If you can opt out, then you aren’t being forced to say it. And that teacher, while technically respecting that student’s choice to opt out, then proceeded to harass and harangue and use his authority as a teacher, including a bullshit pledge writing assignment, to punish that student for opting out. The lawsuit was over that, but the basis of the suit was still that you can’t force a student to say the pledge, and that teacher was trying to. And the teacher settled out of court because he knew he was going to lose. So the prohibition of mandatory pledge laws absolutely was why he lost.
ETA: I want to explain why I seem to be making a federal case out of this. I want everyone to understand that there is very clearly established case law from the US Supreme Court that says that public schools cannot force students to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Yes, they can make it where they have to formally opt out in writing, which is bullshit, but the point it…public schools nowhere in the United States can make reciting the Pledge 100% mandatory. And everyone needs to know this, so that if they find themselves living in some place that tries to, and they have kids in school there, they know they don’t have to put up with it. Authoritarian fascists are always going to try to force this shit down peoples’ throats at various times, but people need to know it’s not legal. So please stop saying it’s the law in some of these states, because it just isn’t.
The Xtianists see children and women as the chattel of their fathers and husbands. Really though, it’s all an expression of the toxic Strict Father Model of parenting.
Yep. When I became a teacher I was told by two separate school districts (one in LA County, the other in conservative OC) that we cannot force a student to recite the pledge. Yet the article from The Hill states:
The state of California requires the pledge to be recited, but leaves oversight to school districts.
I believe that’s the case in many places around the country… who wants to be paid shit to have to deal with shitty, right wing parents, some of whom will threaten your life for daring to teach their kids about reality…
There really is a nation-wide teacher shortage, due to retirements and people simply leaving the profession during the pandemic. That said, it’s a lot easier to find and hire good teachers in a district that ensures teachers are free to do their jobs.
Also remember corporate training departments and hr, even marketing, often consider people with degrees in education when they apply because the skills are relevant to the roles.
All the teachers I know have retired, switched to corporate, or are back in school to pursue grad school, move into law, accounting, something else, etc etc…
Or they’ve gone to work at private schools or are private tutors etc.
But what I mean no one I know who worked for the public schools wants to be doing that anymore with rare exception.
I never would think to blame them because I’ve seen/heard what they’ve been through!
the way things are it’s telling people to get a masters degree then refuse to take care of their own families, giving them some of the lowest wages in the state, exposing them to a potentially violent hostile workplace, and telling them that the only job they can do there anyway is to sit with a gun and smile while the kids watch whatever “educational” content the christofascists currently in power have approved for viewing.
It is painful for me to recall the only short story I ever wrote. It was 1974 and I took a writing class as a college elective.
The story was about a teacher, a young woman in her first year, who made it optional for her students to say the Pledge. She got in trouble with her her bosses and ostracized by the community. I can’t remember the ending.
I set it in the past with a hint of “we know better now, don’t we?” It got critiques that it was unrealistically melodramatic. Oh, ouch.
I don’t think I have a copy, and It wasn’t a good story anyway. But it’d be fascinating to see it today.
Write a time travel story in which your current self goes back to the past and brings your young self to the present to see what has become of everything.
I’m not sure how to achieve a happy ending from it.
If they are calling out dress code violations as such a major point, I suspect it doesn’t relate to minor infractions in pant length or T shirts prints.
Why do I suspect there is often a more discriminatory motivation. Perhaps against people of diverse genders?
Well I figured maybe it was the fact that she chose to wear pants at all, instead of a nice modest full-length skirt as would be expected of a proper lady.
FWIW: I grew up in Dick Armey’s congressional district during the Reagan era*, and after elementary school we never said the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each school day. (We probably did for something like graduation.) Weird (I think) that it wasn’t even a thing, there & then.
Or perhaps being in the belly of the beast (i.e. Armey’s slice of Reagan’s America) was sufficient and saying the Pledge was just overseasoning. (</s>)
You know, now that you say that, I graduated high school in Texas in 1987, and all my primary and secondary schooling was in Texas, and I don’t think we said the pledge after elementary school, either. Maybe junior high. We definitely didn’t in high school.
