Who controls school curriculum..school boards, mayors, or private management companies?

[madfloridian]

Or do the "community" standards and beliefs override all else? And what is the role of the teacher in all this.

I posted about a court ruling in which the court justified the firing of a teacher who injected some of her own ideas into her classroom.

"Only the school board has ultimate responsibility for what goes on in the classroom, legitimately giving it a say over what teachers may (or may not) teach in the classroom," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, said in its opinion.

The decision came in the case of an Ohio teacher whose contract was not renewed in 2002 after community controversy over reading selections she assigned to her high school English classes. These included Siddhartha , by Herman Hesse, and a unit on book censorship in which the teacher allowed students to pick books from a list of frequently challenged works, and some students chose Heather Has Two Mommies, by Leslea Newman.

A group of 500 parents had petitioned the school board against the teacher, demanding "decency and excellence" in the classroom. When I was teaching I might have been tempted to present the censored books list as an enlightening learning experience. I knew in our area a teacher would not get away with the book about two mommies. However it was in our school library, and once the librarian read it at story time. But a teacher just couldn't do it.

That teacher did not deserve to be fired. Whether she should or shouldn't have done those things...discuss it and have varied opinions. But firing her?

Well, I really was reeling over the comments after my post. The thought that teachers might be able to go off-script in the classroom brought on varied attacks. I even agree the teacher might have gotten her job back if she filed the suit differently, but the fact remains that she should never have been fired.

So that is what made me wonder who would be setting curriculum in the future as the privatization moves along so quickly.

I remembered the school board in Polk County, Florida, along the I-4 Corridor across the center of the state. They were in charge of the agenda in that county. Look what they believed.

Polk County, Florida: "Shaping children's minds to meet the demands of the 19th century."

That phrase was from a letter to the editor of the Lakeland Ledger in 2007.

Now that in a majority sampling of the Polk County School Board has indicated that a biblical explanation or creation should be taught along with evolution in science classes, I would like to humbly suggest a few other minor changes in the county. First, let's change all the road signs coming into the county to read, 'Welcome to Polk County — turn your clocks back 100 years.' Second, let's have the school motto changed to say: 'Shaping children's minds to meet the demands of the 19th century.'

One has to wonder what has happened to the constitutional provision for the separation of church and state. I suppose the School Board will have to edit that out of civics classes just to be on the safe side.

I posted this also in 2007 about the school board.

The School Board, self-explanatory.

LAKELAND |A majority of Polk County School Board members say they support teaching intelligent design in addition to evolution in public schools.

Board members Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers said they oppose proposed science standards for Florida schools that lists evolution and biological diversity as one of the "big ideas" that students need to know for a well-grounded science education.
Board member Kay Fields said last week she wants intelligent design, which is promoted by some Christian groups, taught in science classes in addition to evolution.

There was another letter to the editor printed about that time.

In order to ban evolution from the classroom, creationists would have to ban all science. They would also have to live with the realization that they would thereby relegate our children to ignoramuses compared with students in other countries.

There was a time when scientists such as Galileo were considered heretics and were threatened with death for daring to assert, for example, that Earth moves around the sun. This black mark on our civilization is called the Dark Ages, and civilization did not pull out of it until the Enlightenment when scientific inquiry was again allowed free rein.

Creationists would take us back to those dark times by invoking religious authority to ban the promulgation of scientific discoveries. Heaven help us if they succeed.

Most teachers believed in the scientific standards to be finally demanded by the state. Not the school board.

I see the new trend to allow taxpayer money to go to religious charter schools. I wonder who decides the curriculum? Do you remember the teacher in a Florida private religious school who was fired for having pre-marital sex before her wedding? They even counted the months when her baby was born. She married the guy.

Well, that religious private school gets a lot of money in the form of vouchers. Vouchers that huge corporations big tax breaks, that keeps that tax money from going to public schools.

Back to the article about the Polk County School board members...one of the ones who said he would support the science standards added a caveat.

"You're talking about separation of church and state," O'Reilly said. "I believe in intelligent design personally, but the court has ruled against it. We cannot break the law if it is set down before us."

What about the charters run by private management most of which bypass local school boards? Who sets the curriculum, who fires the teachers?

What about the large cities like Chicago and New York City in which the mayor has the final word on school management. Will they fire teachers easily for having varied points of view?

Several people in the court case thread said that teachers were there to do the bidding of their employers, that they had no right to free speech in the classroom. I believe there have to be exceptions to that in education.

Imagine a classroom with a teacher so fearful of crossing an imaginary curriculum line in the sand. Imagine the caution in answering sincere questions of children. It's hard, I've been there. Some questions you deflect, some must be answered honestly. You can't always pass on honesty and truth to suit a community with closed minds.

To me it sounds as though the intelligence of the teacher doesn't matter, her education doesn't matter.

If the community standards include (as do the ones in our area) bigotry toward gays, anti-choice views toward women....does that mean a teacher who expresses a sympathetic view such areas could be fired?

Does it mean the bigotry of a community dictates the education the children will receive?

Scary thought.

[Starry Messenger]

1. k & r

[madfloridian]

5. ...

Appreciated.

:hi:

[Jamastiene]

2. K&R

[madfloridian]

4. I see your sig pic for Elaine Marshall.

How is she doing? I think we donated to her before through DFA.

