Another Zero-Tolerance Travesty

     I have been following the story of Matthew Whalen of New York State.  He is another student (see post below this one) caught in the trap of zero-tolerance policies.  A lawyer now has come to his aid.

     The facts of the case appear to be that Matthew kept a survival kit in his car that included a small utility knife.  The kit, including the knife, was a present from his grandfather, who is a police officer.  Some reports have indicated that such a small knife is not classed as a weapon in the state of New York.  The principal was somehow tipped off that the knife was in the car, and he asked Matthew to show it to him.  Matthew, apparently being a kid who respects authority, complied.

     The principal gave Matthew a 5-day suspension, but the superintendent later added 15 more days.  Matthew has said in an interview that he could understand the 5 days, but not the 15 extra days.

     Frankly, I think that any punishment is unwarranted.  The knife has been reported to be 2 inches long.  There are far dangerous items all over any school building, manyof which are accessible to students continually.  The knife was in a box inside a locked car.  Matthew was obviously not using it to hurt anybody.  Matthew has a good reputation, according to news reports, with no other incidents on his school record.  He is an Eagle Scout who, ironically, has taught knife safety to younger boys.  And, as mentioned above, the knife was given to him by his grandfather, a police officer,  to keep in his car at all times in case he was stranded somewhere and needed it.

     Assuming that Matthew did break a school rule by having the knife in his car, it seems that a warning is all that was warranted.  Unless he had made threats against somebody, or was caught carrying the knife through the school building, or had a past history of violence, there seems to be no need for anyone to fear this young man or react so outrageously to the little knife in his car.

     Every day you encounter people with knives in their pockets.  Does that make you scared?  I have been known to carry a knife around myself, although I usually have one when I don’t need it and fail to have one with me when I do need it!  So far I have not slit anyone’s throat or started a rumble.

Update on Zachary Christie

     Zachary Christie, the little boy who brought the camping tool to school, has had his sentenced reduced.  Instead of 45 days in the alternative school, he will get a suspension of a few days.

     Some questions that this whole case brings to my mind:

     Is a tool consisting of a knife, fork, and spoon a weapon.

     If so are the cafeteria workers, not to mention the students, using weapons every day to cook and eat lunch?

     Is it violent conduct to possess such a tool, as the schools handbook indicates?

     Since when do we punish objects instead of people?

     When did we become scared of dangerous objects instead of being scared of dangerous people?

     Since when do we punish people doing something passive rather than something active?

     Since when do we punish people for what they could do instead of what they do do?

     If seven school board members realize that the punishment was excessive, why couldn’t the teacher, principal, superintendent, or whomever?

     If the people who were going to send him to reform school for 1 1/2 months were so stupid, then how can we expect the children to be well educated?

     If those people were so stupid, should they keep their jobs, or should they at least be censured somehow?

     Is schools are so unreasonable, won’t that tend to prompt violent behavior rather than reduce it?

Zero Tolerance Means Zero Sense

     I completely agree with this editorial in the New York TImes.  A policy designed to keep wacko high school students from committing murder and mayhem should not be used to send a six-year-old to the school’s equivalent of jail for 45 days.  Especially when that six-year-old, Zachary Christie, brought an eating utensil designed for camp-outs (pictured here).

     Rules are a useful tool for preserving order and safety at schools.  I’m all for them, although I keep my classroom rules to a minimum when I am teaching.  Rules make it clear what the expectations are, and they authorize people in charge to take action whenever particular problems arise.  However, the people in charge make the final call about how rules are implemented and enforced.

     I would not say that rules are made to be broken, but they are certainly made to be bent.  People are not allowed to enter a restaurant without shoes, but if a barefoot woman is being chased by a man with a gun, nobody is going to fine her for breaking the rule by running into a restaurant for safety.  At least I hope not.

     That’s why even criminal law is flexible.  Penalties are often enacted in a range from less severe to more severe.  Mitigating circumstances are considered in court.  Judges can prescribe probation for some offenses. 

