Homeless in Arizona

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Some Gilbert residents want school board to bring back prayer

Candidate wants return to opening prayer

by Hayley Ringle - Sept. 13, 2012 10:36 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Gilbert Public Schools governing board candidate Daryl Colvin is among a group of town residents who are upset that the school board decided not to discuss bringing back a non-denominational prayer at the beginning of its meetings.

The school board used to have an invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance but replaced the prayer with a moment of silence in August 2001.

It's unclear why the 2001 decision was made because the board minutes do not show a reason for the change, a district spokeswoman said.

Colvin said he finds the moment of silence "insulting, ridiculously short and unnecessary," calling it a "need to bow to political correctness to a ridiculous degree."

A YouTube video, "No Prayer at Gilbert Unified School District Meeting," which is set to a religious song and chastises the board's decision, ended by saying the board's refusal to discuss the matter marked an "extraordinarily sad day for the children of Gilbert." On Wednesday, the video had more than 325 views.

The GPS board, which still opens its meetings with the moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance, is among the majority of Southeast Valley boards that don't begin meetings with a prayer. Only Mesa opens with a prayer.

Chandler Unified School District ended the practice last year and opted for a moment of reflection after an Arizona School Boards Association law conference suggested boards avoid prayers to prevent lawsuits.

Gilbert board President E.J. Anderson said although she is a "believer in and supporter of prayer," prayer in school board meetings is not a simple, straightforward issue.

"It is fraught with many legal issues and ramifications," Anderson said in an e-mail. "Current law and high-court rulings limit the way we can pray. I believe the current moment of silence allows everyone to pray the way they want. I believe that is important. It makes me very sad that prayer has become a very divisive issue in our community."

Chris Thomas, ASBA's general counsel, said the "safest" thing a school board can do is offer a moment of silence or reflection.

"If you do a prayer that references Jesus Christ or any of the tenets of Christianity, that will clearly be unconstitutional," said Thomas, citing two court cases. "Although some communities expect it (a prayer), it's only going to take one parent to make a complaint. That's why we have to be careful."

A non-denominational prayer can be given as long as there are no references to any particular faith.

Colvin said a prayer would help the Gilbert school board and management make "better decisions and fewer mistakes," and if elected to the board in November, he will vote to bring back prayer at the meetings.

"The school district needs to make a decision whether they are there to help perpetuate successful American traditions, or to place a left-wing activism where they want to undermine those traditions," said Colvin, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "They voted in favor of leftist activism. I find that particularly disturbing and a good example why we need some changes on that board."

Colvin quoted Benjamin Franklin's speech from the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as an example of the importance of prayer at the opening of public meetings when he asked the board to reconsider a non-denominational prayer at the Sept. 4 school board meeting.

Only board member Staci Burk was in favor of bringing the issue to a discussion at a future work study session.

"I observed the Mesa school board meeting recently open with a prayer and it appears to set a positive tone to the subsequent deliberations," Burk said in an e-mail.

Board member Helen Hollands, who has been on the board since January 2001 and remembers when prayers were given, said she does not completely remember why a moment of silence replaced the invocation. Hollands said she only remembers that students were welcome at the meetings and encouraged to attend board meetings, and that might have been the reason for the change.

Thomas said "there's a difference when dealing with a captive audience of children" at board meetings.

Hollands supports a moment of silence because "it allows all in attendance to exercise their freedom to pray in the way most meaningful to them as an individual.

"No one has ever been denied the right to pray, or instructed not to pray, during the moment of silence," Hollands said in an e-mail. "If the vocalization of their prayer is critical to an individual, I would support their right to do so during the moment of silence, if the action does not infringe upon the rights of the other individuals present to use the moment of silence as they choose."

Anita Christy, a Gilbert business owner who runs the conservative blog Gilbert Watch, disagrees with the board's decision, calling the board "gutless" for "rejecting God."

"Who are these gutless wonders who are more afraid of offending the leftists than of offending God?" Christy said in an e-mail to her blog subscribers, naming the four board members who voted against further discussion. "Are there no Christians in this community willing to stand against the atheists who are taking over their children?"

Christy said the Town Council handles its invocations "beautifully." The council's agenda says that the invocation "may be offered by a person of any religion, faith, belief or non-belief, as well as council members."

Chandler Unified School District board president Barb Mozdzen said she was "very reluctant" to stop the prayers at Chandler's meetings and was "sad to see it go, personally." However, she said the amount of money needed to defend a lawsuit would take money out of the classroom, and "it's not worth it."

Now, during the reflection, rotating Chandler board members read a poem or recite a quote. "It's kind of a feel-good thing for all," said Mozdzen, a three-year board member. "It gets you in the mood to say, 'Here's what we're here for.' We're positively impacting our students."

Mug shot and arrest record extortions???

Yes, it is certainly legal, but is it ethical?

And of course as the article says most of these arrests are not for real crimes that hurt people, but for victimless "drug war" crimes that didn't hurt anyone.

Ch*nga La Migra!!!

Maybe "Government Schools" should be called "Public Prisons"

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Suit alleges Deer Valley school staff hurt boy

Parents' claim cites diet, behavior issues

by Michael Clancy - Sept. 20, 2012 09:26 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

A Glendale couple has sued the Deer Valley School District, alleging that Desert Sage Elementary School personnel attacked and imprisoned their child for behavioral problems.

Eric and Leslie Noyes attributed their son's behavioral issues to his multiple chemical sensitivity, which school personnel ignored, they claimed in the complaint. "They were not willing to work with us at all," Eric Noyes said Thursday.

Noyes said his son is allergic to food dyes, sweeteners, soy, dairy and certain cleaners. The child's worst reaction is a seizure, but hyperactivity is a more common effect.

The condition is so bad, the family must carefully monitor what the boy eats. They provide his lunch for school every day.

The family says school staff ignored the guidelines provided to them at the start of the year. Noyes said it was more ignorance than malice when teachers handed out treats or staff provided lunch, resulting in his misbehavior, the suit claims.

The child, age 7 at the time and in second grade, frequently was placed in what the district called a "cool-down room," the lawsuit alleges. The suit says he was placed in the windowless, padded room, no bigger than a walk-in closet, as many as 17 times over six months.

Such rooms are legal under Arizona law, but Deer Valley district policy requires notification of parents when it is used, said Heidi Vega, the district's public-relations manager. She said the district would have no further comment while the case is in litigation.

The Noyes say they were notified only three times.

The child frequently was scratched and bruised as he was dragged to the room, the suit claims. Occasionally, it adds, his head was forced to the ground, where he suffered allergic reactions from carpet-cleaning chemicals. The child, once in seclusion, was refused use of the restroom and urinated on himself several times, the suit says.

A statement from the district said, "If a child requires the use of seclusion/physical intervention, parents are notified as soon as possible within the same school day.

"Two adults always accompany the child when secluded. This is the last method of behavior management schools use with a student. Our staff is fully trained on non-violent crisis intervention and put student safety first at all times.

"The safety of all students is important and remains a top priority in Deer Valley."

Mixing unions and government sucks.

I don't have a problem with unions, or people unionizing to make their lives better. But sadly most unions use violence to extort money out of their employers and that is wrong.

Sadly one of the biggest unions in government are the police unions, and while they pretend to protect us from criminals, the police unions frequently commit crimes force the government to pay them more money and give them better working conditions.

I don't have as much experience with teachers unions, but I suspect they are almost as bad as the police unions.

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Patterson: Public unions need to learn government doesn't have infinite resources

Posted: Sunday, September 23, 2012 7:30 am

Guest commentary by Tom Patterson

In 1980 William Clay, the president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers union (PATCO) told their convention that they must “learn the rules of the game,” which were “that you don’t put the interest of any other group ahead of your own.” They must be “selfish and pragmatic” and emphasize that “what’s good for the federal employees (is) good for the nation.”

PATCO ran into Ronald Reagan, a rare politician willing to stand up to them, and went out of business. But the nation’s air traffic controllers are still unionized and government employee unions are still operating under Mr. Clay’s rules of engagement. Their determination to put their own interests first mocks the notion of public servant. Instead of serving the public, they threaten our ability to fund anything other than their wishes.

In an earlier America, government unions were recognized as incompatible with public welfare. FDR in 1937 rejected government unionism, pointing out that collective bargaining “cannot be transported into the public service” because of “the very nature and purposes of government.” Roosevelt wasn’t breaking new ground here; he was expressing views widely held by American leaders including the founder of modern progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, and the resolutely conservative Calvin Coolidge.

How could we have been so foolish to reject the bright line between public and private sector unions these thinkers recognized? The difference is night and day. For starters, government workers own a monopoly on the services they provide, while private sector workers are unable to keep consumers hostage. They must be careful to keep their demands reasonable so that their employers aren’t priced out of the marketplace. For government workers there are no such boundaries. More is always better, there is no such thing as “enough.”

