HS (much poorer and much, much less white). I'm guessing he thinks white kids don't do drugs and steal things.
I think this cracker is crumbling under the pressure of a "multiculturial enviroment" and all he can say is "Welcome to amerika."
My sister is a teacher and they have a simple rule with regards to cell phones:
If you use it (either for talking or texting) during school hours, it gets confiscated and the parent must come down to the school to retrieve it.
It's amazing how well this works:
"Billy, if I have to leave work early one more time to come down here, we're taking the phone away from you."
- Tony
Some of the posts are from folks who seem to have missed the fact that this is a high school, and most the kids there are required to attend by law.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
While I am not from your state, I would hope that I could convey some
concerns regarding your school's policy of cell phone searching.
For a school that purports that it teaches students Respect (as in your
emblem/motto), it offers its students none. Cell phones, while not
desirable in schools, are the property of the students' parents, though
perhaps with the exception of students over 18 years of age. Aside from
that item, why stop at cell phones? Why not PDAs, laptops, diaries,
class notes, or for that matter, body cavity searches?
Your idea of preventing terrorism and/or drug activity makes every
student into a terrorist and a drug addict, and in the process invades
not only the reasonable privacy of students and potentially their families.
Unless the persons conducting the search have probable cause for each
cell phone searched, possess the authority (warrant) and capability to
find, classify and research the data contained in the students phones, I
would argue that you have no business searching the phones. As I
questioned above, where does your purported authority end?
Bottom line, you are promising to teach respect, but are instead giving
lessons about living in and running a police state that has the will and
the right to do as they please. Provided that these students' parents
don't step up to the plate, they will not step up for their children in
turn and so begins the decline of society. While sounding oversimplified
and amplified, you must admit the reality of your actions- and this all
leaves out the simple fact that the students do not possess the legal
knowledge or ability to grant you permission to search their parents
property. You might as well ask their six year-old what the pin code to
their alarm is, and they'll tell you if they know but won't know that
they shouldn't.
Again, I don't vote in your district, or have any say in how you do your
job. I am merely writing as a concerned parent from another state. I
hope you do consider this and any other notes you may receive.
sue them
I went to Brooklyn Technical High School in New York and it was PLAGUED with scandals. Sexual abuse, underage sex, corrupt principal, teachers stalking kids, etc. You can read about our principal here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Technical_Hi gh_School. Just scroll to the bottom for "Lee McCaskill controversy".
Now I'm all for schools trying to keep drugs and weapons out of schools. But when the school administration itself is playing dirty, who can you trust? What if a pervert of a teacher accuses a girl of selling drugs and looks at her cell phone?
If a school wants cell phone access for safety, then students (or at least the PTA) should have the same rights. I want to know that my principal is not spending school money to build a house. I want to know that my math teacher is not buying underage kid porn somewhere. I want to know that my dean is not in anger management classes. And so on. Seems extreme and strange for us to have this information right? Well that's the same way students feel when you take their cell phones and look through them.
If O2 is good, O3 must be 1.5 times better!
Therefore, it seems the question is, are violence and drugs a serious problem at that school? Maybe this school is different, or maybe things have changed in the last couple years, however, don't statistics show that teen drug use and school violence have both been going down? If that is the case, then their justifications are not valid and the administrators are either paranoid or lying.
It seems that, as in most cases where law is involved, looking at the validity of the justifications is easier and simpler than looking at the legality. It would take a judge to determine the legality of their actions, but anyone can look into things and see if violence and drugs are a serious problem at the school.
Proving actions of the school are illegal: expensive.
Proving school administrators are lying: priceless.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Simple thing to do: DON'T CARRY A PHONE.
I realize that is unthinkable these days, but ask yourself - do you REALLY need to be able to talk/text to your friends EVERY SECOND OF THE DAY? They are there at the school, more than likely - cannot you just see them face to face?
And if you need to call home to tell your parents you are going over to George's after school - there's this really cool thing, kind of like WiFi, where companies create these hot-spots for telephony, and they even PROVIDE THE EQUIPMENT FOR YOU! You walk up to this phone, and you can make a call! What will they think of next?
And if your folks need to leave a message for you - if it is important, they can call the school. If it is not important, they can leave it on the answering machine and you can call it to get your messages.
Last but not least - in many cities, if you need to make a call while you are out, you could get your NoCode Tech radio license and use the autopatch to make a call (or if your folks are hams you can even bypass this step). I'd love to see Officer Unfriendly and Principal Suspicious when you walk out with your Yaesu VX7 on your belt:
"STOP: leave your phone."