     Generally, we do not want kids to bring weapons to school, but sometimes circumstances, as in this case, might suggest a more lenient approach to an infraction.  The tool should have been confiscated and returned to his parents in person with a warning.  That’s what I have done in similar circumstances.

—–

     This case prompts me to discuss the broader issue.  Parents are willing to accept “zero-tolerance” rules about “weapons” because they want a sense of security.  It is understandable that they are concerned, but it is a false sense of security that they have settled for.  As I think about my classroom right now, I can think of at least five items that could seriously injure somebody if a person wanted to use them in that way.

     If we are going to be scared of dangerous objects, then we had better become agoraphobic hermits.  What we should do instead is use good sense about dangerous and potentially dangerous people.  We should be cautious without getting paranoid.  It’s how most people live their lives most of the time, anyway. 

     I mean, when you go to a friend’s house for a visit, do you worry about the butcher knife in the kitchen drawer?  Do you worry about the heavy glass vase on the mantle?  How about the pull cord on the draperies?  No, you trust your friend.  You do not even spend one second thinking that she might use one of these dangerous objects to hurt you (although it could happen).

     People have talked about the death of common sense in America.  It might not be dead, but it is seriously ill, I think.

Here It Is, The Ode to Obama

In case you are interested, here are the words to the chant and the song that the children in a school in Burlington, New Jersey, sang about President Obama:

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama!

He said that all must lend a hand

To make this country strong again.

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama!

He said that we must be fair today.

Equal work means equal pay.

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama!

He said that we must take a stand

To make sure everyone has a chance.

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama!

He said red, yellow, black, or white,

All are equal in his sight.

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama, yes!

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama!

—–

Hello, Mr. President.  We honor you today.

For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “Hooray!”

Hello, Mr. President.  You’re number one,

The first black American to lead this great nation.

Hooray, Mr. President.  We honor your great plans

To make this country’s economy number one again.

Horray, Mr. President, we’re really proud of you,

And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue.

So continue, Mr. President.  We know you’ll do the trick.

So here’s a hearty hip-hooray:

Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!

—–

Forgetting the fact that the lyrics are simply terrible, literarily speaking, a couple of things stand out to me.

Strong again?  We have done a lot to root out terrorism, and we stopped Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror in Iraq.  I’d say that we were already pretty strong.

One has to wonder what “equal work means equal pay” means in the mind of the author.  Is it simply referring to the widely held truth that people should be paid fairly for their labor, or is it a simplistic statement of the socialist-communist notion of everyone’s getting paid equally.  That worked out really well in the Soviet Union and in the early days of Communist China, no?

I pointed out in the post before this one that the lines about equality echo the Sunday school song “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”  That connection is more than a little disconcerting to me.

The lines about making our country’s economy number one is amusing.  I get the impression that we are supposed to be embarrassed and ashamed that we have had the number one economy in the world.  It was those greedy capitalists that made that happen, after all.  Besides it is not fair to all the other countries of the world that we have so much while others have so little.  Isn’t that the way it goes?

Singing About the Great Leader

     Imagine that it is 1981.  Children at an elementary school sing a song in praise of Ronald Reagan, as song written by their teacher, a devout Republican who was excited that her candidate won.  Would you approve or would you consider it inappropriate?

     Imagine that it is 2001.  A zealous teacher writes a song about how great George W. Bush is and teaches it to her class.  Would you think it was appropriate in a public school, or in any school, for that matter?

     I would find it highly inappropriate in the United States of America.  We have a president who is a civilian and a fellow citizen.  He (or perhaps she in the future) is not a monarch or a member of the aristocracy.  The president is not our Great Chief or Big Brother or Dear Leader or any other title that despots love to take to themselves.  That is why no official oath of office in the United States includes a pledge to support the President; rather, our leaders pledge to support the Constitution.

     I wouldn’t want children glorifying either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, especially since many of their families did not vote for him and did not support him.  It is not right to propagandize children or to force them to support a particular political viewpoint.  Besides, Reagan stood for individualism, not for hero worship.  He himself would have been appalled at people making up songs glorifying him.