Government unions are also privileged in getting to pick the negotiators on the other side of the bargaining table. That’s why they’re the major financial supporters of the Democratic Party where teacher’s unions alone supply 20 percent of the national convention delegates. When both sides at the negotiating table are committed to union interests, the results are predictable. Government worker pay, once discounted for job security, is today about 30 percent higher than that earned by private sector workers for the same jobs.

Check out the Chicago Teachers Union to see the result of 50 years of public unionism. This is a union that delivers a terrible product for a financially failing entity. Just 20 percent of Chicago eighth-graders can pass a reading test, while fewer than 8 percent of 11th-graders are deemed college ready by a state test. Yet, Chicago teachers have received raises between 19 percent and 46 percent over the last five years, even though Chicago public schools are $3 billion in debt.

Chicago teachers average $76,000 in salary plus health benefits, pensions, paid days off and summer vacations. The taxpayers footing the bill earn an average of $47,000 annually. In the private sector, the company would be failing and employees would face job loss. The CTU’s response to this state of affairs? Demand even more pay raises and continue to resist efforts to weed out bad employees and provide higher-quality education.

Prior to this month’s strike, the union demanded a 30-percent pay raise over three years, but now seems willing to settle for only 16 percent. But the real point of contention was a plan by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to institute a teacher evaluation system, designed by teachers, that was more based on student academic progress.

Union president Karen Lewis put her foot down, insisting that 6,000 teachers could lose their jobs. The irony of admitting that so many teachers are non-performers was apparently lost on her. The union’s interest — job preservation for its members — must come first. And, in an election year, they mostly got their way.

FDR was right on this one. We never should have allowed collective bargaining to invade the public sphere and we shouldn’t have allowed public unions to amass huge war chests by extracting union dues from workers’ paychecks without their permission.

Now we’re in trouble. Bankruptcy, once unthinkable, is now a looming reality for local governments around the country unable to fund pension obligations to their retired workers. Even government doesn’t have infinite resources.

School requires drug test for 12 year old to play sports????

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Middle Schools Add a Team Rule: Get a Drug Test

By MARY PILON

Published: September 22, 2012

MILFORD, Pa. — As a 12-year-old seventh grader, Glenn and Kathy Kiederer’s older daughter wanted to play sports at Delaware Valley Middle School here. She also wanted to join the scrapbooking club.

One day she took home a permission slip. It said that to participate in the club or any school sport, she would have to consent to drug testing.

“They were asking a 12-year-old to pee in a cup,” Kathy Kiederer said. “I have a problem with that. They’re violating her right to privacy over scrapbooking? Sports?”

Olympic athletes must submit urine samples to prove they are not doping. The same is true for Tour de France cyclists, N.F.L. players, college athletes and even some high school athletes. Now, children in grades as low as middle school are being told that providing a urine sample is required to play sports or participate in extracurricular activities like drama and choir.

Such drug testing at the middle school level is confounding students and stirring objections from parents and proponents of civil liberties.

The Kiederers, whose two daughters are now in high school, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Delaware Valley School District, with the daughters identified only by their first initials, A. and M. The parents said that mandatory drug testing was unnecessary and that it infringed on their daughters’ rights. (For privacy reasons, they asked that their daughters’ first names not be published.)

A lawyer for the school district declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

It is difficult to gauge how many middle schools conduct drug tests on students. States with middle schools that conduct drug testing include Florida, Alabama, Missouri, West Virginia, Arkansas, Ohio, New Jersey and Texas.

Some coaches, teachers and school administrators said drug-testing programs served as a deterrent for middle school students encountering drugs of all kinds, including steroids, marijuana and alcohol.

“We wanted to do it to create a general awareness of drug prevention,” said Steve Klotz, assistant superintendent at Maryville School District in Missouri. “We’re no different than any other community. We have kids who are making those decisions.”

There are no known instances of a middle school student testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs like steroids or human growth hormone. The few positive results among middle school students have been attributed to marijuana, officials said, and even those cases are rare.

Maryville’s drug-testing program, which includes most of its middle and high school students, begins this fall after officials spent 18 months reviewing other programs in the state, Mr. Klotz said. In the fall of 2011, Mr. Klotz said, the school board conducted a survey of parents, and 72 percent said that a drug-testing program was necessary. The cost will be $5,000 to $7,000 a year and will come from the school’s general operating budget.

“Drug testing is a multibillion-dollar industry,” said Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of the Division of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University. “They go to these schools and say it’s great. But do the schools actually look at the data? Schools don’t know what to do.”

Drug testing for high school athletes, which has been around for years, was deemed constitutional in a 1995 United States Supreme Court ruling. Some districts have expanded their drug-testing programs in recent years to include middle school students.

In 2003, the Department of Education started a program that offered federal money for drug testing in grades 6 through 12, and the last of the grants will be closed out this fall. The program, following the outlines of the Supreme Court decision, allowed testing for students who participated in school activities, or whose parents chose to enroll them.

In the 2004-5 school year, an estimated 14 percent of public school districts conducted some form of random drug testing, according to a Department of Education report. But middle school testing is not thoroughly tracked by officials.

The nature of drug-testing programs at the middle school level varies by school district. In general, an outside testing company conducts the tests under contract with school authorities. Students are generally given little, if any, advance notice and are pulled away from class and asked to urinate in a cup — unsupervised, to comply with privacy laws.

Specimens are sent to a laboratory, and parents and students are notified of any positive result. Some schools require a second test to confirm a positive result; in others, parents may request a challenge to a result, sometimes for a fee. Results are generally not shared with law enforcement.

Punishment for a positive test can range from a warning to removal from a sports team or an activity.

“It starts early with kids,” said Matthew Franz, who owns the drug testing company Sport Safe based in Columbus, Ohio, and is a member of the Student Drug-Testing Coalition, an organization of drug-testing proponents. “You want to get in there and plant these seeds of what’s out there and do prevention early. The 11th and 12th graders, most of them have already made a choice. But the eighth graders, they’re still making decisions, and it helps if you give them that deterrent.”

But some experts doubt the effectiveness of such testing.

“There’s little evidence these programs work,” Dr. Goldberg said. “Drug testing has never been shown to have a deterrent effect.”

In 2007, Dr. Goldberg published the results of a study of athletes at five high schools with drug testing and six schools that had deferred implementing a testing policy. He found that athletes from the two groups did not differ in their recent use of drugs or alcohol.

“I think you have to look at the reason for testing,” Dr. Goldberg said. “With Olympic testing, it’s to weed out the people who are cheating. If you’re using drug testing to weed out a problem in kids, you need to get them in therapy. But it doesn’t reduce whether or not kids use drugs.”

Some coaches and school administrators, however, say the dearth of positive tests is an indication that testing is working effectively as a deterrent.

“We don’t want to catch students,” said Jerry Cecil, assistant superintendent of the Greenwood School District in Arkansas. “We want them not to be using. We don’t consider this community to have a big problem.”

Despite the Supreme Court ruling in 1995, some districts have been challenged in lower courts.

The American Civil Liberties Union won a settlement last year relying on California’s stricter state privacy laws that prevented the schools from conducting random drug testing for students in nonathletic activities absent a reasonable ground for suspicion. The district, in Redding, Calif., discontinued its program as part of the settlement.

Not all parents oppose testing of middle school students. Daniel Alef, the father of an eighth-grade swimmer in Santa Barbara, Calif., said he would support testing at his son’s school.

“Kids today grow up too quickly and have access to way more information,” he said. “But in the end, I think it goes back to the parents.”

In Pennsylvania, the Kiederers are waiting as their case, filed by the civil liberties union in the Court of Common Pleas of Pike County, works through the legal system.

Last year, they won an injunction preventing the district from enforcing its policy and allowing their daughters to participate in extracurricular activities.

“They’re losing their rights every day and you ask yourself, what are we teaching the kids?” Glenn Kiederer said.

School bans teen's 16-inch Mohawk

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School bans teen's 16-inch Mohawk

Sept. 27, 2012 04:49 PM

Associated Press

DELAND, Fla. -- A high school senior will have to lose his twin 16-inch hair spikes if he wants to attend classes at DeLand High School.

Seventeen-year-old Asher Stonesifer was sent home from school Tuesday after school officials told him not to wear the Liberty Spike Mohawk to class anymore.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports Asher and his mother, Rae Stonesifer, complained to the Volusia County School Board, arguing the hairstyle is not clearly banned in the countywide dress code.

But Principal Mitch Moyer decided Thursday to stand by his ruling. He told Stonesifer's mother that the only exception will be during spirit week in October, when students are allowed to dress "out of the norm."

