School-related sex abuse cases are all over the news lately. Multiple female Florida teachers have been accused of having sexual relationships with students. A custodian in a Louisiana school has been accused of sexually assaulting two 10 year-old boys, and two more alleged victims have come forward since his arrest. A music teacher at a Chicago high school has been charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse. An Arizona teacher has been charged with two counts of sexual misconduct against a female high-school student. In NY, a male tacher's aide has been accused of takign a five-year-old student and sexually assaulting her. A three-year-old special-needs student was assaulted by a bus driver- officials say DNA evidece matchign the driver was recovered from the student's underwear. A MD elementary school vice-principal has been charged with sexually abusing a six-year-old boy. A sixth grade teacher in NC has been charged with taking indecent liberties with a minor. his two victims were not students at the school where he taught, but he tutored them in his home. These are all cases that have been in the news in 2008, and I haven't included cases where students are victimized by other students. I'm also confident that there are many other victims of abuse in school who did not come forward.
I have seen parents criticized harshly for leaving a child in a locked car while they go pay for their gas, because someone just might kidnap the child, or the gas pump might explode. None of these things are impossible, but the risk of a stranger kidnapping a child is very low. It seems to me the risk of a child being sexually abused in a public school, while relatively low, is very real and at least as high as the risk of being kidnapped, possibly much higher. A woman in Illinois was arrested late last year and charged for leaving her sleeping two-year old in a locked car while she took her other children to dump change in a Salvation Army kettle. She was never more than 10 yards away from her vehicle. Although the charges were later dropped, a lot of people obviously thought her actions were wrong, because "something" might have happened to the child. How, then, can society expect parents to send their children to a public school, knowing that there is a risk of sexual abuse? Are parents who send their children to school negligent?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Middle school teacher tells student to use lunchbox as toilet
http://www.wftv.com/news/15620442/detail.html
In Orange County, FL, a 13 year old student told his teacher he needed to use the bathroom. She reportedly told him he could either wait for the end of the period, or go to the back of the room and use his lunchbox. The student says he couldn't wait for the end of the class, and used the lunchbox as the teacher had instructed.
The school is coducting their own investigation, and the teacher is out of the classroom in the meatime, but I find it highly disturbing that this happened in the first place. The NEA would have us believe that teachers are highly educated and trained professionals, whose work gives children a education far superior to that a parent can give. What kind of "professional" educator suggests that a teenage boy urinate in his lunchbox in a room full of other teenage students? I don't need a college degree or any experience in a classroom to know that toilets are designed to collect bodily wastes, ad luchboxes are designed to carry food. Any sane adult should be able to figure out that it's not appropriate for a student to pull down his pants in the classroom for any reason, and that a student who asks to use the bathroom should be allowed to go do so.
In Orange County, FL, a 13 year old student told his teacher he needed to use the bathroom. She reportedly told him he could either wait for the end of the period, or go to the back of the room and use his lunchbox. The student says he couldn't wait for the end of the class, and used the lunchbox as the teacher had instructed.
The school is coducting their own investigation, and the teacher is out of the classroom in the meatime, but I find it highly disturbing that this happened in the first place. The NEA would have us believe that teachers are highly educated and trained professionals, whose work gives children a education far superior to that a parent can give. What kind of "professional" educator suggests that a teenage boy urinate in his lunchbox in a room full of other teenage students? I don't need a college degree or any experience in a classroom to know that toilets are designed to collect bodily wastes, ad luchboxes are designed to carry food. Any sane adult should be able to figure out that it's not appropriate for a student to pull down his pants in the classroom for any reason, and that a student who asks to use the bathroom should be allowed to go do so.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Label envelopes, not kids
http://www.denverpost.com/technology/ci_8442882
A Colorado school is taking another look at how "gifted" students are selected for a magnet program. Students are given extra points on their assessment if English is not their first langauage, and if they recieve federal meals benefits.
What bearing does the source of a child's lunch have on the child's intelligence and academic ability?
One of my biggest criticisms of the current school system is that children cannot be summed up by test scores. I would also contend that children cannot be summed up by the financial status of their parents.
A Colorado school is taking another look at how "gifted" students are selected for a magnet program. Students are given extra points on their assessment if English is not their first langauage, and if they recieve federal meals benefits.
What bearing does the source of a child's lunch have on the child's intelligence and academic ability?
One of my biggest criticisms of the current school system is that children cannot be summed up by test scores. I would also contend that children cannot be summed up by the financial status of their parents.
Student suspended over a bag of Skittles
In New Haven, CT, an eighth grade student has been punished for violating a 2003 ban on candy sales by purchasing a bag of Skittles candy from another student. Micheal was an honors student and class Vice-President. He was suspended from school for one day, not permitted to attend a dinner for honors students, and stripped of his title.
Weeks after the incident, school officials backed down, reinstating the student to the student council and erasing the incident from his record- presumably after he already served the suspension and missed the honors dinner.
I applaud any school district that chooses not to place candy or soda vending machines in school or use students peddling candy bars as a fundraiser, provided such a policy has local community support. This incident, however, wasn't anybody's business but that of the two students involved. Trading at the lunchroom table has been going on since plastic children's lunchboxes were invented. Whether a student trades his Skittles for homemade cookies or two shiny quarters should be none of the administration's concern.
I suppose I should be happy that public pressure forced the school to its senses, but really, why did this student have to go through all this nonsense in the first place?
Weeks after the incident, school officials backed down, reinstating the student to the student council and erasing the incident from his record- presumably after he already served the suspension and missed the honors dinner.
I applaud any school district that chooses not to place candy or soda vending machines in school or use students peddling candy bars as a fundraiser, provided such a policy has local community support. This incident, however, wasn't anybody's business but that of the two students involved. Trading at the lunchroom table has been going on since plastic children's lunchboxes were invented. Whether a student trades his Skittles for homemade cookies or two shiny quarters should be none of the administration's concern.
I suppose I should be happy that public pressure forced the school to its senses, but really, why did this student have to go through all this nonsense in the first place?
Welcome
Welcome! This blog will catalogue the faults of the American public school system: abuses of power, betrayals of trust, from inane zero-tolerance policies to egregious overstepping of authority.
My purpose is twofold. I hope to discourage parents from entrusting to the government the most precious gifts they have been given-their children. Most importantly, I hope to force the public at large- including those who do not have school-age children- to pay attention to what goes on in our schools, and to hold individual staff members and the government as a whole accountable for their actions
Please join me in what I think will be a memorable and productive examination of the school system.
My purpose is twofold. I hope to discourage parents from entrusting to the government the most precious gifts they have been given-their children. Most importantly, I hope to force the public at large- including those who do not have school-age children- to pay attention to what goes on in our schools, and to hold individual staff members and the government as a whole accountable for their actions
Please join me in what I think will be a memorable and productive examination of the school system.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)