Sunday, December 18, 2005
Do suspensions really punish students?
The Washington Post recently carried an article posing the age-old question "Does out-of-school suspension actually serve as a punishment or a reward to people who violate school rules?"
A proposal to ban pencils?
A column suggesting the banning of pencils was featured this week in Education World. The proposal is not a serious one, but it notes that you could make the same arguments for getting rid of pencils that school administrators use to ban such things as the Internet, IPods and other technological devices.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Columnist challenges sex education
Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas examines sex education in his most recent column.
By CAL THOMAS
More than the weather gets hot in Tampa, Fla.
A survey of the Hillsborough County school district has revealed nearly half of high school students and one in five middle school students claim to have had sexual intercourse.
And this is surprising news to many Hillsborough parents.
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, compiled in four thick volumes by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, polled more than 5,000 randomly-selected Hillsborough students finding that nearly one-third said they were propositioned to buy, bought or sold drugs while at school. More than 9 percent of male students and nearly 12 percent of female students said they had been forced to have sex.
Reporter Marilyn Brown, in the Dec. 11 edition of the Tampa Tribune, reported on a small PTA meeting of Hillsborough parents and grandparents, who said they didn't know about the survey, but were interested in the results.
Sex educators promised that more information about sex would mean, if not less sex, than "safer sex." The CDC survey reveals the opposite to be true with younger kids having sex and condom use declining with age, dropping from 78 percent usage in eighth grade to 61.4 percent for high school seniors.
Leaving out the emotional and spiritual damage caused by early sexual activity (which is significant), the physical and societal consequences of teen sex are considerable. According to a Heritage Foundation policy paper by Robert E. Rector, sexually transmitted diseases, including incurable viral infections, are now epidemic. While we contemplate a bird flu pandemic, 3 million teenagers contract STDs every year, afflicting about one in four sexually active teens.
Rector writes about research that has shown a correlation between sexual activity among adolescents and the likelihood they will engage in other high-risk behavior, such as tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use. Pediatrics magazine (vol. 87, No. 2 Feb 1, 1991, pp 141-147) reports that sexually active boys aged 12 through 16 are four times more likely to smoke and six times more likely to consume alcohol than those who describe themselves as virgins. With fewer models in culture, or at home, for stable, two-parent families (one child in three is now born out of wedlock), by the time teens reach their 20s, many are living together and having babies in a nonmarital environment that has been modeled before them through personal experience, the media and their peers. Nearly half of the mothers who give birth outside of marriage are cohabiting with the child's father at the time of birth.
Though true abstinence-only programs have been effective in altering sexual behavior, the so-called "sex education" programs in government schools do more to promote sex than prevent it, giving lip service to chastity while spending most of the class time teaching kids how to use condoms.
If parents care enough about their children to want to do more than fret about such things, they are going to have to radically alter their approach to childrearing.
Step one is to pull them from the government schools that serve as hothouses for this kind of behavior and thinking. Step two is to reduce lavish lifestyles so that parents work less and invest more time in their children, with one parent actually staying home to make the home a safe haven. Step three is no television in the home. Television has become hostile to the things most parents want their children to believe and embrace. It is deadly to their moral development; it encourages disrespect for fathers and undermines those things that used to make families a strong, positive cultural force.
The government schools and the sex and entertainment industries aren't about to fix the problem. The responsibility to properly raise children belongs to parents. The state and various interest groups have no right to develop the moral fiber of a child and, in fact, they are speedily undermining that development.
If parents don't want any more surprises like those in Tampa, they have to rescue their kids from a hostile culture, just as they would rescue them from a burning building. In fact, those "buildings" are enveloped in the flames of self-indulgence. And the damage is not only to their bodies, but also to their minds and souls.
By CAL THOMAS
More than the weather gets hot in Tampa, Fla.
A survey of the Hillsborough County school district has revealed nearly half of high school students and one in five middle school students claim to have had sexual intercourse.
And this is surprising news to many Hillsborough parents.
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, compiled in four thick volumes by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, polled more than 5,000 randomly-selected Hillsborough students finding that nearly one-third said they were propositioned to buy, bought or sold drugs while at school. More than 9 percent of male students and nearly 12 percent of female students said they had been forced to have sex.
Reporter Marilyn Brown, in the Dec. 11 edition of the Tampa Tribune, reported on a small PTA meeting of Hillsborough parents and grandparents, who said they didn't know about the survey, but were interested in the results.
Sex educators promised that more information about sex would mean, if not less sex, than "safer sex." The CDC survey reveals the opposite to be true with younger kids having sex and condom use declining with age, dropping from 78 percent usage in eighth grade to 61.4 percent for high school seniors.