His mother says the teen wore his hair down at school on Thursday.

NY teens pay valets to store devices

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A phone home: NY teens pay valets to store devices

by Karen Matthews - Oct. 4, 2012 10:01 AM

Associated Press

NEW YORK - Thousands of teenagers who can't take their cellphones to school have another option, courtesy of a burgeoning industry of sorts in always-enterprising New York City: paying a dollar a day to leave it in a truck that's parked nearby.

Students might resent an expense that adds up to as much as $180 a year, but even so, leaving a phone at one of the trucks in the morning and then picking it up at the end of the day has become as routine for city teenagers as getting dressed and riding the morning-rush subway.

"Sometimes it's a hassle because not everyone can afford it," said Kelice Charles, a freshman at Gramercy Arts High School in Manhattan. "But then again, it's a living."

Cellphones and other devices, such as iPods and iPads, are banned in all New York City public schools, but the rule is widely ignored except in the 88 buildings that have metal detectors. Administrators at schools without detectors tell students, "If we don't see it, we don't know about it."

Schools where violence is considered a risk have metal detectors to spot weapons, but they also spot phones. They include the Washington Irving Educational Complex in the bustling Union Square area, a cluster of small high schools housed in a massive century-old building that used to be one big high school.

The trucks that collect the cellphones have their own safety issues -- one was held up in the Bronx in June, and some 200 students lost their phones. That could be why one operator near Washington Irving refused to speak to a reporter recently.

A converted disability-access van that's parked a block away on school days is painted bright blue and labeled "Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage." The owner is Vernon Alcoser, 40, who operates trucks in three of the city's five boroughs.

Alcoser would not comment, even though the names of news outlets that have run stories about Pure Loyalty are affixed to his trucks. Pure Loyalty employees chatted but would not give their names as students from the Washington Irving complex lined up on a drizzly morning to surrender their phones.

"Next, next, have the phone off, have the money out," an employee yelled as the teens texted and listened to music until the last possible second. At the truck window, each student exchanged a phone and a dollar for a numbered yellow ticket.

"It's not that much of a hassle unless it's really crowded," said Gramercy Arts sophomore Chelsea Clouden.

"My whole four years I've been putting my phone in this truck, and it's been great," said Melquan Thompson, a senior at the High School for Language and Diplomacy. "Only a dollar. It's not bad."

The cellphone trucks appear to be unique to New York City.

"That is hilarious," said Debora Carrera, a high school principal in Philadelphia who had never heard of a phone storage truck. "Wow. It is very strange."

At Carrera's school, Kensington Creative and Performing Arts High School, students operate a cellphone storage room where phones can be dropped off in the morning at no charge and picked up after school.

For many teens, it would be unthinkable to leave the devices at home all day, Carrera said. "Their phone is like a family member," she said. "It's like a pet. They love it."

For parents, the phone may be the only way of communicating with a teen who commutes two hours to school and gets home at 8 p.m., after sports practice.

"In this day and age, it's ridiculous that the Department of Education doesn't allow us to store them on site," said Robin Klueber, the PTA president at Frank McCourt High School on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Frank McCourt, named for the late writer and teacher, shares a metal-detector building with several other schools. Some students store their phones in a truck, and others use a nearby shoe store, Klueber said. She wishes the city Department of Education would let the PTA run a storage room instead.

"In this day and age, especially when many of us still feel the scare of 9/11, students should be able to travel with their phones," Klueber said. "Many of these kids come from other boroughs and participate in after-school activities where they are far from home late into the evening."

The Department of Education did not comment on whether lockboxes in schools were being considered. Spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said only, "We have a longstanding policy that does not allow students to use cellphones in schools. It is in Chancellor's Regulation A-412, and there are no plans to change this."

High school students suspended for possession of energy mints

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High school students suspended for possession of energy mints

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News

A group of high school students in Pekin, Ill., were suspended last week after school officials suspected the mints they were eating were actually illegal drugs.

Jason McMichael, the father of one of the students, told the Journal Star that his 17-year-old son Eric was suspended for two days from Pekin Community High School and not allowed to attend the school's homecoming festivities after staffers found four students eating energy mint tablets that are marketed like caffeine energy drinks.

McMichael said he received a phone call from the dean's office informing him of his son's suspension and that the teen was being monitored by the school nurse for an elevated heart rate—though McMichael doesn't believe it was due to the energy mints.

"He's never been in trouble," McMichael said. "He was probably just nervous."

Eric McMichael said he and three others were eating Revive tablets—touted as "nature's energy mints"—in the school cafeteria when they were disciplined.

"People bring energy drinks to school every day," the teen told Central Illinois' WMBD-TV. "I see this every day and we get in trouble for energy mints?"

According to EnergyFiend.com, each mint contains 101 milligrams of caffeine along with guarana, green tea, ginseng, acai, mangosteen and goji. The Revive brand is endorsed by several MMA fighters and fitness pageant contestants.

McMichael's father said school officials later admitted they did not know if the chewable, unmarked mints were, in fact, illegal drugs but upheld the suspensions anyway, saying the teens displayed "gross misconduct for taking an unknown product."

"Now they know nothing illegal happened," McMichael said on Friday, "but they're still pursuing the suspension."

Superintendent Paula Davis told the paper that while she was not able to discuss the incident, school officials would have been within their rights to discipline the students if they were seen "ingesting things that look like unmarked pills."

Teen back in school after Romney T-shirt flap

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Teen back in school after Romney T-shirt flap

Oct. 9, 2012 08:17 AM

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA -- A 16-year-old high school sophomore who says she was ridiculed by her geometry teacher for wearing a Mitt Romney T-shirt returned to school Tuesday following a rally by cheering supporters. The teacher has also written a letter of apology that was read aloud to students.

Samantha Pawlucy hadn't been back to Charles Carroll High School in the city's Port Richmond section since last week. That's when she and her family say she was mocked by her teacher for wearing the shirt supporting the Republican presidential candidate. She said the teacher questioned why she was wearing the shirt and called others in to the room to laugh at her.

Pawlucy, whose family had expressed concern for her safety, returned Tuesday after a rally that featured supporters singing the national anthem and reading the First Amendment -- as well as shouts of supporters calling "Go, Sam!" and "You're great, Sam!"

The school's principal read students the letter of apology from geometry teacher Lynette Gaymon on Tuesday.

"I'm very sorry for all the chaos and negative attention that has surrounded the school in the past couple of weeks," she wrote. "What I meant as a light and humorous remark during class has developed into a huge conflict between students, faculty, parents and neighbors. My words were never meant to belittle Ms. Pawlucy, or cause any harm, and I truly regret that we have come to this point."

Pawlucy wore the pink "Romney/Ryan" shirt to "dress-down" day on Sept. 28. She said that during class, Gaymon pointed out the shirt, questioned why she was wearing it and told her to leave the classroom. Gaymon, Pawlucy said, said it was a "Democratic" school and compared it to wearing a "KKK" shirt.

Her father, Richard Pawlucy, said the family met with Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter on Sunday night to discuss a resolution. The teacher has apologized and the district's superintendent William Hite Jr. has called the ordeal a "teachable moment."

Hite has said he would work with Nutter and the teacher's union to move "towards a conversation that brings together diverse beliefs, inspires understanding, and heals."

Prop 204 ignores bigger education issues

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Prop 204 ignores bigger education issues

By Carlos Alfaro

October 9, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Proposition 204 is just another tax hike that benefits the few.

In this election, like many in the past, bureaucrats are going in guns blazing with one of their most efficient rhetorical tools: “Do it for the children!”

In a recent Proposition 204 ad, Dawn Koberstein, president of the Chandler Education Association said, “I would be delighted if this passed, because it means that people care about our children, and they care about our schools, and they care about our future.” Following Koberstein’s logic, those who are against Proposition 204 are heartless monsters that could care less about children and their future.

Here are the facts:

Arizona’s Auditor General released a report that should cut through the feel-good rhetoric spewed from the mouths of those who support the tax hike. In 2011, spending per student in this state has increased almost 40 percent since 2001. Money allocated to classroom instruction, on the other hand, has decreased by 6.7 percent since 2001.

Right now, little over half, 56.9 percent to be precise, of all education spending goes to the classroom, including “salaries and benefits for teachers, aids and coaches” and “supplies such as pencils and paper, athletics and activities like band or choir,” according to an Arizona Daily Star story.

The additional money that would be taxed via Proposition 204 will be filtered into different funds run by bureaucrats — administrators outside the classroom. Half of it will go to “Quality Education and Performance Fund” which seeks to increase performance of K-12 education. Filled with arbitrary goals and vague language, there are no real strings attached to this money. It’s not unreasonable to say that giving a half a billion dollars to bureaucrats with almost no requirements is probably not the way to improve education.

