Lower Merion Surveilled Students — Not a rare handful but 56,000 photos of Lower Merion students were taken by the school district’s laptop spy system over the last two years including those of the kids in various states of undress and in their beds.
Also, the websites they visited and online chats they made were also perused by district officials and appear to be the subject of faculty lounge gossip.
As the scandal runs its course probably one or two heads are going to roll at the Pennsylvania district in the Philadelphia suburbs but a whole lot of those tasked with educating the young and who think it quite appropriate to peek into their pupils privacy — for their own good, of course — will remain.
Meanwhile, at Maude Wilkins Elementary School in Maple Shade, N.J., a plan was cooked up to celebrate Women’s History Month by requiring third-grade boys to wear woman’s clothes to school for a day. Cheerleader outfits and poodle skirts were suggested.
The idea was killed by outraged parents but those who conceived and approved it remain.
In every state, children are indoctrinated not educated. They are given information that is often false and against their parents wishes. The propaganda is often not even subtle as this particular item handed out in a Texas classroom illustrates.
So what to do?
It’s time to start recognizing that education is too important to leave to those who are not interested in it, namely those who run our public schools. It’s time to start understanding that those who put roadblocks in the path of removing bad teachers are not interested in education. It’s time to start realizing that those who put roadblocks in the path of teachers who want to go beyond the work allowed by their contract are not interested in education.
In the case of Pennsylvania, it’s time to realize that those who refuse to teach or allow others to teach in their place are not interested in education.
The solution is to give parents the power to fire their teachers. This is the genius behind school choice. If teacher isn’t competent or fails to teach what had been contracted, the parent takes the voucher money and gives it to someone who does what is expected.
BTW, this gives the teacher the power to fire the student too, if you will. If the student is a bully who makes life miserable for the other customers, the teacher can and will tell the parent to take the voucher money and give it to someone else, perhaps a specialist in bullies.
America spends $972 billion on education. It’s time to stop wasting it and fire our public schools.
Vouchers! home schooling! cyber teaching! Let’s get America back on top in the education of our children.
I agree that public schools do have problems, and that there are a few teachers who don’t (care) about teaching, BUT I like public school so much better than private. I went to both public and private schools, and public schools have so many more class options, and you can express yourself by wearing what you want. In private schools, you have to wear the same thing, even though it DOES NOT make you all equal, and the teachers are very biased (my 5th grade religion teacher was always nasty to me just because I’m left handed). So yes, some public schools do a horrible job of teaching, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d go with a public school.