According to the Castle Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine) here in the US, you have to wait for the burglar to enter your home. Once they're inside, they're fair game.
Tho i'm curious what they were setting off this time, considering the time they blew up that cement truck was huge and no reports of personal damage on that one. ( 1000 pounds of high explosive in that one )
I seem to remember that they set that one off in a quarry, a deep quarry and they were at least a mile away for safety. I want to say that the shockwave made the guys' clothes flutter.
The walls of the quarry shielded any nearby communities. Why they didn't use this same location for this explosion I find curious.
So if I lie to my teacher, or otherwise violate school policy, I can be searched and arrested? (cite some legal basis here please, I can find none and would find it most disturbing) That's like getting arrested for walking into the grocery store and violating the "shirt and shoes required" sign on the door.
If you lie to a teacher about having contraband and create a disruption in the classroom, yes. But that search is requested by the principle, not the teacher. If you lie about what happened to your homework, no. Don't try to apply a policy too broadly, it makes you look like an idiot.
Did her parents sign something when enrolling their student that said that they (or their agent etc) were authorized to search their child? (I rather doubt, but this MAY give them a leg to stand on if true) You can assign some of your rights as a parent/guardian to another but it's NEVER assumed.
Actually, every school I ever worked at (K-12 that is) had a piece of paper that the parents and the kid (at least once they were in high school) sign stating that they understand and agree to abide my the rules and policies of the school as stated in the student handbook and as determined by district policy. As for the loco parentis, it's part of the education code for every state as far as I know, and I'm sure that there are many precedents for enforcing it through out the history of legal decisions. I'm not a lawyer so I can't point you to specific decisions.
Disobeying a teacher once is beyond detention or suspension, and requires police to arrest them? I'd like to know what school you went to. I think most teachers would be glad to have the child do as they are told, and not receive a detention for it! If they don't, then that's what detention is for. Suspension is for most severe troublemakers.
And the police are for people who break the law.
You're missing the point. It's not about what level of punishment is appropriate. It's since when did breaking school rules become criminal offences?
I'm from the UK, so maybe things are different there - is it really routine to call the police everytime a child breaks a rule? I mean, there are certainly things from my school days that I can see would be breaking laws, and would therefore be something you could call the police for (vandalism, bullying, violence, theft) - but even there, it was almost always dealt with by the school. So what's so special about this case that texting requires police intervention, when other cases that do involve breaking the law don't require police intervention? It makes no sense. The only thing I hope is that we're not getting the full story - but it's bizarre just how many posters here seem to think that calling the police in the described situation is perfectly normal.
You missed that I stated that the if the student had surrendered the phone to the CAMPUS OFFICER (not the teacher) it might have been just detention. If she had surrendered it to the teacher, she probably would have gotten it back at the end of class or the end of the day without further action.
As for is it routine for the police to come to campus ever time a student breaks a rule, no. But it is not quite usual for the vast majority of high schools in moderate to large cities to have a police officer on campus during school hours because parents will sue the school at the drop of a hat because their precious snowflake would never do anything wrong therefore the school/teacher/administrator is wrong. The school is protecting itself from most of the frivolous lawsuits by having the police handle anything outside of simple issues.
She had contraband (as defined by school policies, which she and her parents agreed to by enrolling her in this school) on her person and refused to surrender it. She further lied about having it. The police had three witnesses that she had a cell phone on her. A search was justified. If they had continued with the search after finding the cell phone then they would have violated her civil rights.
If you don't like what the school had defined as contraband, you have choices. 1) send you kid another school (public, private, or online in some metro areas) 2) home school 3) in CA there is a test call the CAHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam), if you are 16 and have completed your sophomore year of high school (completed not necessarily passed) you can take this test. If you pass, you are done with high school. I'm sure that most states have a similar test.
What most people either do not know or don't understand is that during school hours the school administrators, faculty, and staff stand loco parentis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis) for the student. They are in effect the student's parent with all the rights and powers thereof. So a search by a police officer at the request of a school administrator is perfectly legal. It's annoying but it is legal, anything found is admissible in court.
Students (esp. minors) DO NOT have the same rights as an adult. Everyone seems to forget this whenever there is a news story of this type. In my experience (7 years teaching high school), the administrators err far to the side of caution when it comes to defiant students for fear of lawsuits. Since most school districts are strapped for cash in times of prosperity they do everything possible to avoid expensive lawsuits.