Proposition 204 is no less a sham to centralize money — not to mention, power — within special interest groups outside of education. A vote for Proposition 204 isn’t a vote for the most local figures of education — the teachers.

Moreover, about 225 million of funds will be appropriated for special interests, among them well-connected contractors to build and rebuild roads. This has stopped being an argument about better education. This is just another spending bill, and with every spending bill comes the crony piglets, fighting to get their share.

By the way, if you are an ASU student, part of your fees went to support this political campaign. That’s right, the Arizona Student Association, which we all fund, voted to contribute $100,000 to the Proposition 204 campaign.

Real education reform won’t come until we realize that throwing money at problems isn’t a viable answer. There are real solutions that have been effective and are starting to be implemented for special-needs students, like the Education Saving Accounts. It gives parents more choices, decentralizes the educational system and creates competition that will reward schools that use the money they receive more efficiently. These are programs that create incentives to improve the quality of education.

Carlos Alfaro is an executive board member for Students For Liberty.

Reach the columnist at calfaro2@asu.edu or follow him at @AlfaroAmericano

Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.

Were some issues missing from these debates?

Hey, we all know that either Obamney or Rombama is going to win the election, so what hard could there be in letting the Libertarians and Greens into the debate. It would give us some new interesting ideas.

Like legalizing drugs, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and repealing the unconstitutional Patriot Act.

Minnesota High School Cracks Down on Leggings, Yoga Pants

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Minnesota High School Cracks Down on Leggings, Yoga Pants

By Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Shine | Parenting – Wed, Nov 14, 2012 11:24 AM EST

Minnetonka High School Principal David Adney emailed parents on Monday, asking them to talk to their daughters about wearing sheer leggings and curve-hugging yoga pants to school. In an interview with Yahoo! Shine, he was quick to say that his email was a request, not an ultimatum.

"This is not a ban on anything," he told Yahoo! Shine. "We're just trying to guide them to make better decisions for themselves."

"We want them to strive for modesty," he added. "We can't define modesty for every family, but we can ask them to make good decisions that reflect well on their families."

Girls have been wearing yoga pants and leggings to school for years, Adney acknowledges, but in the past they'd pair the skin-tight legwear with tunics, jerseys, or long sweaters. "It's a fashion trend that has existed for a while, but has accelerated," he said. Now they've been coming into school wearing shorter shirts, exposing their legs, backsides, and more.

"Not all leggings are created equal," Adney pointed out, choosing his words carefully. "With Lyrca and Spandex, the definition can be severe, front and back."

One solution? Wear the leggings, but slip on a longer top. "Cover your butts up—I'm just going to say it straight up," Adney told the Star Tribune. "We're seeing too much."

Complaints about the overexposure came from female staffers, volunteers, and even other students, Adney says, prompting him send out the email request.

"On things that are going on in school, we try to address the kids directly, to be proactive," Adney said. "But with this, we didn't want to embarrass any girls, so we emailed the parents."

While some students are upset about the issue—"As long as they're not see-through, they should be allowed," freshman Carine Colwell told the Star Tribune—Adney says that plenty of people have thanked him for intervening.

"I've received about 100 messages in 24 hours, and only two of them were negative," he told Yahoo! Shine. "And those two said that it was highly sexist." (Boys at the school have also had their fashion choices scrutinized, he points out. Last spring, Adney put out an alert about revealing muscle shirts; this fall, he had to enforce a no-baseball-hat policy, and in years past baggy jeans have been a big issue—just as they were when he became the principal more than 10 years ago.)

This isn't Adney's first trend-related clash. In 2006, he gained national attention for cracking down on "grinding"—ultra-dirty dirty dancing—at Minnetonka High School, telling students that they should "dance like Grandma's watching" instead. Even then, rather than preaching to the kids or forcing them to sign pledges, he collaborated with them to create a series of hilarious videos about "the dangers of grinding."

When it comes to clothes, the Minnetonka High School handbook simply asks that clothing not be disruptive, offensive, or inappropriate. The goal is to instill in kids a set of high expectations, not to hound them with a set of fixed rules, Adney explained.

"It's about creating a culture," he said. If you build an environment where you outline expectations and encourage discussion, kids feel heard and respected. "It's not a freakish control thing."

The father of three grown daughters, Adney says he gets the girls' desire to be fashionable. "We don't want to be the clothes police, walking around with measuring devices," he said. "But it's not too much to ask you to keep your butts covered."

FBI investigation reveals bureau’s comprehensive access to electronic communications

The police that are spying on you probably read this email before you did!!!!

Remember if you are doing something illegal you certainly should not be talking about it in an email or posting it on the internet where federal, state, county, and local city cops watch our every move.

You can encrypt your emails with something like PGP, but I suspect if you piss the Feds off enough they are willing to spend big bucks to get the folks at the NSA to decrypt your messages.

And last but not least your telephone isn't that safe either. The police routinely illegally listen to our phone calls without the required "search warrants".

Remember any time you use a cell phone you are also using a radio transmitter and EVERYTHING you say is broadcast onto the airwaves for anybody to listen to.

Source

FBI investigation of Broadwell reveals bureau’s comprehensive access to electronic communications

By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima, Published: November 17

The FBI started its case in June with a collection of five e-mails, a few hundred kilobytes of data at most.

By the time the probe exploded into public view earlier this month, the FBI was sitting on a mountain of data containing the private communications — and intimate secrets — of a CIA director and a U.S. war commander. What the bureau didn’t have — and apparently still doesn’t — is evidence of a crime.

How that happened and what it means for privacy and national security are questions that have induced shudders in Washington and a queasy new understanding of the FBI’s comprehensive access to the digital trails left by even top officials.

FBI and Justice Department officials have vigorously defended their handling of the case. “What we did was conduct the investigation the way we normally conduct a criminal investigation,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday. “We follow the facts.”

But in this case, the trail cut across a seemingly vast territory with no clear indication of the boundaries, if any, that the FBI imposed on itself. The thrust of the investigation changed direction repeatedly and expanded dramatically in scope.

A criminal inquiry into e-mail harassment morphed into a national security probe of whether CIA Director David H. Petraeus and the secrets he guarded were at risk. After uncovering an extramarital affair, investigators shifted to the question of whether Petraeus was guilty of a security breach.

When none of those paths bore results, investigators settled on the single target they are scrutinizing now: Paula Broadwell, the retired general’s biographer and mistress, and what she was doing with a cache of classified but apparently inconsequential files.

On Capitol Hill, the case has drawn references to the era of J. Edgar Hoover, the founding director of the FBI, who was notorious for digging up dirt on Washington’s elite long before the invention of e-mail and the Internet.

“The expansive data that is available electronically now means that when you’re looking for one thing, the chances of finding a whole host of other things is exponentially greater,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-­Calif.), a member of the House intelligence committee and a former federal prosecutor.

In this case, Schiff said, the probe may have caused more harm than it uncovered. “It’s very possible that the most significant damage done to national security was the loss of General Petraeus himself,” Schiff said.

Not the usual boundaries

The investigation’s profile has called attention to what legal and privacy experts say are the difficulties of applying constraints meant for gathering physical evidence to online detective work.

Law enforcement officers conducting a legal search have always been able to pursue evidence of other crimes sitting in “plain view.” Investigators with a warrant to search a house for drugs can seize evidence of another crime, such as bombmaking. But the warrant does not allow them to barge into the house next door.

But what are the comparable boundaries online? Does a warrant to search an e-mail account expose the communications of anyone who exchanged messages with the target? [Warrants, who needs stinking warrants. We will just do an illegal search and laugh when the illegal search causes you to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to get it throw out. Remember the police are criminals who routinely break the law in an effort to put other criminals in jail. If cops didn't routinely commit perjury they wouldn't have a slang word for it which is testilying!!!]

Similarly, FBI agents monitoring wiretaps have always been obligated to put down their headphones when the conversation is clearly not about a criminal enterprise. [Do you really think an FBI agent is going to put down the headphones and miss out on all that potentially incriminating dirt???] It’s known as minimization, a process followed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies to protect the privacy of innocent people.

“It’s harder to do with e-mails, because unlike a phone, you can’t just turn it off once you figure out the conversation didn’t relate to what you’re investigating,” said Michael DuBose, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section who now handles cyber-investigations for Kroll Advisory Solutions.

Some federal prosecutors have sought to establish a “wall” whereby one set of agents conducts a first review of material, disclosing to the investigating agents only what is relevant. But Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who consults on electronic surveillance issues, said he thinks “that’s the exception rather than the rule.” [I suspect this is more about convincing juries that the FBI didn't do something illegal, and I doubt if it stops the cops from doing anything illegal.]