"I don't have a phone."
"What's that?"
"That's my amateur radio."
When they tell you to leave it anyway, you can remind them that operating the radio without a license is a violation of FCC regs - as in, a Federal issue. Even so, there is NOTHING they can do with it.
So in closing - ask yourself, do you really NEED your phone, or is it a case of WANTING your phone?
www.eFax.com are spammers
It may shock you to learn this, but today's schoolchildren do not walk home through an idyllic suburban landscape to be met by June Cleaver with a plate of cookies.
They walk through questionable neighborhoods, and come home to empty houses. They stay after school to play sports or work on projects. They drive to after-schol jobs. Parents are late coming home, and need the kid to pick up siblings from daycare. Things come up. Cars break down. Plans change. School offices are not answering services; if they were, they'd be swamped.
Kids "need" cell phones for all the same reasons adults say they "need" cell phones.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Ever hear of a little thing called compulsory attendance? It's more like the law agrees FOR them
It's compulsory education not compulsory attendance otherwise children wouldn't be homeschooled and more and more children are being homeschooled. As far as I'm concerned policies like this, this cell phone policy, is one of the reasons parents are removing their children from public schools. Another policy I hate is the manditory drug testing many districts and schools have for participation in extra curricular activities. I especially hate the new "No Child Left Behind" from Bush. It stresses teaching for tests not learning and neglects subjects that are harder to measure progress in like arts, and music. Though I don't have any for a long tyme I've thought that if I ever had any children I'd home school them myself, teach what I could and get tutors for what I couldn't teach.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You can read more about reasonable suspicion here. Disturbingly:
Since it's been established that cell phones are fair game, could this ruling be used in defence of random cell phone checks?
I'd ask what next, but I fear I already know.
If you enter the correct code, you get an "Invalid Code" message and get to view the real contact info.
Entering the wrong code gets you a "Correct Code" message and a blank contact list. Unless you retry within 60 sec, all of the data in the phone's NVRAM automatically gets fragged and overwritten with contacts named "F. U. Pig" and "A. Narchy".
-b.
What is right about drug testing? What is wrong about letting people do what they want as long as they aren't harming anyone else?
Teaching for tests is better than not teaching, and, frankly, arts and music aren't very useful.
Teaching for thinking and the opportunities education opens up is even better, teaching for tests doesn't teach to think. Arts and music aren't "useful"? Try and ask the RIAA and the MPAA if they think the arts aren't useful. The members of these organizations make billions of dollars as do some artists, admittedly not all but some do. Knowing the arts also leads to more creativity and not just in the arts but also in the sciences. Art also enriches culture. Art is very much useful!
FalconShould there be a Law?
The following is just my opinion of a reasonable person who read the text of findings of the Supreme Court. I think the article I am replying to misleading in general, and FUD specifically.
:-). Rights are being stripped daily, and something must be done to stop it. Ironically, it seems like kids will have to read some Supreme Court rulings and get familiar with http://www.flexyourrights.org/
Let me make it abundantly clear SCHOOL IS GOVERNMENT. All restrictions against government apply except as limited by the Supreme Court.
Here is the text of the 4th Amendment - http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment04/
I've been looking into general causes for the failure of US Education system, and found quite a few interesting references a couple of days ago, so this is not totally new. My goal is to entice some reforms once I can afford to do so.
Now, I've been upset about this policy and its potential impact for several hours since I got back from a nightclub... so thanks for giving me some Supreme Court cases to read. Since you likely haven't read them, I'll post the relevant parts. The TLO case is pretty thorough by itself, but I also think that your "free speech is moot" argument not confirmed by the Hazelwood case. Please read it in your spare time. It concerns limited special circumstances school censorship and disruptions to classroom, but it doesn't waive the 1st Amendment. In case of 4th Amendment, the TLO case reduces "probable cause" to a lower standard and does not require a warrant but doesn't change much else. It doesn't authorize a random baseless search.
Citing the cases is all well, but let's include full quotations omitted from this text with regards to special circumstances as it's quite key
Looking at New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=CASE&court=US&vol=469&page=325
Here is the full paragraph related to 4th Amendment from TLO:
1. The Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials and is not limited to searches carried out by law enforcement officers.