Yes and consequences of this action should be either detention or in school suspension.
If she had surrendered the phone upon the 1st request by the campus officer then detention would be appropriate. Since she continued to claim that she did not have a phone and further concealed it. She escalated it beyond detention or in-school suspension. I think that a fine is correct in this case. If you read the transcript of the officer's report, this student is known to the administration as a "problem".
I've had TimeWarnerCable without paying for TV service, but as it sucked I changed to Verizon DSL.
In SoCal at least, Verizon offers DSL without phone service, and the price is the same for the DSL whether or not you have phone service. I did have to sign up for one year, but I'll probably be here for a year in any case.
Most of your post came across as rather incoherent. However I think that you are stating that formal education has little benefit and that it should be disbanded. If I am wrong in this interpretation, I apologize.
I do disagree that education has no benefit. It has a long term benefit in that a better educated populace contributes to a more robust economy, which allows your clients to expand and utilize your programming/computer skills (you mentioned some software that I am not familiar with) more, thus increasing your income and therefore benefiting you.
California spends ~$7k per student, which assuming a 20-person class size,...
Wow, um, I hate to burst your bubble, but when I was teaching in a middle class suburban school district I routinely had 35 students in a class. Some of my teacher friends in less advantaged districts had upward of 50 students in a classroom built/designed for 30 students.
If it is based on daily attendance, then that is one more reason not to support public education. That is the bloody dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.
The public school system did not set up their funding, the legislators did. Do not use the way a school is funded as a reason to withdraw any support you had for public education. Use it as a reason to write your representative and express your shock/horror/displeasure etc.
The same is true for the NEA. They have made public schools into terrible places where kids are merely warehoused until they turn 18. Their heads are filled with as much propaganda as possible, and they lack critical thinking skills. When they graduate, they're basically ejected into a world they're wholly unprepared to face. The average to above-average ones will attend college and/or start a business, or pursue something to give their lives meaning. But they majority of them will just stumble through life reminiscing about the good old days of living in the high school cocoon and bitching that their government doesn't do enough for them. Thanks, NEA.
Citation needed.
While I won't say that the actions of NEA have not contributed to the lowered standards in the current US education system, I strongly disagree with your implication that NEA is solely responsible for it.
There is plenty of blame to go around. The following is not a comprehensive list of those to blame:
Legislators at all levels for passing asinine convoluted "nanny state" type laws with the intent of "providing oversight".
Parents for trying to be their child's "friend" or "the cool parent" instead of raising them to understand that society works best when we cooperate and accept personal responsibility for our actions.
Society for allowing the status of teachers, professors, and other educators to decline to the level of "those who could not hold a "real" job". This implies that anyone who becomes a teacher is somehow inferior to the rest of the working population.
Society, legislators, voters, etc for not properly funding education. For being so short-sighted in not seeing that funding education is a LONG TERM investment in the future of the country.
Principals, Assistant Principals, District Office administrators, Superintendants, etc. for not backing up the teacher for fear of being sued and having to spend the few precious dollars they are grudgingly "given" by socieyt.
The legal system for allowing frivolous lawsuits over insanely stupid minor incidents to see the light of day in a courtroom.
Teachers for becoming complacent, for accepting their de facto status as second class professionals, for only working to the contract.
And finally, students for accepting the current system as "acceptable" because it's easier to just drift along rather than try to grow up and change the system that FAILED them.
As I said, plenty of blame, and I know that there are many many more that could be put on this list. Feel free to add your own contributions to this list.
No the real solution is for the parents to SMACK their ill behaved, stroppy, "you owe me" kids.
If you don't like being educated at the tax payer's expense then fuck off and get a job.
AMEN! If you don't like the public school district you live in, move, homeschool your kid, or send them to a private school where you are more likely to get away with bullying the teachers. And yes, I have personal experience as a teaching being bullied by parents in both public and private schools.
While I agree that there is tremendous waste in Public School Administration, I strongly disagree with your statement, "Schools get a fuckton of money as it is."
You will see that most states spend less than $10000 per year per student, before the current economic downturn and budget cuts. One thing that is not accounted for in this information is that it assumes perfect attendance. For every day that a student is not on campus in class, the school loses money. A parent who pulls their kid from school to make a long weekend or to make Thanksgiving a week long vacation instead of the 4-5 day weekend that most schools take is taking money out of the hands of the school.
