Anyone with a science degree need not apply.
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Unless it is a Creation Science Degree.
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It all goes to intent. The Japanese proposal was intended to create greater community awareness and pride amongst children. Gingrich’s proposal was intended as a way to save taxpayers money on the backs of children.
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The answer to this nonsense is to have so many people submit complaints, about as many possible pieces of the curriculum as possible, that the office cannot function.
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So you have to be a resident to complain (we can’t flood them over the internet) you just don’t have to be a parent anymore (although I didn’t see any language preventing students from making complaints, so that’s going to be a procedural problem).
The law requires that schools set a procedure, and part of that procedure has to be sending things to someone who is not an employee of the school or the district to make a determination. I’m a little curious who is going to pay the person making the decision. Maybe they can get someone from the ACLU to volunteer?
The law isn’t really going to require school districts to censor materials. I imagine this is more about empowering minority voices within school districts to maybe get things done, or allowing people at a regressive office to make decisions that affect people at a progressive school. I would have no trouble working around this law if I were running a school or a school board and I had the support of those around me. If I didn’t have the support of some of my colleagues things could get rough.
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Win back the states!
We need to win back the states from these knuckle draggers. 50 States all blue and past blue. New Jersey needs politically look like Sweden in 10 years.
Ah, but intent shouldn’t matter to me. The facts of the policy should matter.
I’ve seen lots of stupid policy with the highest of intents (much of it proposed by me). Surely I should be able to see what is actually proposed and evaluate that. Well, I’d like to be able to. Not sure I can.
That is indeed true, and reason why I wouldn’t want him to implement such a policy - but the arguments that I instantly make against his stated policy are all, in fact, arguments that would apply equally to exactly what I approved of.
I can’t really escape the fact that who is saying something and how they frame it, is far more important to me than the substance of what they say. There’s a fair bit of truth to the fact that how a policy makes me feel is more important than the impact on people’s actual lives. Something I need to remain aware of.
A policy is instituted with specific outcomes in mind. Sometimes those outcomes don’t work out (sometimes for the better), but that’s a separate issue. The starting point is intent, whether it’s high or low.
Put another way, the simplified progression is: Intent → Plan → Execution → Outcome . The part least subject to modification by circumstances or practicalities is intent. If the intent is low and mean and those drafting and executing the policy are competent, most of the time the outcome will be low and mean, too. If there are beneficial effects, the policymaker will consider those externalities…
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I think the issue is that since people make decisions based on heuristics that build in all kinds of subconscious information, the feeling of the policy - which is handed down from policy makers to the people who implement the policy - ends up affecting the facts of it.
A policy that is all about teaching kids to respect janitors because they do important and hard work is very different from a policy that is all about saying, “Who needs janitors, get the kids to do it.” What is written down - children will mop the halls - might be exactly the same, but the kids will pick up on the attitude towards that that is built into the system. Fundamentally you have one policy that is about valuing janitors and one policy that is about discarding them as human garbage.
There’s room for a brilliant administrator or teacher to take a Gingrich policy and say, “I’m going to use my own attitude to transform this from a bad thing to a good thing for the kids!” It makes me think of Life is Beautiful. Sure, we can say the human spirit can triumph over anything, but in reality each person is limited* and mostly they will not do so.
So if such a policy was brought in, I’d love it if people running schools found a way to transfigure it into a positive experience for the children based on the Japanese model. But what I’d really love is not having politicians shovel metaphorical shit on schools that the schools need to find a way to clean up.
* “Limited” isn’t an insult here, it’s a reality. We are physical things that only have so much capacity, not magical beings of unlimited atomic willpower.
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No!! Not my Bible!!
It is Florida…
have to repeat
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I may be wrong, but I’m not seeing the law stating that the hearing officer gets to make the final determination. It appears that the school board would make the final decision after the hearing officer conducts the hearing. Of course, we still end up with a cumbersome process, but I’m not sure it’s the one the WaPo article is reporting. Am I wrong?
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I’ve reread the law and you appear to be correct. It says the schoolboard will make a determination and that they must hold a public hearing with an unbiased officer. I can’t see it saying anywhere that the officer makes the determination. It looks like they are there to oversee procedure and make sure everyone gets their turn to present.
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