Saints Preserve Our Kids - And Us - From The Public School System

Grab a fresh cup of coffee. This morning's post is a lengthy one.

Some of my research is conducted using social science methodologies. There is a saying in that field that "anecdotes are not evidence" (corollary: the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"). Nevertheless, anecdotes can be useful for illustrating certain aspects of the phenomenon under investigation.

I have little use for the public education system in this country as currently implemented. The following anecdotes will illustrate why. (Earlier version here).

Anecdote # 1:

Remember the ruckus a week or so ago about the Food Nazis inspecting school kids' lunches? Well, there's more.

Federal regulators, fresh off a contentious nutritional overhaul of U.S. school meals that replaced fried chicken patties with chef salads, are now preparing the first standards for snacks, sodas and other foods sold outside of regularly scheduled lunch and breakfast. That means vending machines, concession stands and ... PTA fundraisers ... may be forced to cut back the calories.

“We have Washington deciding if you can hold a bake sale,” Utah state Representative Ken Ivory, a Republican, said in an interview. “They’ve overstepped their bounds.”

Based on guidelines in the law, changes ... may affect schools’ activities clubs or sports teams that resell purchased goods, such as candy bars and other sweets (cookies) to help pay for supplies...

Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington consumer advocacy group ... said “There’s no need to sell a candy bar when you could sell calendars or light bulbs or fruit baskets.”

Are these people for real? They're already cramming CFLs down our throat in place of incandescent bulbs - CFLs, which supposedly have a 10-year life. Why on earth would we need to buy them from school kids, at least for the next decade or so? And calendars? I get more of those than I can use every year from the organizations I donate to. Or fruit baskets? FRUIT BASKETS?!? What world are these loons from?

Anecdote # 2:

Zero Tolerance Equals Zero Common Sense

A girl who borrowed a friend’s asthma inhaler at school has now been expelled.

For 10 days Breana Crites and Alyssa McKinney sat at home while suspended from school. The two were in gym class. Crites complained of trouble breathing, so McKinney lent out her asthma inhaler.

“I know what it feels like not to being able to breathe and I know how hard it is and I just took that into consideration,” McKinney said.

“I think absolutely the suspension was appropriate,” Superintendent John Borman told CBS4 in January.

School policy forbids the sharing of any prescription drug.

“The lesson that I learned from this is not to help people, because helping people is just going to get yourself in trouble,” McKinney said.

“You work so hard your whole life to instill good morals into your children only for the school to break them,” Tim McKinney said.

“What they both did was human nature. My daughter was being a good Samaritan. Her friend was having an asthma attack,” he said.

Zero tolerance is a crutch for lazy and cowardly school administrators. It allows them to hide behind rules and regulations, so they don't have to exercise judgement and make a decision for which they might be held accountable.

Cowards...

Anecdote # 3:

It's not just the U.S. Our friends to the North can be just as misguided.

A Kitchener father is angry at police after he was arrested at his child’s school and later strip-searched at the police station, all because his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun in class.

The school principal, police and child welfare officials, however, all stand by their actions. They say they had to investigate to determine whether there was a gun in Sansone’s house that children had access to.

Sansone said he went to pick up his three children on Wednesday and was summoned to the principal’s office, where three police officers were waiting. They said he was being charged with possession of a firearm.

He was escorted from the school, handcuffed and put in a cruiser. At the same time, other officers went to his home, where his wife and 15-month-old child were waiting for him.

They made his wife come to the police station while the other three children were taken to Family and Children’s Services to be interviewed.

At the police station, Sansone was forced to remove his clothes for a full strip search.

Several hours later, a detective apologized and said he was being released with no charges, Sansone said.

The detective told him his daughter Neaveh had drawn a picture of a man holding a gun. When a teacher asked her who the man was, the girl replied, “That’s my daddy’s. He uses it to shoot bad guys and monsters.”

The school principal, Steve Zack, said a staff member called child welfare officials because the law requires them to report anything involving the safety or neglect of a child.

That's quite a stretch, from a 4-year-old's drawing to the conclusion that the child is neglected or in danger. It seems like the situation could have been handled a little less dramatically.

The sad - and scary - part is that the school officials probably feel all justified and self-righteous.

No word on how Sansone's wife and kids feel after they were dragged to the local hoosegow and saw their husband/father cuffed, frisked, and locked up.

Anecdote # 4:

Continuing the over-reaction theme, we have a mother who tried to practice a little tough love to make her 10-year-old understand that actions have consequences. She was arrested as a child abuser.

Valerie Borders, an Arkansas mom, made her 10-year-old son Nequavion walk to school after being suspended (for the fifth time) from riding the school bus. Was she congratulated? Nope. As per ABC News, Mom was charged with child endangerment and faces one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Let's unwrap the child abuse charges. KAIT says walk to school was longish (4.5 miles). A compassionate, public-spirited (or nosy, bored) bank security guard spotted the lad trudging to school and called the police.

Who, of course, arrested the mother.

I'm a little on the fence on this one. I applaud the mother for trying to teach her child that actions have consequences. I have no issue with the concerned citizen who called the police to check on the welfare of the child. But I do question the subsequent actions of the cops and lawyers. Yes, there are legitimate concerns about traffic, child molesters, and all those other frightening things. But to arrest and charge the mother? Since when did over-reaction replace common sense?

Sit down and talk with Mom and the kid. Figure out another way to teach the kid his much-needed lesson. Suggest a few guidelines for Mom to follow when disciplining the child. But jail? Child abuse charges? Talk about burning down the house to get rid of mice.

Anecdote # 5:

Finally, no foray into the muddled public school system would be complete without a little political correctness.

A teacher in the Chicago public school system intercepted a note from one student to another that included a quote from a rap song that used the n-word. The teacher incorporated the note - and the word - into his 6th grade anti-racism lesson, which he happened to be teaching at the time.

The school's principal "listened in on the lesson (which dove-tailed negative historical, literary, film and music references to blacks to show why the word is so problematic)."

There was no immediate reaction from the principal, so the teacher assumed there was no problem.

Guess again.

Two weeks later, Brown (the teacher) was suspended.

The principal, Gregory Mason, ... called Brown's lesson "cruel, immoral, negligent and verbally abusive." Brown is suing CPS, according to Fox Chicago News, saying this is damaging to his reputation, which it is.

The core of the matter is, as Brown put it, "We can't solve these issues if we can't discuss them"...

History can't be sanitized in retrospect and silencing issues negates them. Hiding from problems makes them loom larger.

The principal is black. The teacher is white. No word on what color the students are. None of that should matter anyway. Here's a perfect teaching moment, incorporating a real-world example into the lesson. It was done in a professional manner. And the teacher's reward for seizing the opportunity and truly educating his students?

Suspension, and the likely end of his teaching career. Who's going to hire someone branded as a racist?

Thank God my kids are almost out of this madness...