I also noticed that some of your are under the misconception that teachers are paid enough as it is. Yes, teachers are paid a living wage. However compared to their peers with similar education, job experience, and job responsibility, teachers of all levels are grossly underpaid. This remains true even when you factor in all of the "vacation" time that teachers get. Most teachers I know (and I am one too, former High School, now Adjunct Professor), work in one way or another during these so-called vacation times. During Thanksgiving and Xmas break, most catch up on grading, plan for the coming term, etc. Many during summer break, take classes to keep their certifications, or teach summer school to make ends meet.
Do not ever think that all teachers have it soft. Most teachers are very dedicated caring involved individuals, it's the few that make the news that give the rest a bad name.
Yes, you can get an IT job without a degree, but it does limit your pool of jobs as many corporations REQUIRE a college degree for certain positions. Many don't care what the degree is in but they do require one.
Ah, no. You are out of your gourd. Why should the government get almost all of the money that my parents (and grandparents) worked so hard all of their lives? All that money has been taxed several times already. It was taxed as profit for the companies that my parents hold stock in, then it was taxed again as dividends paid to my parents, and then it was taxed as capital gains when my parents sold the stock.
THEN you want to take 90% of what's left? I say NO, the government's hand is in my pocket enough, thank you very much!
I can see that for a field that changes so frequently, such as CS and IT, a standardized test would be so woefully out of date by the time anyone would have a chance to take it it would be useless.
Standardized tests take a long time to write properly and then there's the institutional inertia behind the companies that administer the tests that slows the process of getting a relevant test to a release version.
As a teacher/professor (I've taught High School and have now moved to Community College), I've had interviews that included a "teaching demonstration". The interviewers play the role of the students and I pick a topic from a good sized list. I've usually had about 15 minutes to put something together that lasts about 10 minutes. The first time I did it I was a bit flummoxed as I didn't expect it, but I survived and got the job. Now it hasn't occurred at every interview but enough for me to expect it.
This isn't about liberty; it's about the arbitrary and warrantless invasion of privacy. Email, pictures, video's and even 'hacking' tools do not blow up airplanes. But they're checking you at customs as you ENTER the US, after your plane is already on the ground. The Customs inspectors should be looking for contraband, such as drugs, or "undeclared" items. I really can't think of what they'd be looking for on my laptop after the plane has landed. Why is customs searching for data, it's not taxable as far as I know.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the Castle Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Doctrine) here in the US, you have to wait for the burglar to enter your home. Once they're inside, they're fair game.
than they expected??
does anyone on the team have a degree in anything?
They usually have a retired FBI agent who is a specialist in explosives handle the big booms for them. I wonder if they had him along this time too?
Tho i'm curious what they were setting off this time, considering the time they blew up that cement truck was huge and no reports of personal damage on that one. ( 1000 pounds of high explosive in that one )
I seem to remember that they set that one off in a quarry, a deep quarry and they were at least a mile away for safety. I want to say that the shockwave made the guys' clothes flutter.
The walls of the quarry shielded any nearby communities. Why they didn't use this same location for this explosion I find curious.
We've hit the point where we need to have a separate court for educational issues, just as we have courts to deal with family issues, etc.
Judges that are well versed in the education code would make it so that many of these lawsuits could just be thrown out as frivolous.
So if I lie to my teacher, or otherwise violate school policy, I can be searched and arrested? (cite some legal basis here please, I can find none and would find it most disturbing) That's like getting arrested for walking into the grocery store and violating the "shirt and shoes required" sign on the door.
If you lie to a teacher about having contraband and create a disruption in the classroom, yes. But that search is requested by the principle, not the teacher. If you lie about what happened to your homework, no. Don't try to apply a policy too broadly, it makes you look like an idiot.
Did her parents sign something when enrolling their student that said that they (or their agent etc) were authorized to search their child? (I rather doubt, but this MAY give them a leg to stand on if true) You can assign some of your rights as a parent/guardian to another but it's NEVER assumed.