Leaving out the emotional and spiritual damage caused by early sexual activity (which is significant), the physical and societal consequences of teen sex are considerable. According to a Heritage Foundation policy paper by Robert E. Rector, sexually transmitted diseases, including incurable viral infections, are now epidemic. While we contemplate a bird flu pandemic, 3 million teenagers contract STDs every year, afflicting about one in four sexually active teens.
Rector writes about research that has shown a correlation between sexual activity among adolescents and the likelihood they will engage in other high-risk behavior, such as tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use. Pediatrics magazine (vol. 87, No. 2 Feb 1, 1991, pp 141-147) reports that sexually active boys aged 12 through 16 are four times more likely to smoke and six times more likely to consume alcohol than those who describe themselves as virgins. With fewer models in culture, or at home, for stable, two-parent families (one child in three is now born out of wedlock), by the time teens reach their 20s, many are living together and having babies in a nonmarital environment that has been modeled before them through personal experience, the media and their peers. Nearly half of the mothers who give birth outside of marriage are cohabiting with the child's father at the time of birth.
Though true abstinence-only programs have been effective in altering sexual behavior, the so-called "sex education" programs in government schools do more to promote sex than prevent it, giving lip service to chastity while spending most of the class time teaching kids how to use condoms.
If parents care enough about their children to want to do more than fret about such things, they are going to have to radically alter their approach to childrearing.
Step one is to pull them from the government schools that serve as hothouses for this kind of behavior and thinking. Step two is to reduce lavish lifestyles so that parents work less and invest more time in their children, with one parent actually staying home to make the home a safe haven. Step three is no television in the home. Television has become hostile to the things most parents want their children to believe and embrace. It is deadly to their moral development; it encourages disrespect for fathers and undermines those things that used to make families a strong, positive cultural force.
The government schools and the sex and entertainment industries aren't about to fix the problem. The responsibility to properly raise children belongs to parents. The state and various interest groups have no right to develop the moral fiber of a child and, in fact, they are speedily undermining that development.
If parents don't want any more surprises like those in Tampa, they have to rescue their kids from a hostile culture, just as they would rescue them from a burning building. In fact, those "buildings" are enveloped in the flames of self-indulgence. And the damage is not only to their bodies, but also to their minds and souls.
Blogs create controversy at schools
Teacher and student blogs are creating concerns about privacy and First Amendment problems. Read the story from the Chicago Tribune.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Football players suspended for violent remarks in class journals
Two high school football players were suspended in California for writing in their English journals about how they intended to kill their English teacher, according to an Associated Press article.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Sex education programs cause states to opt out of federal money
Stateline.org carried a story this week about Maine, joining California and Pennsylvania as states that have opted out of federal money rather than restricting sex education programs to the teaching of abstinence.
Tennessee student newspapers seized
School administrators in Oak Ridge, Tenn., confiscated student newspapers that carried stories about birth control and tattoo parlors. Were the students' First Amendment rights violated? The story is featured in a CNN article.
Openly gay student sues principal for telling parents she was gay
I don't understand how this lawsuit can be allowed to continue, but apparently is is going to. The following article came from Friday's New York Times.
Openly Gay Student's Lawsuit Over Privacy Will Proceed
By TAMAR LEWIN
In a case involving a California high school girl who was openly gay at school, a federal judge has ruled that the girl, Charlene Nguon, may proceed with a lawsuit charging that her privacy rights were violated when the principal called her mother and disclosed that she is gay.
Ms. Nguon filed suit in September after a year of run-ins with Ben Wolf, the principal of Santiago High School in Garden Grove, Calif., over her hugging, kissing and holding hands with her girlfriend. Ms. Nguon was an all-A student ranked in the top 5 percent of her class, with no prior record of discipline. But last year, after Mr. Wolf said he wanted to separate her from her girlfriend, she transferred to another school. Her grades slipped, and her commute grew from a four-block walk to a four-and-a-half mile bike ride.
Judge James V. Selna of the Central District Court of California ruled Monday that Ms. Nguon had "sufficiently alleged a legally protected privacy interest in information about her sexual orientation."
"This is the first court ruling we're aware of where a judge has recognized that a student has a right not to have her sexual orientation disclosed to her parents, even if she is out of the closet at school," said Christine Sun, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought the case. "It's really important, because, while Charlene's parents have been very supportive, coming out is a very serious decision that should not be taken away from anyone, and disclosure can cause a lot of harm to students who live in an unsupportive home."
Alan Trudell, a spokesman for the school district, would not comment on the litigation. In its motion to dismiss the case, the district argued that Ms. Nguon had no legally protectable privacy right because she was "openly lesbian" and "constantly" hugging and kissing her girlfriend.
"A reasonable person could not expect that their actions on school grounds, in front of everyone else on the school grounds, would remain private," the motion said.