     Of course children should learn about the President of the United States.  It is important for them to learn the name of the current president and to learn biographical data about him.  It is important that they learn to show him the respect that he deserves by virture of his office, whether he is Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Hussein Obama.  Given that Obama is the first black American President, he deserves special focus, but he does not deserve worship songs.  No human being does.

     Singing the praises of a president is done in totalitarian states where leaders institute cults of personality.  It should not be done in a free republic.  At least it should not be required of anybody, least of all impressionable young children.  Teach children facts, and let them formulate their own opinions.

     We should not put our hope in a president or any other man.  In secular terms, we should put our hope in our own abilities and our own potential to prosper and succeed.  We should not think of ourselves as dependent upon the Great Father in the White Building; we should believe in our own value as human beings, equal in every significant way to those who happen to have authority over us.  (As a Christian I obviously believe that we should put our faith ultimately in God through Jesus Christ.)

     That is why I oppose the singing of a song in praise of Barack Hussein Obama by school children in New Jersey.  I don’t care if the subject of their song were as white as fallen snow or as black as midnight or somewhere in between, it is not proper for a schoolteacher to require kids to praise the president in song and chant.  I also wouldn’t care if the president were farther right than William F. Buckley or father left than Frank Llewellyn, it’s just not right.

     You can watch the video of the song on YouTube or on FOX News.  Michelle Malkin has written about it, too.  The most disturbing part of the song, from my perspective, are the lines:

Mm, mm, mm,

Barack Hussein Obama

Red and yellow, black and white,

All are equal in his sight.

     The words will be familiar to you, if you ever attended Sunday school.  It is reminiscent of a song called “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”  I’m not very comfortable with implicitly comparing the President of the United States with Jesus.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:  Parents Angry Over Obama Song

Should Christian Schools Show THE Speech?

     Craig Dunham at Second Drafts thinks that Christian schools should show President Obama’s speech to their students. 

     He writes:

At some point, Christians have got to stop putting the mental in fundamentalist and start interacting with the world.  Teaching our kids to stick their heads in the sand and ignore anyone they may not totally agree with is, in a word, unChristian.

I agree.  How about you?

Teaching Teachers

     I was recently invited to a teacher college to do a workshop for some students in a course on school administration.  The topic of the workshop was “Creativity and Leadership.” 

     It was a fantastic experience to teach at this level, since my main work is being the head teacher of a school with grades 1-8.  To be able to have intense, sophisticated interactions with adult students was really fun.

     On the first day of the two-day workshop, I taught the students about brainstorming.  I gave them several opportunities to practice the technique in both small and large groups.  I emphasized to them the need to accept everyone’s input, because some of the best ideas come from synthesizing the ideas of several different people.  I also emphasized the fact that, as Mark Twain said, “A person with a new idea is a crank until his idea succeeds.”

     On the second day, I taught the students about the importance of confidence, particularly confidence in one’s ability to be creative.  I started with the premise that creativity is an inherent human trait and only needs to be exercised to be developed.  I gave them several creative activities in order to boost their confidence in their creative abilities, and we brainstormed (applying what we learned on the first day) about how we could boost the confidence of students and other teachers.  I stressed the importance of giving people in our sphere of influence at least one opportunity to be creative every day, since creativity is increased with practice.

     It was a great experience.  I do not care very much for other aspects of leadership, but creativity is one that I enjoy learning about and practicing.  I was happy that I got to choose that topic.  I was gratified to observe the students engaged and interested in the topic and participating eagerly in the activities.

The Judges Versus the Little Boy

     In Philadelphia a court decided to tell a little boy that he cannot regard the Bible as his favorite book.  Well, not really.  They apparently ruled that the boy could not bring it to class as part of a show-and-tell activity where the students were to bring their favorite book. 

     I cannot imagine any adults doing that to a boy in kindergarten.  I really cannot imagine a group of judges thinking that it is crucial to our American civilization to ban a Bible from a classroom. 

     Perhaps they should read the Constitution.  It’s apparently not their favorite document.