It’s unclear whether the FBI made any attempt to minimize its intrusion into the e-mails exchanged by Broadwell and Petraeus, both of whom are married, that provided a gaping view into their adulterous relationship.

Many details surrounding the case remain unclear. The FBI declined to respond to a list of questions submitted by The Washington Post on its handling of personal information in the course of the Petraeus investigation. The bureau also declined to discuss even the broad guidelines for safeguarding the privacy of ordinary citizens whose e-mails might surface in similarly inadvertent fashion.

The scope of the issue is considerable, because the exploding use of e-mail has created a new and potent investigative resource for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement demands for e-mail and other electronic communications from providers such as Google, Comcast and Yahoo are so routine that the companies employ teams of analysts to sort through thousands of requests a month. Very few are turned down. [Remember what I said about NEVER using email to talk about anything you do that illegal. The article just said the FBI routinely gets Google and Yahoo to help them spy on you!!!!]

Wide access to accounts

Although the Petraeus-Broadwell investigation ensnared high-ranking officials and had potential national security implications, the way the FBI assembled evidence in the case was not extraordinary, according to several experts.

The probe was triggered when a Florida socialite with ties to Petraeus and Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, went to the FBI in June with menacing e-mails from an anonymous sender. [Even if you use an anonymous email the cops will almost certainly get the IP address that the email was sent from which probably will point to you!!!!]

Schiff and others have questioned why the FBI even initiated the case. Law enforcement officials have explained that they were concerned because the earliest e-mails indicated that the sender had access to details of the personal schedules of Petraeus and Allen.

The FBI’s first pile of data came from Jill Kelley, who got to know Petraeus and Allen when she worked as an unofficial social liaison at the military base in Tampa where both men were assigned.

In early summer, Kelley received several anonymous e-mails warning her to stay away from Allen and Petraeus. Kelley was alarmed and turned over her computer to the FBI; she may also have allowed access to her e-mail accounts.

The e-mails were eventually traced to Broadwell, who thought that Kelley was a threat to her relationship with Petraeus, law enforcement officials said. But the trail to Broadwell was convoluted.

Broadwell reportedly tried to cover her tracks by using as many as four anonymous e-mail accounts and sending the messages from computers in business centers at hotels where she was staying while on a nationwide tour promoting her biography of Petraeus. According to some accounts, the FBI traced the e-mails to those hotels, then examined registries for names of guests who were checked in at the time. [See they can hunt down anonymous emails based on the IP address that sent them]

The recent sex scandal that's rocked the armed forces and the CIA has highlighted an often-unseen problem in military families: Marital infidelity. Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis speak with two Army wives to understand if infidelity is the military's dirty little secret.

Once Broadwell was identified, FBI agents would have gone to Internet service providers with warrants for access to her accounts. Experts said companies typically comply by sending discs that contain a sender’s entire collection of accounts, enabling the FBI to search the inbox, draft messages and even deleted correspondence not yet fully erased.

“You’re asking them for e-mails relevant to the investigation, but as a practical matter, they let you look at everything,” said a former federal prosecutor who, like many interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition on anonymity because the FBI inquiry is continuing.

FBI agents can then roam through every corner of the account as if it were their own. [Which is why you should NEVER post illegal stuff on the internet!!!!!!]

The capability to scour e-mail accounts has expanded the bureau’s investigative power dramatically, even in crimes previously seen as difficult to prosecute. For example, officials said, the ability to reconstruct communications between reporters and their sources helps explain why the Obama administration has been able to bring more leak prosecutions than all of its predecessors combined.

E-mail searches vary in scope and technique, from scanning contents for key words “to literally going through and opening every file and looking at what it says,” a former Justice Department official said.

Law enforcement officials said the FBI never sought access to Allen’s computer or accounts. It’s unclear whether it did so with Petraeus. But through Kelley and Broadwell, the bureau had amassed an enormous amount of data on the two men — including sexually explicit e-mails between Petraeus and Broadwell and questionable communications between Allen and Kelley.

Petraeus and Broadwell had tried to conceal their communications by typing drafts of messages, hitting “save” but not “send,” and then sharing passwords that provided access to the drafts. But experts said that ruse would have posed no obstacle for the FBI, because agents had full access to the e-mail accounts.

As they pore over data, FBI agents are not supposed to search for key words unrelated to the warrant under which the data were obtained. But if they are simply reading through document after document, they can pursue new leads that surface.

“Most times, if you found evidence of a second crime, you would stop and go back and get a second warrant” to avoid a courtroom fight over admissibility of evidence, a former prosecutor said. But in practical terms, there is no limit on the number of investigations that access to an e-mail account may spawn.

‘Because of who it was’

There is nothing illegal about the Petraeus-Broadwell affair under federal law. Were it not for Petraeus’s prominent position, the probe might have ended with no consequence. But because of his job — and the concern that intelligence officers caught in compromising positions could be susceptible to blackmail — the probe wasn’t shut down.

“If this had all started involving someone who was not the director of the CIA . . . they would have ignored it,” said David Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group. “A bell went off because of who it was.”

That consideration triggered a cascade of additional quandaries for the Justice Department, including whether and when to notify Congress and the White House. The FBI finally did so on election night, Nov. 6, when Deputy Director Sean Joyce called Petraeus’s boss, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.

After being confronted by Clapper, Petraeus agreed to resign.

President Obama said last week that there was “no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security.”

But the data assembled on Allen and Petraeus continue to reverberate. The FBI turned over its stockpile of material on Allen — said to contain as many as 30,000 pages of e-mail transcripts — to the Defense Department, prompting the Pentagon inspector general to start an investigation.

The CIA has also launched an inspector general investigation into Petraeus and his 14-month tenure at the agency, seeking to determine, among other things, whether he used the perks of the position to enable his affair with Broadwell.

If it follows its own protocols, the FBI will hold on to the data for decades. Former officials said the bureau retains records for 20 years for closed criminal investigations, and 30 years for closed national security probes.

Sari Horwitz and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Data Doctors: Are my emails private from government agencies?

The answer is - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

Data Doctors: Are my emails private from government agencies?

Posted: Monday, November 19, 2012 8:00 am

By Ken Colburn, Data Doctors

Q: What is Metadata? And after the scandal of General Petraeus, are our emails private from government agencies? - Jeremy

A: E-mail has always been one of the least secure methods of transmitting data electronically and this recent scandal shows that even being tech-savvy isn’t much help.

When an e-mail message is created and sent, the message passes through a number of mail servers (think of them as post offices for snail mail) and a record of where the message came from and where it went (via IP addresses) is also created by virtually every device that handles the message.

Since most messages are sent in plain text, it’s technically possible for anyone or any system to read your message anywhere along the way (which is why e-mail encryption is important for sensitive messages). The reality is that most companies have very strict systems in place to keep just anyone from accessing those messages, but the opportunity still exists. [That is BS - Any person with computer administrative powers can read your emails. This is typically a "root" user in the UNIX or Linux worlds. But email administrators without "root" powers can also read your emails]

The information about the message, a.k.a. the ‘metadata’ is how the scandal was exposed. If we continue the snail mail analogy, the post office stamps mail to help route it and DNA or fingerprints on the outside of an envelope can be used to help track down the sender of the mail without ever opening the mail. [Again he is oversimplifying things. This so called 'metadata' is part of the email. It's at the very beginning of each email, and if you can read it, you can also read the email.]

Petraeus, the Director of the CIA, knew that sending and receiving e-mail from an anonymous account wouldn’t be safe, so he used a method commonly used by terrorists and teenagers: create draft messages, but never send them.

If two people have the username and password for the same account, they can create messages for each other that don’t leave the usual trails described above. They save them as draft copies so the other can log in and read the draft, then respond in-kind without ever sending a traceable message. [Well that is almost right. When the message is created, edited or read it does travel over the internet and someone that is monitoring your internet traffic could read it]

Had this been the only communication from the involved parties, they would likely never have been discovered but as usual, human error exposed the affair.

The jealous mistress sent harassing e-mails from an anonymous account to another woman she thought was being flirtatious, which is a criminal violation and began the unravelling of the affair.

The government can’t read your private messages without some level of due process, except in rare situations, but the process is what so many privacy advocates are concerned about. [That is in theory. In reality the FBI and Homeland security police are just as crooked as the criminals they hunt and they routinely illegally read people email, and after they discover a crime they will commit perjury and make up a lame excuse to get the search warrant they were supposed to have before they read your emails]

The current laws were created when electronic storage was expensive and we all tended to use one device and delete things to save space. Today, storage is cheap and we use a plethora of devices that in turn create more records that we tend to keep for much longer periods.

