Interesting… according to an article in yesterday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a school at which I taught from 2002-2004 was required to allow students to transfer to another school because they failed to make AYP for two years in a row. I wish I could say I was surprised, but after being taken to task for having standards that were too high and being blamed for schoolwide discipline issues when they occurred in my classroom, I just can’t say that I didn’t see that one coming.

I have problems with NCLB, and for all I know, the high number of Special Education students and ESOL students at my former school scoring low on standardized tests may be the reason they failed to make AYP. Thing is, there are more problems than test scores at some schools. Teacher morale at my particular former school was extremely low. I was absolutely miserable there. Even though I disagree with many of the finer points of NCLB, I hate to admit that after the shabby treatment I received by administrators at my former school, it gave me a sort of grim satisfaction to see them fail.

Rick Badie (free registration or BugMeNot) laments the loss of summer vacation, as all of Georgia’s public schools start by August 15:

That our kids return to school in a week. That Mom and Dad are already tax-free shopping for clothes and supplies, and that soon our kids will be prepping for high-stake tests.We’ve lost practically all of August. The traditional months of summer have been truncated. We get less true summer time to spend with Big Momma, see movies, have sleepovers, play basketball, read, and yes — succumb, even, to boredom. Our dog days of summer are spent in class, not poolside.

This year, all of the state’s public schools will open up by Aug. 15. Next Monday, Gwinnett’s 142,000 or so students join others returning to class in eight other city and county school systems in the Atlanta area. Some school systems, like those in Cherokee and Newton county, are already in school or start Monday.

While I don’t like starting this early either, I noticed that no mention was made of the fact that students are released around the third week of May, instead of June, and that in some places, longer breaks at Thanksgiving and in February have been instituted. I may be wrong, and someone please correct me if I am, but I don’t think the school year is actually longer. I think it just starts earlier.

And if that’s the case, why don’t Badie and his family sit by the pool and visit Big Momma in June and July? The weather in Georgia is actually a little more bearable in June than in August, in my opinion.

I guess to me, it doesn’t matter either way, but it is nice to end the first semester before winter break instead of having two weeks hang over after the break.

According to the Seattle Times, Shorewood High School in Shoreline, Washington recently shredded remaining copies of the student literary magazine and reprinted it minus a poem with an offensive expletive in the title. A 35-year veteran teacher of the district, Steve Kelly, was asked to step down as the magazine’s advisor.

Here is the poem, as reprinted by the Times:

My first (expletive) sure he claims he loves me
and holds me oh so tight
he makes me believe this is special
that he can hold on all night
he claims he isn’t pressuring me
but his hand is down my pants
temptation rises and I give in
he turns over
checks the time
gets up and drives me home
no kiss goodnight
no I love you
and no telephone call

— Zoya Raskina

In the 1988, the Supreme Court decided one of the most important cases involving student publications. Hazelwood High School’s newspaper, Spectrum, printed printed some articles about teenage pregnancy, including personal experiences of Hazelwood High School students. The administration decided to censor the articles, and the students fought the decision, as the expression goes, all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court decided in favor of the district:

In a 5-3 decision, the majority of the Court found that the students’ First Amendment rights had not been violated. The Court decided that Spectrum was part of the school curriculum and school administrators could control its content. The newspaper was not a “public forum” and school officials could impose “reasonable restrictions.”

Depending on your point of view, this decision may have overturned part of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, which asserted that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” According to David B. Rubin, an attorney who specializes in school law:

[O]ne of the main criteria in dealing with school censorship cases relates to what is called the “Tinker disruption standard,” that the Court outlined in the case’s ruling.”Students do have First Amendment rights to express themselves as long as it doesn’t interfere with the order of the school day,” Rubin explained. “The question is, does the student expression cause disruption in the school,” he stated. “Censorship issues depend on what is being said or expressed to whom, and in what context.”

Rubin noted that what is called the “forum issue” is the second criteria in deciding school censorship cases, namely whether student expression is part of a school function regulated by the school district, or whether it is entirely initiated by students.

“If it’s a school-sponsored function or forum, then school authorities have the right to set their own standards,” Rubin said. “The school districts have a certain leeway as to how vigorously they exercise their legal powers.”

Rubin clarified that schools must have “legitimate pedagogical [educational] concerns” when dealing with censorship issues.

Personally, I don’t see that the school crossed any lines. They exercised their right, according to the Supreme Court, to impose “reasonable restrictions” upon the content of the magazine. To be honest, were I the advisor of that magazine, I probably would not approve a student work containing that sort of profanity — and I think it is fairly clear what the “expletive deleted” was. I know many students and possibly teachers believe that is a violation of First Amendment Rights, but I don’t agree. By excising the poem, the school is not prohibiting the student from publishing her work elsewhere. And frankly, deciding what to publish is a right exercised by every publishing company in America — yet no one complains about not being given a voice if their work is denied publication by one house. They simply submit the work to another house.

I believe students should have access to reading material without censorship. I don’t agree with preventing access to works of literature. However, I also don’t think the school is necessarily required to provide students an outlet for their work, especially if it might be considered offensive. In my opinion, the school district needs to consistently enforce its own rules about censorship, which the article implies it has not done, and the magazine advisor should have used, well, a little bit of common sense. Technically, he didn’t lose his job, and there are schools in America that would have fired him for this — teachers have lost their jobs over similar issues. Cissy Lacks, a 25-year veteran teacher was fired from the Ferguson Florissant School District in Missouri for allowing students to use expletives in dialogue written for drama exercises. She was ordered reinstated by a jury, but her school district appealed, and her reinstatement was overturned. The Supreme Court refused to hear her case. Considering the precedent the Cissy Lacks case established, Steve Kelly is fortunate.

Sources: Objectionable Content vs. Freedom of Expression: Battles of School Censorship and FileRoom.org — Cissy Lacks, high school teacher