Colorado controversy, continued

This is what has been happening in the local news this week about the Colorado high school teacher controversy.

The taped class lecture was released last week. The Glenn Beck program
aired the lecture; it was an incredible 20 minute rant (link to audio) about the evils
of capitalism, the evils of the war in Iraq, the evils of Bush, the
evils of America. I heard it and couldn’t believe my ears. This was no
classroom discussion, the only person talking on the tape was the
teacher. About halfway through the rant, the student (who ended up
releasing the tape) challenged one of the teacher’s premises. From then
on it seemed the lecture was directed at this student who was strong
enough to challenge his teacher. It was pure indoctrination. That is my
opinion, and the opinion of this student and his parents, who gave the
tape to the school board, and when the school board failed to act, the student’s father
released it to Walter Williams (I love him), then the Mike Rosen radio show,
a local talk radio show, requested it. It immediately gained national
prominence because the issues in question are national issues — the
responsibilities of teachers in the classroom to teach, not indoctrinate.

It was front page news in the Sunday paper; there were at least four
separate articles about the story. The school board put the teacher on
paid administrative leave while they investigated the allegations. So
the press went to bat for the teacher immediately. One of the headlines
from the Sunday paper was Union: Suspension will stifle class
discussion. The union in question, is of course, the NEA. I find this a
hilarious statement, as there was no discussion taking place in the
class, if you listen to the tape.

Another
headline (unfortunately I did not save it) was something to the
effect that the teacher had hired a lawyer, and his free speech rights
were not going to be censored by the school board. This brings up a
good question, which ought to be seriously considered: the Constitution
guarantees the freedom of speech to every citizen. But do employees
have the same right to exercise that freedom in the course of doing
their job, as private citizens? If someone was hired to train equipment
operators from 8 to 5, but spent that time instead railing at his
trainees about the evils of capitalism, wouldn't that be grounds for
firing? It would not be a free speech issue, it would be a failure to
do his job issue. And that is exactly what is happening here. Lest we
forget, this was supposed to be a world geography class. However, the
teacher, the union, and the lawyer want to turn this into a freedom of
speech issue to muddy the waters. Here is Mike Rosen’s take on the whole threatened lawsuit thing.

Then there was the Today Show brou ha ha, in which both the teacher and
the student and his parents were invited to appear on the Today Show to
answer questions about all this. The student and his parents were
disinvited before the show taped. The show aired with just the teacher
telling his side of the story. Gee, I wonder why they disinvited the
conservative but flew out the liberal to give him TV time?

As of late yesterday, the school board reinstated the teacher,
and he
will be back in the classroom on Monday, continuing to indoctrinate
young skulls full of mush, as Rush would say. I would laugh except it
is so mind-numbingly wrong, to rob a child of his education, of the
power of his mind, and then to force the taxpayers to pay for that
robbing.

The
student has had to leave the school, due to threats he received. He is
in the process of finding a private school to attend.

Such is the pathetic state of education in modern America.