Parents Are Obstacles
Granted, this letter to the editor in the Strib about last week's incident at St. Louis Park High is from a "security employee" at a "neighboring" school. The incident - in which the superintendent closed the school due to rumor of a potential student attack, but told parents and the media that it was due to a "water main break" - was indicative of something that's all too common in public schools today; the idea that parents are an encumbrance that all too often get in the way of th experts.
The letter states the case well, in a sick sort of way:
As a security employee of a neighboring school district, I applaud St. Louis Park Superintendent Debra Bowers for making sure that the reported rumor of an upcoming violent act at her high school could be properly investigated without obstruction.
For parents to complain about the original reason given for canceling the school day is ridiculous. Who cares what they originally announced? Their intent all along was not to deceive the public, but rather to state the actual reason at a later time, after the rumor could be dispelled or an actual threat thwarted.
Bullshit.
I mean, who cares what their reasons were?
We, the parents, entrust our children every day to the school system (public, charter or private) - and the law says you have to, whether you want to or not (unless you are able to homeschool, which most of us aren't).
This does not mean I cede to the school the right to do my thinking for me. If my kids are, hypothetically, stuck in a building with a couple of thousand kids, any number of whom think it's a yuk to phone in a bomb threat, I'd like to know about this pattern of behavior.
Because then, were I a SLP High parent, I might reach the conclusion that a school that spends this much time reacting to student threats and practicing making kids sit in nice orderly rows for the convenience of any potential shooters "lockdowns" instead of whatever "learning" they have time for between unfunded mandates and PC indoctrination just might not be the place my kids should be, right?
The most important thing was to give the school and the police the ability to investigate the threat. To possibly obstruct the police investigation by revealing the threat would have been a terrible mistake.
Whoah, Barney Fife.
How is a parent going to "obstruct" the investigation? By charging past the yellow tape and getting arrested?
How in the hell does Barney Fife figure parents' knowing about the incident is going to set the police back?
I'd love to hear his "reasoning".
Parents should be happy that the superintendent took the action that she did. The school system did what was deemed necessary at the time. The school took the measures necessary to fulfill one of its main responsibilities, that of keeping students safe.
Rubbish.
Keeping parents in the dark does nothing to keep the students safe.
More importantly - much more importantly - the school's responsibility to keep the students safe does not, never, ever trump the parents' responsibilities in that area, nor their prerogatives.
Well done, Superintendent Bowers.
IRA GUREWITZ, ST. LOUIS PARK
Wrong.
What the superintendant did was unconscionable. But it was a sign of the arrogance that attends these sorts of people.
Parents are obstacles.
Posted by Mitch at
October 9, 2006 07:57 AM
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Hey, maybe it's not too late to blame the Foley thing on a water main break.
Posted by: angryclown at October 9, 2006 09:06 AMFunny how liberals -- so hungry to regain political power -- never stop to think that by overblowing the Foley scandal, they're contributing to the stereotype that gay men are more likely to be predatory sex offenders. What do you expect from the likes of angryfool?
Posted by: Spectator at October 9, 2006 10:56 AMHas it ever failed, that people who lie about the small things also lie about the big things? It's a bad sign.
If they didn't want to share details at the time, they could say it's their cautious response to a potential security problem, that may turn out to be nothing, details to come later.
Posted by: RBMN at October 9, 2006 12:00 PMAngryclown was unaware of that particular stereotype, Speculum. But he'll take your word for it. You far-right types are walking encyclopedias of nutty prejudices.
Posted by: angryclown at October 9, 2006 12:36 PMThat coming from AC, the commenting king of nutty prejudices.
Posted by: Ryan at October 9, 2006 01:31 PMIs that an Anal Speculum, AngryFool? Go figure. More of the anti-gay bashing.
Posted by: Spectator at October 9, 2006 02:33 PMExcellent specimen of liberlism 2006. The concept of honesty never crosses the writer's mind. Also, the deep faith in institutions and lack of faith in the common man, in this case parents.
I love it when liberals present their world view unvarnished. It makes it so much easier to defeat them.
To re-cap, this guy trusts the judgement of a lying government official over the judgement of a child's parents. He would have loved the Soviet Union.