Under current laws, any e-mail that is 6 months old or older can be requested if a criminal prosecutor signs the request. If the message is less than 6 months old, a court order from a judge is required. [But that won't stop a crooked cop from illegally reading your data]

In either case, something that the courts recognize as probable cause has to trigger the request when it comes to the averages citizen. If someone suspected that Petraeus was having an affair, that wouldn’t have been enough to allow the FBI to start requesting access to his personal e-mail accounts.

His mistress’ harassing emails which violated part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is what opened to door and eventually lead to the exposure of the affair to the world.

The lessons to be learned from this scandal are that e-mail has never been or will never be a secure way to communicate with others, if you want to make it more difficult for the government to access your messages, make sure you delete them before they are 6 months old and no matter how secure you think you are, all it takes is one simple human error (or jealous mistress) to render your ‘security system’ useless. [While that might be "technically" right, it is wrong in reality. Just because YOU logically delete one of your emails doesn't mean it is physically deleted from the server that keeps your message. And even if you logically delete a message, but it still physically exists on a server the police can read it. The same is true with files on your personal computer. While you may logically delete a file, it frequently continues to exist on your computer and if it does exist the police can still read it.]

[The bottom line is if you have something that you want to remain private DON'T put it on the internet where 2 billion people might be able to read it.]

Dope up the children to keep them from committing crimes???

Source

ADHD drugs may help curb criminal behavior

By Marilynn Marchione Associated Press Wed Nov 21, 2012 10:48 PM

Older teens and adults with attention deficit disorder are much less likely to commit a crime while on ADHD medication, a study from Sweden found.

It also showed in dramatic fashion how much more prone people with ADHD are to break the law — four to seven times more likely than others.

The findings suggest that Ritalin, Adderall and other drugs that curb hyperactivity and boost attention remain important beyond the school-age years and that wider use of these medications in older patients might help curb crime.

“There definitely is a perception that it’s a disease of childhood and you outgrow your need for medicines,” said Dr. William Cooper, a pediatrics and preventive medicine professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “We’re beginning to understand that ADHD is a condition for many people that really lasts throughout their life.”

He has researched ADHD but had no role in the new study, which was led by Paul Lichtenstein of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The findings appear in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

About 5percent of children in the U.S. and other Western countries have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which can cause impulsive behavior and difficulty paying attention. Many youngsters are given medication to help them sit still and focus in school. Some people have symptoms into adulthood.

“It’s well known that individuals with ADHD have much higher rates of criminality and drug abuse than people without ADHD,” but the effect of treatment on this is not well known, Lichtenstein said.

Using Swedish national registers, researchers studied about 16,000 men and 10,000 women ages 15 and older who had been diagnosed with ADHD. The country has national health care, so information was available on all drugs prescribed.

Court and prison records were used to track convictions from 2006 through 2009 and see whether patients were taking ADHD drugs when their crimes were committed. A patient was considered to have gone off medication after six months or more with no new prescription.

Government schools or public schools consistently mediocre???

Source

Consistently mediocre

The miserable grade for Illinois public education: C-

November 24, 2012

Any kid trudging home to deliver a lackluster report card knows the first question from a parent: How will you do better next time? That's the question every teacher, principal and administrator in this state needs to answer.

Illinois got its report card last week. The state's K-12 public education system earned a dismal C-, according to education advocacy group Advance Illinois. That's a slight improvement from the D earned in 2010. That uptick came mainly because researchers graded states on the curve and some states slipped.

Academic performance has been flat for much of the last decade. "The world is passing us by ... our schools are not getting the majority of students where they need to go. Not only do we not keep pace with other states, we are losing ground with other nations," Advance Illinois says in the report, "The State We're in."

The bitter evidence:

• Only one-third of Illinois students read at grade level by 4th grade. This is alarming because reading scores are one of the most powerful indicators of whether a student will thrive academically.

• The achievement gap between white and minority students remains huge and pernicious. Just 12 percent of African-American students and 18 percent of Hispanic students read proficiently by 4th grade. That gap hasn't budged in almost a decade.

• Less than one-third of 9th graders advance to complete a college degree. Boosting those numbers is vital because 8 of every 10 Illinois jobs require some college education or training beyond high school.

Illinois has pushed through a strong set of reforms that should boost academic achievement. Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, says she is optimistic that those reforms eventually will raise student achievement if they aren't watered down or abandoned.

Those reforms include higher academic standards for students and a higher threshold for those who seek to become teachers. The state is rolling out a stronger "common core" curriculum and tougher standardized tests. New teacher evaluations tied to student academic growth help principals identify the most effective teachers and help teachers to improve. State reforms streamlined the process for firing the lowest-performing teachers. Principals, too, are being held accountable for student growth.

We support those reform efforts, but we don't think anyone should be satisfied with the idea of waiting to see if they improve student learning. The poor track record of the last decade argues for even more aggressive efforts to move beyond the education status quo. That includes a faster expansion of charter schools. That includes reviving the drive in Springfield to create a tuition support program that allows students in the lowest-performing public schools to choose a private school.

Illinois can't be competitive if its schools graduate students who aren't prepared for success. That C- says public education in this state remains mired in mediocrity.

Cursive writing - A jobs program for teachers???

Source

Cursive required despite tech gains

By Christina Hoag Associated Press Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:35 AM

LOS ANGELES - The pen may not be as mighty as the keyboard these days, but California and a handful of states are not giving up on handwriting entirely.

Bucking a growing trend of eliminating cursive from elementary school curricula or making it optional, California is among the states keeping longhand as a third-grade staple.

The state’s posture on penmanship is not likely to undercut its place at the leading edge of technology, but it has teachers and students divided over the value of learning flowing script and looping signatures in an age of touchpads and mobile devices.

Some see it as a waste of time, an anachronism in a digitized society where even signatures are electronic, but others see it as necessary so kids can hone fine motor skills, reinforce literacy and develop their own stamp of identity.

The debate comes as 45 states move toward adopting national curriculum guidelines in 2014 for English and math that don’t include cursive handwriting, but require proficiency in computer keyboarding by the time pupils exit elementary school.

Several states, including California, Georgia and Massachusetts, have added a cursive requirement to the national standards, while most others, such as Indiana, Illinois and Hawaii have left it as optional for school districts. Some states, like Utah, are still studying the issue.

Whether it’s required or not, cursive is fast becoming a lost art as schools increasingly replace pen and paper with classroom computers and instruction is increasingly geared to academic subjects that are tested on standardized exams. Even the standardized tests are on track to be administered via computer within three years.

Experts say manuscript, or printing, may be sufficient when it comes to handwriting in the future.

“Do you really need to learn two different scripts?” said Steve Graham, education professor at Arizona State University who has studied handwriting instruction. “There will be plenty of kids who don’t learn cursive. The more important skill now is typing.”

Cursive still has many proponents who say it benefits youngsters’ brains, coordination and motor skills, as well as connects them to the past, whether to handwritten historical documents like the Constitution or to their parents’ and grandparents’ letters.

Longhand is also a symbol of personality, even more so in an era of uniform emails and texting, they say.

“I think it’s part of your identity and part of your self-esteem,” said Eldra Avery, who teaches language and composition at San Luis Obispo High School. “There’s something really special and personal about a cursive letter.”

Avery also has a practical reason for pushing cursive — speed. She makes her 11th grade students relearn longhand simply so they’ll be able to complete their advancement placement exams. Most students print.

“They have to write three essays in two hours. They need that speed,” she said. “Most of them learned cursive in second grade and forgot about it. Their penmanship is deplorable.”

For many elementary school teachers, having children spend hours copying flowing letters just isn’t practical in an era of high-stakes standardized testing.

Third-graders may get 15 minutes of cursive practice a couple times a week, and after the fourth grade, it often falls off completely because teachers don’t require assignments to be written in cursive. When children write by hand, many choose to print because they’ve practiced it more.

Dustin Ellis, fourth-grade teacher at Big Springs Elementary School in Simi Valley, said he assigns a cursive practice packet as homework, but if he had his druthers, he’d limit cursive instruction to learning to read it, instead of writing it. Out of his 32 students, just three write in cursive, he noted.

“Students can be just as successful with printing,” he said. “When a kid can text 60 words a minute, that means we’re heading in a different direction. Cursive is becoming less and less important.”

It also depends on the teacher. Many younger teachers aren’t prepared to teach cursive or manuscript, said Kathleen S. Wright, national handwriting product manager for Zaner-Bloser Publishing, which develops instructional tools.

To remedy that, the company has developed a computer program that shows kids how to form letters.

Students say virtually nobody writes in cursive except teachers and parents. School assignments are required to be typed, and any personal note, such as thank yous and birthday cards, are emails, said Monica Baerg, a 16-year-old junior at Arcadia High School.

Baerg said she learned cursive in third grade, but has never used it and has difficulty deciphering her parents’ handwriting. When she has to write by hand, she prints and never has a problem with speed.