Nor are school officials exempt from the Amendment's dictates by virtue of the special nature of their authority over schoolchildren. In carrying out searches and other functions pursuant to disciplinary policies mandated by state statutes, school officials act as representatives of the State, not merely as surrogates for the parents of students, and they cannot claim the parents' immunity from the Fourth Amendment's strictures. Pp. 333-337. [469 U.S. 325, 326]
2. Schoolchildren have legitimate expectations of privacy. They may find it necessary to carry with them a variety of legitimate, non-contraband items, and there is no reason to conclude that they have necessarily waived all rights to privacy in such items by bringing them onto school grounds. But striking the balance between schoolchildren's legitimate expectations of privacy and the school's equally legitimate need to maintain an environment in which learning can take place requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject. Thus, school officials need not obtain a warrant before searching a student who is under their authority. Moreover, school officials need not be held subject to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. Determining the reasonableness of any search involve
Leonid S. Knyshov
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Yes it is, but I disagree with them. The UK has some pretty serious problems right now, and IMNSHO an awful lot of them stem from politically correct initiatives that affect how children may be treated and the rights they have. On the one hand, no forms of corporal punishment are now allowed in our schools, and parents must be wary of even smacking their children for fear of being accused of child abuse. On the other hand, antisocial behaviour has become one of the biggest problems facing our society. I've seen one of my neighbours confronting kids who were about to key the side of his car, and heard one of them shout at him that he couldn't do anything, because the kid was under 10 and he couldn't commit a crime - and I live in a pretty good neighbourhood compared to many places. Similar stories abound, often with responsible adults (including parents and teachers) winding up in court or otherwise under suspicion, while Joe Angelic seems untouchable even if caught red-handed doing something he shouldn't be.
Now, it doesn't take a genius to spot the connection here. Children don't yet have an adult level of maturity and responsibility; that's why they're still children. Thus it is manifestly unreasonable to treat them the same way as adults and expect the same response. I refuse to support the NSPCC (the biggest child protection charity in the UK) while they maintain that an absolute ban on smacking children is appropriate and use the "you wouldn't smack an adult" argument. We can debate the relative merits of corporal and other forms of punishment, and there are always the "My parents smacked me and it did me no harm" and "Well, I raised a child just fine without ever smacking them" brigades. However, I think even their axiom here is wrong: we do use violence, if necessary, to enforce the law on adults. This is, ultimately, what police forces and the military do. It may be reserved for use as a last resort, but the threat is always there. By excluding this possibility on a far smaller scale, children are actually being given a higher status than adults!
It happens that in this case, I do disagree with the rule. I think it's absurd that older children should have no default right to privacy, which is what this boils down to. You don't suddenly turn 18 and become responsible, and you're not automatically a menace to society at 17 years and 364 days. If there is a good reason for the adults responsible for that child to think they need to see something on the phone, that's one thing, but there must be a good reason.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the rights, freedoms and responsibilities thing, as it usually does in these discussions. The two are, or at least should be, fundamentally tied together. As long as you have adults who are legally responsible for minors, they need to have some degree of authority, and the minors can't reasonably expect the same level of rights and freedoms as if they were adults completely responsible for their own behaviour. On the other hand, as children grow older and behave more responsibly, it is inappropriate to deny them any extension of their rights and freedoms to match. Getting the balance wrong, in either direction, will inevitably lead to problems either where children are undisciplined and irresponsible, or where adults take advantage of them inappropriately.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Schools already have mechanisms in place to contact students/pupils if necessary.
This is just false. Almost no schools continue to operate the administrative offices after official school hours. On the other hand, many, if not most, students still engage in school-related activities on school grounds after official school hours. From sports to clubs to theater, modern kids spend much more of their day in school than kids did in previous generations. For much of that time, the normal school infrastructure that allows children and parents to stay in contact is *not* present.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I used to laugh at the idea of home schooling (given stereotypes you see in movies) but given the direction public schools have taken AND the fact that I have friends who have home schooled their children and their kids are very bright and have been accepted into GOOD colleges, I think that home schooling is the way to go nowadays. Public schools spend far too much time babysitting the students, focusing on "self esteem" and political agendas, and too little time on academics.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
> Things were bad in the late 80s, but dear god... the crap kids have to endure NOW from AuthoriNazi administrators is just over the top.
I'll accept that there are some AuthoriNazi admins out there, but by far the biggest force screwing up the schools is the combination of school boards and insurance companies that won't stand up to Nazi parents, who won't stand for their child having to follow all the same rules that the other kids have to follow.
The school district I worked in last year is being torn apart by that situation.
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. -- Sir Winston Churchill