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School Board Considers Copyright Ownership of Student and Teacher Works
schwit1 writes "A proposal by the Prince George's County Board of Education to copyright work created by staff and students for school could mean that a picture drawn by a first-grader, a lesson plan developed by a teacher or an app created by a teen would belong to the school system, not the individual. It's not unusual for a company to hold the rights to an employee's work, copyright policy experts said. But the Prince George's policy goes a step further by saying that work created for the school by employees during their own time and using their own materials is the school system's property."
Most tech companies claim ownership of anything created by employees, whether created at work or on their own time.
But, the students are not employees, and signed no waiver when they enrolled. Claiming ownership of the student's creations is rediculous.
Profane, but seriously, fuck off.
On what grounds do they thing they possibly own student work?
I can vaguely see an exceptionally unethical argument for teachers work, but student work? It's not like they have a choice as to whether they attend and it sure as hell is not work for hire.
What is wrong with these people?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If, therefore, they do claim ownership, the parents should bring a case against the school system for violation of child labor laws.
It's the results of his creative efforts.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Some MBA heard that x% of employees are earning a few dollars on the side and they realized that this could plug some budget holes (holes created by administration taking trips to Hawaii to learn the latest in ed-tech).
But in classic MBA style they forget about incentive where if they take that money then the work won't be done. I suspect that again in classic MBA style that they need to "centralize" and "quality control" information leaving the system.
This probably all stems from a requirement from some way overpriced anti-plagiarism software; even worse the pitch from said salesman might have documented (with great pie charts) that by doing this money grab the anti-plagiarism software would effectively be free.
Lastly by claiming copyright they get better control over information that makes them look bad. So if some student makes a video of a drunk teacher and puts it on youtube then the school system will demand that youtube take it down on the grounds that they have copyright. I would love to see them trying to apply this to teachers with blogs, twitter accounts, and writing op-ed pieces for the local newspaper. These fools forget that there are a zillion places to put a drunk teacher video that will oddly enough defend the students' first amendment rights.
To me this is just another great lesson for the kids that they learn that the educational system exists not one spec for them but entirely for the administration. In Ontario, Canada the school board got completely screwed by the government (before they screwed the government) so now like petulant children they are trying to keep the teachers from extra-curricular activities. They are now arguing that holding back these services won't harm the children. Whoa, wait a sec. Losers.
It sounds like it does, on the surface, but lesson plans are something teachers currently trade, sell, and use as a basic resource. The difference between a just-graduated teacher and a teacher with ten years of experience is that the teacher with experience has a stack of lesson plans, and can swap out which ones they use on any given day based on the progress, skill, and mood of their students. And, let's not forget, all of this is being created in the teacher's own time, outside of school hours.
Oh, and I doubt the school district will be making these available for free to their own teachers. (Unlike the teachers themselves, who might share with a co-worker.)
Any teacher who's spent any amount of time working on their own lesson plans would immediately start looking for a job outside the county. Any teacher who's any good wouldn't take a job in that county. You'll have beginner teachers who don't know any better, or teachers who've been there for ages and don't want to move, who'll just be hanging out until retirement. (And not updating any of their lesson plans.) Oh, and teachers who buy all of their lesson plans, because they can't be bothered to come up with them themselves. And the beginners will probably leave as quick as possible.
So you're trying for high-turnover, and chasing out any teacher who wants to invest their own time and effort into teaching the kids. Which means you'll get low-quality teaching, and low-quality schools.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Teaching is a collegial activity, so a good lesson plan would normally be shared within a staff room. Student's work is produced by minors where the school is 'in loco parentis' so their work would become school property to protect them from exploitation by adults, plagiarists and commercial interests.
That's how it works in Australia. Public school teachers are state employees so all their work is the property of the Crown. Good teaching material can be (and is) distibuted to other publis schools to give system-wide improvement. A teacher who gains a reputation for producing good stuff can negotiate this into promotion or a consultancy. State employees are not supposed to produce any paid work outside their job but in practice teachers who work as tutors, coaches or musicians etc are not imposed upon by the government as there is a tacit acknowledgement that teachers often need another income. Private school teachers' work is the property of their employee (diocesan office, school board) for much the same reason.
School administrators (puiblic or private) have a legal 'duty of care' to children. They won't stop parents from taking their kids to modeling agencies or auditions but if they produce something in school, say their major artwork for the matriculation exam, the school can arrange a professional exhibition and prevent students from beign ripped off.
American libertarians will doubt that government agencies can be benign (and if you want gold medal bastardry only a government can provide it) but not all countries have vast armies, huge spy agencies, heavily armed police or kill people with robot aircraft. The Department of Education will be staffed at policy and implementation level by people who believe in the value of education and teachers actually like children!
I'm just thankful that we've made the news without any murders, theft, or corruption.
I thought that we had gotten rid of the idiotic school board when they disbanded it in 2002 and got Marilyn Bland and the others out of there. (although, we haven't gotten rid of her yet)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Yes teachers spend lots of time after hours working, but they do have lots of scheduled time to design tests and lesson plans as well.
I don't know what it was like when you went to school, but in the high school I went to the teachers didn't have much scheduled time to work on such things. You got a half day every couple of months. You got one "free" period most days, but not every day, which was pretty much your lunch break. What scheduled time do you speak of? Both of my parents were teachers. You know what those half days consisted of? Mostly meetings. Again, not much scheduled time to work on lesson plans and the such. Teachers worked on all that stuff at home. Scheduled time my pink behind...
If the kids you are referring to don't understand something, why not just ask "why" or "how"? Do they WANT to be ignorant?
I went to public schools. I imagine my education would be about half as complete had I not bothered to question "why" or "how" to every new subject or piece of information. I had to PULL the information out of the teachers, because they were pretty unmotivated. Once I showed a teacher I was actively interested in something, they would begin to show me more and give seriously fun and interesting 'extra credit' work that the rest of the students didn't do(synchrotron experiments in Sophomore year anyone?)
All of this came from my parents. They ENCOURAGED me to ask why. They would tell me some neat fact, like how fast the earth was going. When I asked "Why doesn't it just fly into space?" my parents explained to me (or at least tried their best) how gravity works, and in kiddie terms, basically laid out several of Newton's principles. THAT is how you answer a kid's question.
For some reason I can't comprehend, parents are annoyed when their children ask "why" repeatedly. The kid is trying to naturally figure out how something works and why it ended up that way. Parents shut them up, or distract them with games or TV, and actively discourage them from truly understanding a topic. Louis C.K. even has a whole bit about this. THAT is the real problem with education today: parents are too lazy to help teach their kids, they don't give a shit, and just want the schools to 'do it for them'.
'Murica
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits