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Your (kids') schools are run by idiots, facsists, and maybe pedophiles.
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I mean, it's not surprising that a forum whose population is overwhelmingly dominated by younger males would have a meta-beef against institutional authority figures. It's still somewhat disturbing, though.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
The starting assumption for educators in general and school administration in particular seems that they are at best well-meaning lobotomy cases and more likely jerks that took the job specifically for the chance to ruin childhoods. This isn't my (obviously anecdotal) experience, and it's definitely not the impression I get now that I'm actively researching the educational system. It seems to be purely a construct of youth rebellion baggage and association error when looking at the news.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
Again, three high schools, three districts, two states.
One had a policy of pressing charges against all parties involved in any altercation, regardless of any witness statements or circumstances. Somebody walks up and punches you in the face, and you push them away? Assault charge, let the court figure it out. Yeah, it's awesome that an administration would completely avoid at all trying to deal with any events that took place in their school, and instead introduce 15-year-olds to the criminal justice system for defending themselves.
On a personal note, in another school I ran into a principal who gave me detention for swearing. Why was I swearing? Because, as an eight grader, three juniors (yay 7-12 mixed Jr/Sr high school) were chasing my down the hallway to (at least according to them) kick my ass. Yes, these students were seen chasing me by the same teacher that reported me. But, apparently because they hadn't actually kicked my ass yet they were not his concern. So I get punished, they do not. Awesomesauce.
And lastly, banning shorts in Phoenix. Gotta love Mormon administrators. Beyond that, same high school wasn't going to let a kid walk at graduation in the ceremony because he was a couple credits short...of course, he was a couple credits short because he had dropped out of school for several semesters to fight cancer. He'd worked his ass off, gone in summer, and he was already scheduled to pick up those last credits the coming summer. No matter. Policy's a policy, says the administration, their hands are tied...no student without X credits can walk in the graduation ceremony (note that nobody was asking them to actually hand him a diploma). Oh, wait, that's not true...doesn't seem to be a problem for foreign exchange students. But oh well.
That last one led to a riot. Literally. With marching, riot cops blocking streets, the whole nine yards. Apparently it was on CNN.
So, three out of three.
I could also write a novella about the terrible, terrible fucktards that ran schools in my wife's district (she was a teacher for five years). Most of that was at the elementary level (she was an elementary teacher) so it doesn't have as obvious an "impact" to most people. However a lot of it probably set kids up for failure from a pretty early age, so maybe it's even worse.
And that's beyond the "zero tolerance" policies that have become standard across the country. You know what should have "zero tolerance" policies? Actual firearms, and (maybe) actual illicit drugs. Not Midol, not obvious squirt guns. But again, administrators who don't have the balls to do their fucking jobs, so they enact blanket policies that take away the need to.
And again, this isn't aimed at educators. On that end, abject incompetence or downright malice is the exception, most are decent people who care.
Ha. Not to turn this into a cop thread, but that's also a well-deserved reputation. And again, aside perhaps from Thanatos, most of us are willing to say that a majority of cops don't commit heinous acts against the citizens they're supposed to protect. Merely that most of them, if/when they see such acts, do nothing to stop it (and, in most cases, work to actively cover it up). That's been shown time and time again. You want to talk about isolated acts of individuals? Serpico is the exception, not the rule. And yeah, I've known tons of cops (being in the Guard), and every last one has personally told me (or me as part of a group) stories of abusing their position. We're talking well over a dozen cops, different departments, different states. Every last one.
Some occupations have a perception of incompetence or corruption for a reason. And part of the reason they get away with it is because people like you are always willing to jump to their defense. Usually because either A) they are or desire to be in the same profession or B) they have friends or family in the same profession. Well, here's hoping you or those you know are one of the few decent ones, because yes most of us will admit they exist. Odds aren't good, though, so take a long hard look.
And I'm not "jumping" to the defense of anyone. If anything, this is something that's been building for years watching people take shots at the education system and everyone involved in it on these forums. People occasionally do stupid things, and far be it from me to defend stupid acts, but the profile associated with any minor fuck up at a school is orders of magnitude higher than it would be in the private sector. Admittedly, there's a reason for that, and people who work in education need to be held to higher standards because of the importance of what they do for our society. My issue really starts when the assumption is that the best case scenario for the people that are in charge of making sure our kids are learning is that they're malice-neutral baboons that are going to ruin lives unintentionally instead of the standard evil mustachioed villains that are actively eroding the rights of our youth.
That's a fucked up view of the realities of our educational system that I'm not going to condone. Especially given the thousands upon thousands of people in that field that do great jobs every day and are subsequently ignored because of it.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
The thing is, computers are the one thing where help is provided almost every step of the way without needing outside assistance. If I don't understand how to work a car, I'm gonna need someone to show me how. A computer, on the other hand, has help buttons located just about everywhere, and everything is labeled pretty clearly. Hell, there is a "start" button for crying out loud. As long as you go into it *wanting* to learn how to use it, you will be able to. The only people who feel like computers are alien technology are those who don't want to use them but feel like they have to for a job or something.
Currently Playing: Battlefield 3 Premium, FFXIII-2
All I can say is that the schools are what society made them to be. It sucks that schools have, for example, a policy that says you hand out equal punishment in a fight regardless of what actually happened. But you know what you get when you don't have that? You get stories about how black kids always get thrown in jail if they fight at school, whereas the white kids get off with a summary judgment of "boys will be boys." If you give an administratior the common sense authority to determine whether it was a brawl or one kid trying to defend himself from an aggressor, unfortunately the common sense he has may be fraught with complications and prejudices. And even if it isn't, someone else might claim it is anyway. In the end, in order to get on with your day and actually educate without a lawyer reviewing your every step, you have to take a zero-tolerance approach to situations. Society is fickle and emotional and unforgiving if you don't.
In this particular case, I think if there is foul play, it will likely be an overzealous or somewhat disturbed IT guy, and not necessarily something indicative of school administrators. It still boggles my mind to believe that an administration would have actually thought it best to covertly and randomly monitor children in their homes.
The laptops thing is something that a lot of schools are going to these days. The push to prepare students for a technology saturated job market is strong enough that it's going to be something that you'll see just about anywhere that can afford it in the next decade or so, assuming some other form of technology integration doesn't upend it. The real problem is that things are changing so fast that the people who are developing the cirricula for schools with computers grew up well before such things were even a possibility, so they don't really have the same instincts regarding it that they would something like direct math instruction. It's trial and error even moreso than almost any other instructional technique, even though the need for it is pretty much universally recognized at this point, and the issues and success rates we're seeing for it are reflecting that.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
If not, I'll assume you're a self interested prick who doesn't give half a crap about your students or your teachers until you show otherwise.
While I agree that a teaching background is a great asset, I think we need to recognize that the administration skills aren't the same as teaching skills.
However, in my experience management that has production experience tends to be superior. Whether that's administrators who have taught, or CEOs who have worked on the factory floor.
Then again, in the places I'm looking to teach there aren't likely to be any that were hired directly to administrative positions. In fact, I'm probably going to be more qualified on paper than whoever winds up overseeing me. Inner city schools aren't known for their ability to attract highly sought after applicants.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
It's more about initial perception than absolute quality.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/25/school-administrator.html
Lower Merion is one of the richest towns (defined as areas with 20k+ population) in the US. Mean household income is ~$185k, higher than Bethesda, MD or Beverly Hills, CA. Per-student spending in the school district is ~$23k.
Frankly, it's surprising that they got "just" plain ol' Macbooks and not Pros or Airs or something. A $1000 Macbook (the SD bought 2620 laptops for $2.6 million) is just 4% of spending for a single student in a single year.
*Looks at DC school system and beats head against desk*
That's not nearly the same thing that was going on in PA. Here, the kids themselves are turning the webcams on and the administrators are just viewing what is on their screen. I'm okay with them doing this since its during school and the kids are supposed to be studying and not editing their myspace or facebook pages. But in PA, where they are not just checking out what students have on their screens at home, but also actively turning their webcams on and spying on them is a huge breach of privacy.
Currently Playing: Battlefield 3 Premium, FFXIII-2
Hey dawg, how 'bout some context? Like how this article is about a guy who is talking about monitoring laptop use during school hours and on school grounds (since it's on the school network)?
This I'm okay with. It's on school grounds, using school property, and the line is rather clear on students doing things they should / shouldn't be doing.
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
The fuck do you expect when school funding is tied to property taxes?
There are some things that make sense to be funded by property taxes (roads and other infrastructure for instance, fire/emergency services/law enforcement to a certain extent) . Schools are not one of them
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
Assuming, of course, that students and their families are fully informed about the monitoring, the rules are clear and the students don't have to use the school laptops. And assuming that the people doing the monitoring aren't dicks. Somebody who brags on national TV that he uses laptop monitors to "mess with" the students is both too stupid and too creepy to be allowed to work at a school.
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I dunno about the creepy part (just because children are involved doesn't mean the pedo flag has to be raised). He's certainly a silly goose for the bragging, but aside from that, what is the hypothetical harm of the monitoring in that specific case?
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
It's entirely possible to federalize school funding to the degree that there aren't massive disparities in school quality based on the tax bracket of their attendees. There's really no way to standardize having rich benefactors to pay for new computer labs or sporting equipment, though.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
On the other hand though, no school should have to rely on that sort of funding.
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
There's always busing. MA maintains a program where promising student attend schools in affluent communities and stay with host families during the week. It's not perfect, but it does mean there are schools rich enough to maintain multilevel special needs departments with minimal grumbling.
Come to think of it, doesn't baseball have some system where well funded franchises send money to the losers?
Busing hasn't exactly led to successful schools. And METCO and the like aren't a solution to bad schools, they're just lifeboats for talented poor minority students to go from bad schools in poor neighborhoods to wealthy suburbs with good schools. A better system would be to not have bad schools
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
What specific case? And it doesn't have to be sexual to be creepy.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100305_Two_tech_workers_sidelined_in_Web-cam_case.html?viewAll=Y&text=#comments
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8602327.stm
How does one come to the conclusion that the police should be called in over writing, not even engraving, on a desk? o_O
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums.
Old news though, unless the lawsuit is new.
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
Yeah, $1M in damages is a little absurd.
I'd love to see several million awarded punitively, though.
PA Lets Play Archive - Twitter - Blog
As in, even creepier than it already is.
The craziest and most parodoxical thing, though - despite the fact that we have a sensationalistic media obsessed with pedos, technological fears, and general hysteria regarding teenagers, very few people will hear about this case, and lots of them won't even care about it. Just like the girl who got strip-searched over some Tylenol. They had to take that all the way to the Supreme Court and even then I don't think anyone got fired over it.
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