Actually, every school I ever worked at (K-12 that is) had a piece of paper that the parents and the kid (at least once they were in high school) sign stating that they understand and agree to abide my the rules and policies of the school as stated in the student handbook and as determined by district policy. As for the loco parentis, it's part of the education code for every state as far as I know, and I'm sure that there are many precedents for enforcing it through out the history of legal decisions. I'm not a lawyer so I can't point you to specific decisions.
Disobeying a teacher once is beyond detention or suspension, and requires police to arrest them? I'd like to know what school you went to. I think most teachers would be glad to have the child do as they are told, and not receive a detention for it! If they don't, then that's what detention is for. Suspension is for most severe troublemakers.
And the police are for people who break the law.
You're missing the point. It's not about what level of punishment is appropriate. It's since when did breaking school rules become criminal offences?
I'm from the UK, so maybe things are different there - is it really routine to call the police everytime a child breaks a rule? I mean, there are certainly things from my school days that I can see would be breaking laws, and would therefore be something you could call the police for (vandalism, bullying, violence, theft) - but even there, it was almost always dealt with by the school. So what's so special about this case that texting requires police intervention, when other cases that do involve breaking the law don't require police intervention? It makes no sense. The only thing I hope is that we're not getting the full story - but it's bizarre just how many posters here seem to think that calling the police in the described situation is perfectly normal.
You missed that I stated that the if the student had surrendered the phone to the CAMPUS OFFICER (not the teacher) it might have been just detention. If she had surrendered it to the teacher, she probably would have gotten it back at the end of class or the end of the day without further action.
As for is it routine for the police to come to campus ever time a student breaks a rule, no. But it is not quite usual for the vast majority of high schools in moderate to large cities to have a police officer on campus during school hours because parents will sue the school at the drop of a hat because their precious snowflake would never do anything wrong therefore the school/teacher/administrator is wrong. The school is protecting itself from most of the frivolous lawsuits by having the police handle anything outside of simple issues.
Yes, it's sad, but it's where we are in the US.
She had contraband (as defined by school policies, which she and her parents agreed to by enrolling her in this school) on her person and refused to surrender it. She further lied about having it. The police had three witnesses that she had a cell phone on her. A search was justified. If they had continued with the search after finding the cell phone then they would have violated her civil rights.
If you don't like what the school had defined as contraband, you have choices.
1) send you kid another school (public, private, or online in some metro areas)
2) home school
3) in CA there is a test call the CAHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam), if you are 16 and have completed your sophomore year of high school (completed not necessarily passed) you can take this test. If you pass, you are done with high school. I'm sure that most states have a similar test.
What most people either do not know or don't understand is that during school hours the school administrators, faculty, and staff stand loco parentis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis) for the student. They are in effect the student's parent with all the rights and powers thereof. So a search by a police officer at the request of a school administrator is perfectly legal. It's annoying but it is legal, anything found is admissible in court.
Students (esp. minors) DO NOT have the same rights as an adult. Everyone seems to forget this whenever there is a news story of this type. In my experience (7 years teaching high school), the administrators err far to the side of caution when it comes to defiant students for fear of lawsuits. Since most school districts are strapped for cash in times of prosperity they do everything possible to avoid expensive lawsuits.
Actions have consequences.
Yes and consequences of this action should be either detention or in school suspension.
If she had surrendered the phone upon the 1st request by the campus officer then detention would be appropriate. Since she continued to claim that she did not have a phone and further concealed it. She escalated it beyond detention or in-school suspension. I think that a fine is correct in this case. If you read the transcript of the officer's report, this student is known to the administration as a "problem".
I've had TimeWarnerCable without paying for TV service, but as it sucked I changed to Verizon DSL.
In SoCal at least, Verizon offers DSL without phone service, and the price is the same for the DSL whether or not you have phone service. I did have to sign up for one year, but I'll probably be here for a year in any case.
The man is the head of a national laboratory. You don't get to that position without knowing how to navigate highly political waters.
Damn! What school district? Are they hiring?
Most of your post came across as rather incoherent. However I think that you are stating that formal education has little benefit and that it should be disbanded. If I am wrong in this interpretation, I apologize.
I do disagree that education has no benefit. It has a long term benefit in that a better educated populace contributes to a more robust economy, which allows your clients to expand and utilize your programming/computer skills (you mentioned some software that I am not familiar with) more, thus increasing your income and therefore benefiting you.
California spends ~$7k per student, which assuming a 20-person class size, ...