The district also said Ms. Nguon had "an issue with authority" and was disciplined because of her defiance, not because of her homosexuality. Both Ms. Nguon and her girlfriend were suspended twice, once for a day and once for a week.
The district saw Ms. Nguon's behavior and legal case as inconsistent, its motion questioning why "she can be openly gay in public, but should be permitted to hide her homosexuality from her parents."
Ms. Nguon said yesterday that the day on which the principal called was a difficult one for the family.
"My mom picked me up from school and her eyes were all watery," she said. "I just went to my room and cried. We didn't talk about it for about a week."
After the A.C.L.U. sent a letter to the school in late July, Ms. Nguon was allowed to return to Santiago High, but to date the school has not agreed to clear her disciplinary record.
Conservatives criticized the judge's reasoning. "This court ruling is so unrealistic that it borders on ridiculous," said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family, a socially conservative group based in Colorado. "In a disciplinary action by the school, you can't expect them to lie to the parents and not give details of what happened. It seems ironic to raise privacy as an issue in a public display of affection. She'd already outed herself."
Advocates for gay rights, however, welcomed the judge's decision to let the case proceed, but said it was too soon to celebrate.
"I wouldn't yet go out and tell a kid in Iowa to walk down the halls at school holding hands with his boyfriend," said Brian Chase, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "It isn't fair, but gay kids expressing affection are not treated the way straight kids are."
The lawsuit seeks to clear Ms. Nguon's record and create a districtwide policy and guidelines for the treatment of gay students.
Openly Gay Student's Lawsuit Over Privacy Will Proceed
By TAMAR LEWIN
In a case involving a California high school girl who was openly gay at school, a federal judge has ruled that the girl, Charlene Nguon, may proceed with a lawsuit charging that her privacy rights were violated when the principal called her mother and disclosed that she is gay.
Ms. Nguon filed suit in September after a year of run-ins with Ben Wolf, the principal of Santiago High School in Garden Grove, Calif., over her hugging, kissing and holding hands with her girlfriend. Ms. Nguon was an all-A student ranked in the top 5 percent of her class, with no prior record of discipline. But last year, after Mr. Wolf said he wanted to separate her from her girlfriend, she transferred to another school. Her grades slipped, and her commute grew from a four-block walk to a four-and-a-half mile bike ride.
Judge James V. Selna of the Central District Court of California ruled Monday that Ms. Nguon had "sufficiently alleged a legally protected privacy interest in information about her sexual orientation."
"This is the first court ruling we're aware of where a judge has recognized that a student has a right not to have her sexual orientation disclosed to her parents, even if she is out of the closet at school," said Christine Sun, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought the case. "It's really important, because, while Charlene's parents have been very supportive, coming out is a very serious decision that should not be taken away from anyone, and disclosure can cause a lot of harm to students who live in an unsupportive home."
Alan Trudell, a spokesman for the school district, would not comment on the litigation. In its motion to dismiss the case, the district argued that Ms. Nguon had no legally protectable privacy right because she was "openly lesbian" and "constantly" hugging and kissing her girlfriend.
"A reasonable person could not expect that their actions on school grounds, in front of everyone else on the school grounds, would remain private," the motion said.
The district also said Ms. Nguon had "an issue with authority" and was disciplined because of her defiance, not because of her homosexuality. Both Ms. Nguon and her girlfriend were suspended twice, once for a day and once for a week.
The district saw Ms. Nguon's behavior and legal case as inconsistent, its motion questioning why "she can be openly gay in public, but should be permitted to hide her homosexuality from her parents."
Ms. Nguon said yesterday that the day on which the principal called was a difficult one for the family.
"My mom picked me up from school and her eyes were all watery," she said. "I just went to my room and cried. We didn't talk about it for about a week."
After the A.C.L.U. sent a letter to the school in late July, Ms. Nguon was allowed to return to Santiago High, but to date the school has not agreed to clear her disciplinary record.
Conservatives criticized the judge's reasoning. "This court ruling is so unrealistic that it borders on ridiculous," said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family, a socially conservative group based in Colorado. "In a disciplinary action by the school, you can't expect them to lie to the parents and not give details of what happened. It seems ironic to raise privacy as an issue in a public display of affection. She'd already outed herself."
Advocates for gay rights, however, welcomed the judge's decision to let the case proceed, but said it was too soon to celebrate.
"I wouldn't yet go out and tell a kid in Iowa to walk down the halls at school holding hands with his boyfriend," said Brian Chase, a lawyer with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. "It isn't fair, but gay kids expressing affection are not treated the way straight kids are."
The lawsuit seeks to clear Ms. Nguon's record and create a districtwide policy and guidelines for the treatment of gay students.
Springfield schools have Christmas problems
Springfield public schools are having a problem with Christmas and holiday-related activities, according to a story in today's Springfield News-Leader.
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