[Jamastiene]

14. She is a few points behind Burr right now.

She has two solid votes in this house. My aunt just said she specifically wanted to vote for Marshall and Kissell more than anything else in this election too. I guess she has heard me talking about them. That have to be the most favorite state level Democrats I have ever had here in NC, along with Gov. Perdue.

Here's hoping for the best outcome possible.

[madfloridian]

3. More on this subject. A teacher defended himself in class...

over being called an ugly name by a second grader. At least the school ended in backing up the teacher, thank goodness. But the school was picketed because he defended himself. How sad. But things like this go on so much. How can we muzzle the mouths of teachers in the classroom to such an extent?

http://www.minnpost.com/learningcurve/2010/10/26/22698/court_rulings_offer_guidance_but_clarity_on_teachers_speech_rights_remains_elusive

[madfloridian]

6. Interesting article at Ed Week on stripping teachers of right to speak in class.

Again goes to community standards. Where is there to be a line drawn? Imagine a class where teachers are fearful of expressing an opinion, but students are free to do so with impunity.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2010/10/freedom_of_speech_for_teachers_does_not_exist.html

"This is not the first time that freedom of speech for teachers has been undermined by the courts. On Oct. 1, 2007, in Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court denied a hearing to Deborah Mayer, who was fired after a parent complained about her remarks to her class. One of her students in her grades 4-6 class at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington, Ind. on the eve of the Iraq war asked if she would participate in a peace rally. She replied: "I honk for peace." She also told her students during the same weekly current events discussion that "People ought to seek out peaceful solutions before going to war."

The Monroe County Community School Corp. denied that she was not rehired because she expressed an unpatriotic opinion about the war, maintaining instead that she was a bad teacher. It said that parents began complaining about her in Oct. 2002, long before her Jan. 10, 2003 remarks. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held that "The First Amendment does not entitle primary and secondary teachers, when conducting the education of captive audiences to cover topics, or advocate viewpoints, that depart from the curriculum adopted by the school system."

Both cases make it clear that teachers are essentially hired hands who are expected to toe the line on policies. In the past, teachers have won their cases only when they were able to show they were punished for violating policies that school officials either never explained to them or concocted after the fact.

Ironically, the U.S. Supreme Court has been more involved in upholding the free speech rights of students. In Tinker v. Des Moines School District, for example, the high court wrote in 1969 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." (In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court modified its ruling in Morse v. Fredericks, aka "Bong Hits 4 Jesus.")

[sulphurdunn]

7. Good teaching

is a subversive activity.

[madfloridian]

8. Teaching is just plain risky now.

Having to walk on so many eggshells.

[MedicalAdmin]

10. No sane person would enter teaching at this time.

It would be insane. As a former teacher and current administrator (of a medical clinic) I am asked occasionally by young adults if I would recommend teaching as a career.

I tell them absolutely not. Get a professional degree and then if you want to teach, teach. But don't put all your eggs in the teacher basket, because either a parent, a spineless administrator or a fundie school board will stomp on your basket until you are nothing but unemployed scrambled eggs.

So kids, listen to your uncle Wolfgang and don't do teaching. Just say no to dead end careers.




Not that I'm cynical or anything.

[madfloridian]

11. You are right.

They are taking away any sense of respect teachers could feel about themselves, taking away their job security.

[madfloridian]

9. District had purchased the books mentioned in the first case.

Yet the court found the teacher could be fired for using them.

"The nutshell version: A parent complained, the school initially backed the teacher, 500 angry parents packed a school board meeting, and despite the fact that the district had purchased the books in question for use in the classroom, the district crumbled. Citing problems with “communications and teamwork,” it sacked Evans-Marshall. In 2003, she sued, alleging her First Amendment rights had been violated.

The case spent the last seven years bouncing back and forth between the district court, which initially agreed to the district’s request to dismiss it, and the appellate court, which in 2005 refused to throw the case out, noting at that time that it appeared that Evans-Marshall's termination was "due to a public outcry engendered by the assignment of protected material that had been approved by the board."

Summary judgment granted to the district
Last week, the appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling granting summary judgment to the district. The reasoning: “When a teacher teaches, the school system does not regulate that speech as much as it hires that speech. Expression is a teacher's stock in trade, the commodity she sells to her employer in exchange for a salary. And if it is the school board that hires that speech, it can surely regulate the content of what is or is not expressed, what is expressed in other words on its behalf."

http://www.minnpost.com/learningcurve/2010/10/26/22698/court_rulings_offer_guidance_but_clarity_on_teachers_speech_rights_remains_elusive

So in this case the prejudices of the community won out even over material the district itself had purchased.

[Jefferson23]

12. K&R

[Shireling]

13. MadFloridian

I responded to the other post about this.

Again, I can't understand the ignorance of people. "Siddhartha" is such an enlightening book by Herman Hesse, a wonderful author whose writings were much read and contemplated during the 60s and 70s. He is a brilliant person, and the students were done a great service for having been exposed to him, especially in this very shallow and empty society that we now live in.

It is scary what is happening to education. If students aren't challenged to think for themselves, I guess we will just be a society that "does as its told". I can only guess that must be the goal.

Thanks for all of your postings.

You are helping to keep us awakened. So many of us have gone to sleep.

:hippie:

[Fire1]

15. OHIO??? LOL!! Time space continuum. She should have

known better. Sometimes, righteous indignation can cost you.