UPDATE:  The students were given an open invitation to have their parents come to class and read from their favorite book.  I still am appalled that two of the three justices of the 3rd Circuit believe it is their job to tell a little boy what his favorite book should or should not be.  The third justice wrote that the school engaged in viewpoint discrimination.  In the words of Scott Erb (see comments), “D’oh.” 

By the way, I do not take this position because it was a Bible.  If little Karim had brought a Koran for his mom or dad to read, I would also support his freedom of religion and freedom of expression.  That’s what freedom means–being free.  It doesn’t mean doing only what is politically correct.  Only if a person’s behavior harms somebody should it be legally curtailed.

Facts on Education Spending

I want to address three misperceptions that people seem to have about education in the United States.

Misperception #1:  The United States Spends Less Than Other Countries on Education

The first misperception is that the United States spends less money than other countries for education.  The fact is that the United States spends more on education than does Japan, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and several other countries.

[If somebody from the UK wants to tell me that the United States needs to spend more money on schools, I would prefer that they wait until their own country increases it's education budget to match ours.]

One thing that makes the situation even worse than it first appears, is that schools do not always report all expenses when they determine the per capita cost of education a child.  They will often exclude property acquisition and construction in reporting expenditures, so that a district that claims to spend $7,000 per pupil per year might actually be spending $11,0000 per pupil per year.  (I find it ironic that schools underreport their spending per pupil.  You would think that they would be proud to say that they are “investing in the children.”  It seems instead that somebody realizes that the public is not getting what it’s paying for.)

One estimate of actual school spending across the United States in 2000 was $9,200 per student.  Think about it.  In a classroom of 20 students (many classrooms have more) that’s $184,000.  Subtract the teacher’s salary, the cost of educational materials, and the utilities, and there’s a huge amount of money left over.  Where does it all go?

Misperception #2:  If Only the United States Spent More on Education, Students Would Learn Better

Students in the United States score about in the middle among students in industrialized countries.  If spending guaranteed learning, the American students would far outperform all other students in the world. 

If the equation were simply that more money produces better learning, then Washington, D. C., schools would have the most successful students in the country.  They spend more money per pupil than any other state (three times what Utah spends).  They are also at or near the bottom in standardized test scores.  Some years they rank 51st compared to the 50 states.  If more money meant better learning, they would be at the top rank in student achievement.

Maybe it’s not about spending more but about spending on the right things?

Misperception #3:  The United States Refuses to Increase Education Spending

The second misperception is that the United States has been unwilling to increase spending on education.  The truth is that from 1995-1996 to 2003-2004, spending on education in the United States went up by more than 53 percent.

It’s bogus to suggest that Americans are stingy and not shelling out money for schools. 

As an American my attitude is that we should stop increasing school budgets until schools prove that we are getting a good return on our investment.  People don’t generally spend more money for an inferior product or service.

SOURCE

“Soaring School Spending,” American Enterprise Institute

“U.S. Tops the World in School Spending but Not Test Scores,” USA Today

“Washington , D. C. Spends $10,829 per pupil,” Reuters

“Does Spending More on Education Improve Academic Achievement?” The Heritage Foundation

So Much For a Challenge!

     A few posts down I invited people to watch a video posted at American Elephants blog.  The video was about the cancelling of a program that allows poor children in Washington, D. C., to attend a better school than the bottom-ranked public schools in their district.

     I challenged people to answer the lady’s question, the question being “Why?”  Nobody did so directly.

     I challenged them to say how they reconcile it with their stance on “choice” when it comes to other issues.  Why is the choice to destroy an unborn baby sacrosanct but school choice is forbidden?  (It would be the other way around in a moral society.)  Nobody answered that question directly.

     I challenged them to address the hypocrisy of the wealthy Obama family’s sending their children to a fancy private school but expecting poor black kids to attend the horrendous D. C. schools.  Nobody addressed that issue directly.

     What some people seemed to indicate is that the national government just needs to dole out more money to schools that have already proven dismal failures.  They did not address the strange coincidence that more money is spent per capita in D. C. than in most other states but test scores are lower than in most other states.  (Some years they have been the very lowest.)  If money makes all the problems go away, then why hasn’t it worked in D. C.?  No answer.

     I wonder why!