“It was kind of a waste. No one ever forced us to use cursive so it was a hassle to remember the letters,” she said. “It’s not necessary to write in cursive. Whatever you write in, you say the same thing.”

At St. Mark’s Lutheran School in Hacienda Heights, cursive remains a core subject. Students are required to write in cursive through middle school so they become fluent at it, as well as work on computers, but increasingly transfer students arrive without longhand skills. They’re given a book to study and practice at home.

Schools flush 4th Amendment down the toilet with drug dog searches

Tolleson schools use dogs to sniff out drugs

By Eddi Trevizo The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Nov 25, 2012 10:11 PM

At Tolleson Union High School District, drug-sniffing dogs are the latest tool the in the fight against narcotics on campus.

While other districts have school-resource officers [school-resource officers is government double talk for the police officers stationed at the school] and prevention programs to help curb high-school drug use, Tolleson Union has hired a private firm to conduct more than a dozen random searches.

District officials hope the effort will have an impact. Drug incidents were rising incrementally districtwide, but more than half of all drug violations occurred at one school in the 2010-11 school year, school officials said.

The private companies that perform these searches fill a need that local police departments can’t because of legal concerns and staffing shortages, police and national experts say. [I suspect the private companies are used in an attempt to keep the schools from being sued for violating the kids 4th Amendment rights]

“We want students to know they are coming somewhere where people aren’t bringing guns and drugs,” said Superintendent Lexi Cunningham.

The Tolleson pilot program comes as drug-related incidents in Arizona schools have risen over the past two years.

Statewide, the number of drug incidents at schools rose more than 5 percent in the 2011-12 school year, Department of Education figures show. There were 6,697 student drug-related violations in 2010-11 and 7,062 drug violations a year later.

It’s difficult to draw conclusions from the figures, said Molly Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Education.

“There is no way to compare schools because the data depends upon their individual policies,” she said.

The Tolleson district is the first Arizona public-school client for Interquest Detection Canines. The Houston company has about 40 franchises nationwide. District officials hired Interquest last year, after there were a high number of drug-related incidents at one of the district’s six high schools.

School incidents

The Tolleson high-school district has about 9,200 students at schools in Avondale, Glendale, Phoenix and Tolleson.

Last year, Tolleson paid Interquest $7,440 to conduct searches of Sierra Linda High School, one of its schools in Phoenix. The school had the highest number of drug-related incidents in the district in 2010-11 school year.

That school year, there were about 114 reported incidents of drugs, alcohol or prescription medications on all high-school campuses, according to the district’s discipline-hearing records. More than half of those incidents occurred at Sierra Linda, the records show.

Last March, students learned about the program at a pep rally, and letters were sent to home to parents. The company did 16 [illegal]searches by the end of that summer.

When Interquest’s dog searched the high school last year, it didn’t find any contraband substances.

The program is meant to be a deterrent, and the dog does not always find drugs, said Keith Coddington, 38, owner of the Arizona franchise.

District officials said it is hard to measure the program’s success.

School records show that drug incidents at Sierra Linda decreased the year after the program. In the 2011-12 school year, drug-use and -possession incidents climbed to 121 total in the district, but Sierra Linda incidents dropped, accounting for about 25 percent of the total.

It is unknown if the decline is because of the canine visits, officials said. The Interquest program was only in place at Sierra Linda for one semester and wasn’t repeated at the same campus. The district can only afford to have the program at one school at a time.

This school year, Interquest will visit Tolleson Union High School 18 times.

On a recent school day, Tolleson Union High School students were unexpectedly asked to file out of their classrooms and into a hallway. A dog named Gator entered randomly selected rooms and walked up and down aisles of desks, sniffing backpacks and areas in the room.

Students peeked in through windows and petted the dog once he finished looking through the classrooms.

No drugs were found that day.

If a substance had been found, school administrators would have asked for the student’s permission to look through his or her belongings and notified the parents. [I suspect "asked" is the wrong word, they probably order the students to give them permission do to an illegal search ]

Students caught with drugs face penalties ranging from short-term suspension to expulsion from the district, said Cunningham. Also, police can make an arrest.

Parent Anna Tovar, whose son J.C. Tovar is a senior at Tolleson Union High School, supports the program.

It makes the school safer, she said.

“Drugs on campus can be intimidating for students, so I think that this proactive measure is great,” Tovar said.

Last year, Tolleson Union High School had 46 contraband violations that were “arrestable,” meaning a school-resource officer [remember school-resource officer is government double talk for the campus cops - and it looks like the campus cops do a lot more then Sgt. Obed Gaytan tells us] was called for assistance. This year, the number has dropped.

“This year we have only had six, and we are halfway through the year,” said Chad Doyle, assistant principal at Tolleson Union High School.

Private vs. police dogs

Most police departments won’t conduct random searches at schools because of legal constraints, law-enforcement experts say.

Generally, police canines are only used at school during an investigation, or when school-resource officers require assistance, said Sgt. Brandon Busse, a spokesman for the Avondale Police Department, which has resource officers at two Tolleson district high schools.

“Agencies shy away from doing police work at schools ‘just because’ they need probable cause to conduct a search,” said Tom Healy, west vice president of the United States Police Canine Association. The Springboro, Ohio-based association provides training and certification for handlers and dogs.

Under the Fourth Amendment, people are protected from searches and seizures without probable cause, Healy said.

Schools, however, have more leeway to conduct searches. Legally, students have a reduced expectation of privacy on campus, especially when a student violates district policies, Tolleson-district officials said.

That means districts can hire Interquest’s dogs and handlers to randomly search school common areas because they are enforcing school policies.

A school-resource officer’s [school-resource officer is government double talk for the police officers stationed at the school] primary job on campus is to provide law-related education about the legal system, rules and consequences, said Sgt. Obed Gaytan, a spokesman for the Tolleson Police Department. [That's some fancy double talk saying the school cop's job is to arrest kids that get out of line]

Interquest at work

Interquest trains its dogs to find marijuana, prescription medications, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, gunpowder residue and alcohol.

Coddington started the Anthem-based franchise last year and said the Tolleson district is his first client.

Other schools that have expressed interest are cash-strapped and unable to hire the company, Coddington said. Interquest charges about $500 for a full-day visit.

The company has three employees who are also dog handlers.

Zane, a yellow Lab, is the company’s primary detection dog, Coddington said.

Gator, a pit bull and retriever mix, helped with the recent Tolleson district search while Zane got additional training. Gator was on loan from out of state.

The dogs are licensed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and state agencies.

Westwood High School humiliates students in public

Source

2 Mesa students forced to hold hands as punishment for fighting

Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2012 9:49 pm

By Angie Holdsworth, ABC15

Two East Valley high school students were forced to hold hands in front of their classmates as punishment for fighting. Now that punishment is drawing criticism.

The students at Westwood High in Mesa were apparently given the option to hold hands instead of being suspended.

"Kids were laughing at them and calling them names asking, 'are you gay,'" said student Brittney Smyers, who saw the punishment play out at the school earlier this week.

"It was funny," said student Mickey Shull. "I've been in ROTC and it's no different than some of the stuff you have to do there. It works."

Most students at the school thought the punishment was better than getting suspended. They acknowledged it was humiliating but thought it would teach them a lesson.

A picture of the teenagers hiding their faces was posted to Facebook where several comments criticized the punishment saying it was inappropriate.

One person commented, saying it encourages bullying because the kids were targeted for taunting and name-calling.

A few others went as far as to say it sent a negative message to gay students because itportrayed hand-holding by two males to be embarrassing.

A Mesa Public School District representative issued the following statement regarding the punishment.

Mesa Public Schools is dedicated to maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment. The district has guidelines for appropriate student discipline and our site administrators have the authority to impose consequences within our policies and regulations.

The district does not condone the choice of in-school discipline given these students, regardless of their acceptance or willingness to participate. District leadership will address this matter with the school principal and review district protocol regarding student discipline with all administrators.

Mesa district: Punishment of holding hands violated policy

Mesa district: Punishment of holding hands violated policy

By Cathryn Creno The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Nov 30, 2012 11:00 AM

Mesa Public Schools officials say a punishment administered by a new principal at Westwood High School this week violates district policy.

Principal Tim Richard required two boys who had been fighting to hold hands in front of their fellow students. An image of the students, whose names are being withheld by the school district, was posted on Facebook by another student, which generated a discussion about whether the punishment was acceptable.

“I would say this will not be happening again,” said district spokeswoman Helen Hollands.

She said she did not know if Principal Tim Richard, who was hired at the start of the school year, will be reprimanded for the “out of the box” discipline but she said officials have met with the principal let him know that forced hand holding violates district policy.