Wow, um, I hate to burst your bubble, but when I was teaching in a middle class suburban school district I routinely had 35 students in a class. Some of my teacher friends in less advantaged districts had upward of 50 students in a classroom built/designed for 30 students.
If it is based on daily attendance, then that is one more reason not to support public education. That is the bloody dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.
The public school system did not set up their funding, the legislators did. Do not use the way a school is funded as a reason to withdraw any support you had for public education. Use it as a reason to write your representative and express your shock/horror/displeasure etc.
The same is true for the NEA. They have made public schools into terrible places where kids are merely warehoused until they turn 18. Their heads are filled with as much propaganda as possible, and they lack critical thinking skills. When they graduate, they're basically ejected into a world they're wholly unprepared to face. The average to above-average ones will attend college and/or start a business, or pursue something to give their lives meaning. But they majority of them will just stumble through life reminiscing about the good old days of living in the high school cocoon and bitching that their government doesn't do enough for them. Thanks, NEA.
Citation needed.
While I won't say that the actions of NEA have not contributed to the lowered standards in the current US education system, I strongly disagree with your implication that NEA is solely responsible for it.
There is plenty of blame to go around. The following is not a comprehensive list of those to blame:
As I said, plenty of blame, and I know that there are many many more that could be put on this list. Feel free to add your own contributions to this list.
No the real solution is for the parents to SMACK their ill behaved, stroppy, "you owe me" kids.
If you don't like being educated at the tax payer's expense then fuck off and get a job.
AMEN! If you don't like the public school district you live in, move, homeschool your kid, or send them to a private school where you are more likely to get away with bullying the teachers. And yes, I have personal experience as a teaching being bullied by parents in both public and private schools.
Since we're on the subject of tossing things, how about salad tossing?
While I agree that there is tremendous waste in Public School Administration, I strongly disagree with your statement, "Schools get a fuckton of money as it is."
If you take a look at:
http://www.epodunk.com/top10/per_pupil/index.html
You will see that most states spend less than $10000 per year per student, before the current economic downturn and budget cuts. One thing that is not accounted for in this information is that it assumes perfect attendance. For every day that a student is not on campus in class, the school loses money. A parent who pulls their kid from school to make a long weekend or to make Thanksgiving a week long vacation instead of the 4-5 day weekend that most schools take is taking money out of the hands of the school.
I also noticed that some of your are under the misconception that teachers are paid enough as it is. Yes, teachers are paid a living wage. However compared to their peers with similar education, job experience, and job responsibility, teachers of all levels are grossly underpaid. This remains true even when you factor in all of the "vacation" time that teachers get. Most teachers I know (and I am one too, former High School, now Adjunct Professor), work in one way or another during these so-called vacation times. During Thanksgiving and Xmas break, most catch up on grading, plan for the coming term, etc. Many during summer break, take classes to keep their certifications, or teach summer school to make ends meet.
Do not ever think that all teachers have it soft. Most teachers are very dedicated caring involved individuals, it's the few that make the news that give the rest a bad name.
Yes, you can get an IT job without a degree, but it does limit your pool of jobs as many corporations REQUIRE a college degree for certain positions. Many don't care what the degree is in but they do require one.
Ah, no. You are out of your gourd. Why should the government get almost all of the money that my parents (and grandparents) worked so hard all of their lives? All that money has been taxed several times already. It was taxed as profit for the companies that my parents hold stock in, then it was taxed again as dividends paid to my parents, and then it was taxed as capital gains when my parents sold the stock.
THEN you want to take 90% of what's left? I say NO, the government's hand is in my pocket enough, thank you very much!
I can see that for a field that changes so frequently, such as CS and IT, a standardized test would be so woefully out of date by the time anyone would have a chance to take it it would be useless.
Standardized tests take a long time to write properly and then there's the institutional inertia behind the companies that administer the tests that slows the process of getting a relevant test to a release version.
As a teacher/professor (I've taught High School and have now moved to Community College), I've had interviews that included a "teaching demonstration". The interviewers play the role of the students and I pick a topic from a good sized list. I've usually had about 15 minutes to put something together that lasts about 10 minutes. The first time I did it I was a bit flummoxed as I didn't expect it, but I survived and got the job. Now it hasn't occurred at every interview but enough for me to expect it.