Posted by: Tracy at October 9, 2006 04:08 PMI wasn't aware of that stereotype either. Statistics suggest that most sexual predators are straight white guys.
Posted by: Doug at October 9, 2006 04:10 PMThe difference between statistics and stereotypes...oh why bother.
Posted by: Spectator at October 9, 2006 04:51 PMDoug is making the point that people in the reality-based community are more likely to base their judgments on evidence, statistics, and science. Extreme wingnuts, by contrast, seem to draw their wisdom from Televangelists, Magic 8-Balls and "Grandpappy."
Posted by: angryclown at October 9, 2006 05:26 PM"Doug is making the point that people in the reality-based community are more likely to base their judgments on evidence, statistics, and science."
Which is, of course, rubbish. They are, in fact, in many ways the fantasy-based community.
Which will be a fine subject for a post in the near future...
Posted by: mitch at October 9, 2006 05:46 PMOh, Angryclown, you're such a rich source of moronic irony. First we get:
"You far-right types are walking encyclopedias of nutty prejudices."
Followed by:
"Extreme wingnuts, by contrast, seem to draw their wisdom from Televangelists, Magic 8-Balls and 'Grandpappy.'"
Priceless. Truly priceless.
Posted by: Ryan at October 9, 2006 08:22 PM"Statistics suggest that most sexual predators are straight white guys."
Well, approx 75% of victims of child sexual abuse are female. It makes sense to assume that the perps were straight guys (where'd you get your stats, Doug? I couldn't find any with breakdown by race).
Less than 3% of the population is gay, so if even 6% of perps are gay, then it doesn't matter that the majority of perps are straight. It would still mean that gays were disproportionately likely to offend. I haven't found any stats yet, one way or the other.
Posted by: Pants at October 9, 2006 08:32 PM"Which will be a fine subject for a post in the near future..."
Oh goodie!!! I can hardly wait!
Posted by: Doug at October 9, 2006 08:33 PM"Oh goodie!!! I can hardly wait!"
Well, since you comment about as prolifically as I post, apparently so.
Posted by: mitch at October 9, 2006 08:40 PM"Well, since you comment about as prolifically as I post, apparently so."
We liberals have to flood comment sections, Mitch. We're best at "reactionary" tactics. We would have more blogs on the left but that would require original thought. What do you take us for, rational human beings?
Posted by: Dougie Boy at October 10, 2006 12:14 AMHow does the "reality-based" community deal with the fact that statistics show that the average black American has an IQ 15 points lower than the average white American? They ignore it. Or they blather some post-modernist nonsense about how IQ is just a social construction created by white people so that they could justify oppressing blacks. But of course that doesn't explain the fact that East Asians score higher on the IQ test, on average, than whites. Or why their silly ideas about social progress deserve any more respect than any other social construct. It's gotta be tough to be "reality-based" when reality doesn't work the way you feel in your heart that it should work.
Posted by: Terry at October 10, 2006 12:23 AM"How does the 'reality-based' community deal with the fact that statistics show that the average black American has an IQ 15 points lower than the average white American? They ignore it."
Thanks for presuming to answer for us, Terry...
But hey, since you ask, let me prove you wrong by not ignoring it, and instead asking you for further details about that statistic. Is it corrected for financial circumstances, social strata, number of parents living at home, that kind of thing? The reason I ask is that despite progress, the "average" black American is still, on average, growing up in circumstances very different from those of the "average" white American.
Now, just in case you were going to react to that statement by saying I'm giving blacks a pass on having lower IQ scores because of their environments, that's not what I'm doing at all. I'm suggesting that the statistics you're citing do not, as you seem to think they do, demonstrate blacks to be less intelligent than whites because they are black.
In other words, I think if you took the raw data, you'd very likely find that IQ is far more dependent on things like poverty, family, and health than on race. My suspicion is that if the data is thorough, it would show blacks and whites from similar economic and family backgrounds to have very similar patterns of IQ results.
So, Terry, do you have access to the actual study you're citing, and some idea of whether it answers my question? Or were you just cherry-picking the 15% to make a completely invalid, but attractively comforting, point?
Posted by: Beeeej at October 10, 2006 05:30 PMTerry?
*crickets*
Posted by: Beeeej at October 11, 2006 04:09 PM