1. You have a very odd definition of “singled out.”

2. The chance of that kid reading this blog is very close to zero.

3. Even if he or she did read this, he or she might not recognize it as his or her work.

4. Even if he or she did recognize it, he or she would get over it very quickly. High school students are not babies, even if we often treat them that way.

5. You wouldn’t appreciate your child’s work being posted, even without a name? Tough. A parent’s disapproval is not a trump card.

6. I show examples of good and bad student work in class all the time. I’m sure many teachers do — it is called effective teaching.

7. MOST importantly, all human actions have costs and benefits. An action is justified if the benefits outweigh the costs. Yet, you seem to be arguing: A) What I did has a potential cost; B) Therefore, it was wrong. Uh, what about the potential benefits? Are they zero? Obviously not. There is enormous potential benefit to people realizing that students in OUSD are getting “A”s despite being unable to write a coherent sentence. Thus, since the potential benefits of posting the sample outweigh the potential costs thereof, there is nothing wrong with posting the sample.

in (partial) defense of the student, she is not attempting to make a political argument. Instead, she is attempting to make an historical argument about the degree to which Fascists valued the needs and interests of the group over those of the individual. of course she then starts talking about Marxism instead, so perhaps she means to show that Fascism and Marxism are equally dismissive of individual interests. But then, she goes off into an endless and repetitive tangent about why lower class people found Marxist ideas appealing.

That was my original point — the writing is a mess (and there are 5 more pages just like it). I know what she is trying to say, and I still can’t figure out what she means, or why she strings those particular sentences in that particular order.

As for whether teachers give grades based on political content: I think that happens, but it tends to be more a function of the types of assignments are given. They tend to ask students to, for all intents and purposes, tell the reader how he or she “feels” about global warming, or the Holocaust, or globalization. Well, as the old saying goes, “If you are 18 and a conservative, you don’t have a heart. If you are 50 and a liberal, you don’t have a brain.”

Now, I am personally a liberal (albeit only 49) so I am skeptical of the 2nd part, but the 1st part has a lot of truth to it. So, if you ask a kid a “heart” based question, you are going to get a pretty liberal answer.

On the other hand, if you ask a more analytical question, you will get a wider range of answers. One of my students wrote something sorta kinda like, “the Fascists had some good ideas, but they went too far.” That’s a whole lot more insightful than the normal, “heart” based and superficial argument that “Fascists were evil,” which is something that a 5th grader could write, and hence should not be acceptable at the high school level.

Unless what he has done is clearly prohibited – it’s his discretion. He has a point about the writing. I do wonder if this isn’t how students are being taught to write by many teachers.

I am informed that high school teachers and many college instructors are grading on the political content of a given writing more than most other factors. (anybody have info on this??) The passage quoted looks like typical political writing by a child. This must result in shocks for those rad-lib students who wind up in law school where you really are expected to be able to defend the devil with equal zeal. The devil gets a fair chance to win in legal argument.

It’s too bad. We do no favor to young people to raise them as a bunch of Soviet style brats. They’re not competitive in the Brave New World.

I did not mean to imply that refusing to meet after school or at lunch is unprofessional; I meant that demanding pay for everything extra minute is unprofessional. And I was really addressing my comment to those who argue that teachers should be treated “as professionals.”

Nextset: I think it was I, not Cranky, who said that the student work is poor.

Everyone: Gimme a break. Posting a student writing sample without a name is technically illegal? I suppose there is some crazy judge out there who has said so, but I, like Nextset, would like to see a citation for that. The Supreme Court has held that it is OK for a student to grade another student’s paper (WITH a name on it), so I am skeptical. But, even if it is technically illegal, is it really “shocking”? Come on.

Finally, the writing is clearly awful. One reason that kids write poorly is that teachers give smiley faces for such silliness as “having a strong voice,” which is a close to meaningless as one can get. Moreover, the sample barely makes sense. And I don’t know what”developing an understanding of systems” means, or how it is relevant to the simple issue of whether Fascists considered group or individual needs to be paramount (which is ostensibly the topic of the student’s paragraph).

You may have a point on “best practice”. To go further than that and claim it’s a violation “of law” you need to cite your authority. Especially when you now demand censorship.

Censorship is always the first resort of liberals. They really want to be facists.

As far as your comment that the student in question had “…a strong “voice” and was developing an understanding of systems.” Well, maybe you hand out grades like candy for people whose politics you approve of. Cranky apparently doesn’t and goes for objective standards of writing. The writing doesn’t pass his cut.

Grades are not to be handed out on the basis that the scoring teacher thinks the student might do better next time. Is that what you want?

I’d prefer grading be done as it was in law school (and the bar) – test booklets are numbered and any identifying marks would be considered cheating. Teachers shouldn’t be covering for pets who don’t measure up.

You made many really good points in your posting about professionalism and all the baggage that goes along with it. Thank you for the reflection and careful wording that went into that posting.

I was also shocked by posting of student work; doing so without permission constitutes a breech of FERPA, a decades old federal law protecting student privacy. While I am not an AP English (SS?) teacher, when I read that, I felt as though that student had a strong “voice” and was developing an understanding of systems. They certainly did not deserve to have their work publicly shamed, regardless of the quality of their work.

Katy, that posting should be removed immediately.

So I don’t think it’s useful or appropriate to use them in public education. You will probably disagree – it’s just one person’s opinion here and I feel as free to express this as you are in touting SPLC.

In order for the public schools to retain support fo the taxpayers (and employers)- which is lacking – it is best that rad-lib politics not be flaunted in the public schools. It’s probably much too late to talk about that now, the die is cast it seems.

The public schools exist to prepare students particularly the lower class, for competitive careers in industry, military and higher education. The public secondary schools do not exist to indoctrinate students that they are supposed to “tolerate” every type of activity and eccentricity, every foreign incursion and every demand that some people live and be maintained on the public treasury, every new and improved “right” for criminals and most particularly the notion that everyone is forced under pain of law to associate with and tolerate everyone else no matter what.

Taking public education from training and instruction in language, science, math and research and using it for political indroctrination is a good way to get yourself defunded. Which is exactly what’s happening. The educrats have only themselves to blame for the dissafection they are engendering with the taxpayers.

Again I compare the standing of Piedmont Unified and such districts (public Ivy’s) and OUSD and such ghetto identified districts.

If OUSD kept rad-lib politics out of the schools and ruthlessly pursued discipline, academic success and the employability of it’s students maybe you wouldn’t be facing so many pink slips as you are now. You are abandoned by the taxpayers and the voters.

Rather than complain about bias the schools might try adopting a motto used by another educational institution: We do not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate amoung us those that do. And maybe expand things from there. You’d find that students brought up with such intolerances make better employees.