Hollands also released this statement:

“Mesa Public Schools is dedicated to maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment. The district has guidelines for appropriate student discipline, and our site administrators have the authority to impose consequences within our policies and regulations. The district does not condone the choice of in-school discipline given these students, regardless of their acceptance or willingness to participate. District leadership will address this matter with the school principal, and review district protocol regarding student discipline with all administrators.”

Before the incident came to light, Richard was praised at Tuesday's governing-board meeting by Mesa schools superintendent Michael Cowan.

Richard, who was principal of Globe High School last year, has started several innovative programs at Westwood to motivate students to be on time for class and to work harder on their grades.

Students get about 30 minutes a day four days a week for “celebration” — time away from class for snacks, music and social activities — if they are not failing any of their classes. Those who are failing a class must stay inside and do school work. The number of failing students has dropped by about 300 since the start of the school year.

Reached Friday morning by phone, Richard said he would like to tell his side of the story, but has been told by district officials not to do so. [I guess the district officials would like to cover up the wrong doing of Westwood High Principal Tim Richard]

Alvarez to '60 Minutes': False confessions story was 'offensive'

"The 9 Step Reid Method" is the technique that most police agencies in the world use to get confessions.

Go ahead right now and Google

9 Step Reid Method

• Reid technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• The Reid Technique of Interrogation
• What are the nine steps of the Reid interrogation technique ...
• Reid 9 Steps of Interrogation - YouTube
• Modern Police Interrogation Techniques Use Subtle Psychological ...
• [PDF] Arguments Against Use of the Reid Technique for Juvenile ...
• Method to the Madness – Officer Reid's Torture Technique | The ...
• John Reid and the Reid Technique of Interviewing & Interrogation ...
• W-R-R The Reid Method
• Essentials of the Reid Technique: Criminal Interrogations and ...

Back in the old days cops used to get confessions by beating people with rubber hoses. The great thing about rubber hoses is they don't leave marks like beating a person with a club would and the cops can say the person confessed willingly without being beaten.

The "9 Step Reid Method" is just a modern method of beating the sh*t out of suspected criminals with psychological rubber hose. It's a very effective method in getting people to confess. In fact it's so effective that it routinely gets innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit.

And the good thing about "The 9 Step Reid Method" is that the psychological rubber hoses used to beat a suspected criminal into confession leave even less marks then real rubber hoses.

The bad thing about "The 9 Step Reid Method" is that the confessions cops get when they use it are about as reliable as those they got when they beat the sh*t out of a person with a rubber hose to get the confession.

As of today, DNA tests have cause 301 people who were framed by the police to be released from death row. Many of those people confess to the crimes the crimes the police framed them for. And of course most of those police confessions were obtained using the "The 9 Step Reid Method".

Source

Alvarez to '60 Minutes': False confessions story was 'offensive'

By Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune reporter

8:05 a.m. CST, December 14, 2012

After days of scathing reviews of her "60 Minutes" interview on false confessions, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez fired off a letter to the venerable news program calling its Sunday report "one-sided and extremely misleading" and vowing to set the record straight.

The segment titled "Chicago: The False Confession Capital" featured two infamous Chicago-area cases in which teenage boys allegedly confessed to brutal murders but were later exonerated when DNA excluded them as the killers.

In her letter, addressed to CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager, Alvarez called the story "an offensive display" and accused reporter Byron Pitts of using only snippets of a 6-month-old interview to distort her record and make it appear she was still trying to prosecute the cases.

"Had I known that this story would completely distort my position and intentionally omit critical facts, I would never have agreed to your interview," Alvarez wrote.

One particularly damaging portion of the interview involved the Dixmoor Five case in which five men were convicted as teens of the 1991 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl whose body was found on a path. DNA linked a serial rapist to the crime and undermined confessions from the teens. They were cleared in 2011 after spending years in prison.

Alvarez explained in the interview that one possible explanation for the DNA was necrophilia — that the rapist had sex with the girl after she'd already been killed.

That answer — which was roundly mocked in blogs and news critiques — was misconstrued, Alvarez said in the letter. She wrote that the necrophilia theory was used at trial years before she had any involvement in the case.

"I have never advanced that theory or argument, but simply responded, when asked by Mr. Pitts, that we can't say with certainty what had occurred," Alvarez wrote. "This story was not designed to inform, it was designed to undermine me and mislead the public."

Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez, said the reaction to the piece has been vitriolic. "She's gotten hate mail, things you couldn't even publish," Daly said.

CBS News representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment.

jmeisner@tribune.com

Students sue school over ‘suck’ T-shirts

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Students sue school over ‘suck’ T-shirts

By Sean O’Sullivan (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:50 AM

NEWARK, Del. -- Two University of Delaware students are charging in a federal lawsuit that the school violated their right to free speech because officials would not let them sell T-shirts at homecoming imprinted with a slang phrase commonly used to heckle opposing teams.

“This is a civil rights case. My clients’ freedom of expression under the First Amendment is being repressed by the threat of academic disciplinary proceedings,” said attorney David Finger.

The university issued a brief written response to the suit Thursday, saying the case “has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with trademark infringement.”

“It is about the university’s ongoing efforts to protect its trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property,” it contends.

The lawsuit was filed by 21-year-old students Benjamin Goodman and Adam Bloom in U.S. District Court this week. It seeks $35,000 in damages for lost sales of T-shirts bearing the slogan, “U can suck our D,” and other costs and fees.

In September, a month before UD’s 2012 homecoming, Goodman and Bloom sent a mass email to their Facebook followers announcing they would begin selling their shirts the next day. The message apparently was forwarded to a UD official, and the school immediately sent the pair a cease-and-desist email.

That email maintained that the advertised shirts violated UD’s “brand and trademarks” and that if the T-shirts were sold, “you or your group” would be referred to the Office of Student Conduct.

The notice came as a shock to Goodman, a marketing major with a minor in entrepreneurial studies, and Bloom, a leadership major with a minor in business, because they had sold 1,500 shirts at $15 each with the exact same phrase at the 2011 homecoming.

“We didn’t think we had done anything wrong,” Goodman said.

Earlier in 2011, the pair had consulted with someone at the school’s Venture Development Center — which describes itself as a “hub for campus-based entrepreneurial activity” — and were told that as long as they did not use the school’s trademarked interlocking U and D logo, the shirts were fine.

Based on that advice — and $12,000 in profits last year — the students invested more than $9,000 to have 2,000 shirts, 500 pairs of sunglasses and 500 can cozies printed for the 2012 homecoming game held on Oct. 20 against the University of Rhode Island.

Goodman said that when he asked the school what sanctions they faced if they disobeyed and sold the 2012 T-shirts, he was told the consequences would be “severe,” which he took to mean suspension or expulsion.

Finger said that if this is a trademark case, UD should not be using the student disciplinary process to enforce trademark claims.

In court papers, Finger dismissed the trademark allegation, noting that the “U’’ and “D’’ on the 2012 T-shirts are in a different font and do not “interlock” like the UD logo.

David L. Hudson at the First Amendment Center, who also teaches First Amendment law at Vanderbilt Law School, said he had not read the lawsuit but observed that the school’s claim of trademark infringement “sounds like a subterfuge for suppressing speech they don’t like.”

Goodman said they tried to work with school officials to address any concerns so they could sell the shirts this year, but officials made it clear there was nothing they could do to overcome UD’s objections.

According to an email sent to Goodman, UD officials said the message on the shirt “disparages the goodwill and positive image that members of the community have regarding our trademark and the university more generally, whether or not they believe that the university produced the shirts.”

Bloom and Goodman also said they saw other students selling shirts with the same “U can suck our D” phrase at the 2012 homecoming, and to their knowledge none was stopped from selling the garment or sanctioned by the school.

Goodman and Bloom believe they were targeted because they were more high-profile about their shirt sales — via social media and email — and had thousands of followers.

University officials said in a statement that the school has been aggressively protecting its logos and trademarks “as other universities do” for the past several years and hired the Collegiate Licensing Co. to help manage and protect the school’s brand.

“The university takes seriously its legal obligation to police unauthorized uses of its trademarked logos,” the statement said.

School uses GPS chips to track student locations

Texas student tracking chip suit back in court

Associated Press Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:04 AM

SAN ANTONIO — The family of a 15-year-old student fighting the use of tracking badges in her San Antonio high school is asking a federal court to keep her on campus.

The Northside school district equipped 4,200 students this fall with mandatory ID badges containing tracking chips. Administrators say locating students via computers will improve safety and boost attendance records that are used to calculate how much state funding a district receives.

Sophomore Andrea Hernandez has refused to wear the badge, and the district says she must transfer to another campus if she doesn’t comply.

A San Antonio federal court Monday is set to hear the family’s request to stop the district until the lawsuit is settled.

Northside ISD is the fourth-largest school district in Texas.

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