School daze
Zero-tolerance, zero clarity
Last week, I wrote about the battle between local and federal control over schools when it comes to reform. Another related issue recently in the limelight has been the rise of zero-tolerance weapon policies in schools and their unintended consequences. After the rash of school shootings in the late 1990s, many school districts adopted zero-tolerance policies. Irrespective of intent, the possession of weapons such as knives and guns spelled expulsion or suspension.
Today’s New York Times tells the story of Zachary Christie. Only six years old, he brought a “3-in-one” fork, knife, and spoon silverware set used for camping to school. Now he faces a disciplinary hearing that could result in a 45 day suspension.
The current debate has focused on the practical consequences of zero-tolerance policies. At a time when school violence has dropped across the board, expulsions and suspensions are way up all over the country–leading many to suggest that the most at-risk students are put at even greater risk as they exit the system. African-American students have been hit especially hard.
Whether or not they work, are zero-tolerance policies ethical?
Religious Holidays for Everyone!
How much is too much?
Marc may have opened liberalism’s pandora’s box last week when he asked what, exactly, religious freedom ought to require. We began with a well-known dilemma: is it fair that in the U.S., Christians are unencumbered from observing their holy days (holidays and the Sabbath) but most minority religions get no such help? Should Muslims get Fridays off? What about time to pray during the work or school day? And if so, have we not begun barreling down a slippery slope of accommodation?
Christopher Hitchens vents here about a recent New York City resolution to add two Muslim holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, to the city’s school calendar. Mayor Bloomberg has come out against the resolution, arguing that a religion needs to claim a large proportion of the student population before necessitating a mandatory school holiday, and that if this trend continues for all religions, there will hardly be any school days left.
No one reforms my kid’s education
No one but me
This isn’t a breaking news story, but something interesting from last week’s Wall Street Journal:
No education secretary has ever enjoyed anything close to Mr. Duncan’s level of funding. Aside from the Race to the Top fund, the administration has received about $5 billion for various school-improvement and innovation grants as part of the $787 billion federal stimulus package and the 2009 budget. Combined, all eight previous education secretaries had less than half as much in discretionary funding over 29 years.
Combined. Less than half combined. (Did I mention “combined?”)
The political battle lines on education are well-defined. A new movement of politicians (including Secretary Duncan and President Obama) have pushed for a revolutionary change in the way we organize schools. Ideas include merit-based pay, hiring and firing based on student performance, student incentives, charter schools and more. In some communities, parents have resisted what they see as government encroachment on their domain and teachers unions have waged an intense campaign to preserve a tenure based system that has served their members well.
What is the appropriate federal role? Sounding the clarion call for change or strong-arming struggling districts with control over vital cash?
The wall
We don’t need no mind control
Parents across the country have reacted harshly to President Obama’s plan to address America’s school children on Tuesday. MSNBC reports that the White House now plans to release the speech a full day in advance, perhaps in an attempt to assuage fears.
Fears of what? Obama’s speech is intended to “challenge students ‘to work hard, stay in school and dramatically reduce the dropout rate,’” according to the White House. But the lesson plans sent to local schools with tips like asking students to write letters on what they can do to “help the president” led talk show host Glenn Beck to claim the White House was pursuing “indoctrination.”
Does the president have the right to address the nation’s school children?
Out with the old
In today’s New York Times, Richard Dooling presents what can only be described (though not necessarily pejoratively) as a utilitarian view of healthcare:
With so much evidence of wasteful and even harmful treatment, shouldn’t we instantly cut some of the money spent on exorbitant intensive-care medicine for dying, elderly people and redirect it to pediatricians and obstetricians offering preventive care for children and mothers?
–Sam
How we feel versus what we do
In his column today, Nicholas Kristof references philosopher Peter Singer’s famous example of a drowning child to grapple with why several G-8 member countries fall short on their humanitarian aid pledges. Singer’s example first appeared in the landmark 1972 essay “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” in which Singer argued that failing to provide aid to then-East Bengal was tantamount to walking past a drowning child. Distance, argued Singer, does not lessen the moral necessity of action.
The question of how distance impacts moral obligations — if at all — has been hotly debated ever since. Yet Kristof’s response to why moral obligations seem to attenuate over distance raises a related, if not identical issue:
Who decides what’s best for children?
While doing background reading on Alexander Draper and Daniel Hauser - two children with serious medical conditions whose parents are/were accused of parental medical negligence - I unexpectedly came across a Newsweek article, a public radio broadcast, and a FoxNews.com article addressing the normative questions surrounding these two cases. There are, of course, many opinion pieces, but its unfortunate that only three news outlets found it worthwhile to explore the normative issues surrounding these cases.
At issue are a number of complex and interesting questions: Read more
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