In Naples, the furor over "Kick A Jew Day" continues

Maybe you've been paying attention to this growing controversy. Maybe not. Either way, it might be instructive to take a look at what's happening in southwest Florida, in the wealthy retirement enclave of Naples.

On November 19, a few students at North Naples Middle School, inspired by an episode of TV's "South Park," instigated a self-proclaimed "Kick A Jew Day" at the school. The students, two of whom themselves are Jewish, kicked a number of other students; it appears that they did not specifically target Jewish students but, rather, students who were "different."

“What the school found out is that it wasn’t ‘kick a Jew day.’ It was a ‘kick a fill-in-the-blank day,’” [Collier County school superintendent Dennis] Thompson said. “Many of the kids who kicked other students kicked someone they didn’t like or someone who is different. The kid who was kicked the most was new to the school. That, to me, is the tragedy. These kids picked on someone who was new to the school.”

The new student is not Jewish.

Thompson said it is unfortunate that one student was kicked for being Jewish but it seems to be an isolated case. He added that all of the students who were suspended had never been in trouble before.

“This is certainly not about religious intolerance. This is about, do you know who your child is communicating with? Do you know who your child is communicating about? The real lesson is that we need to understand what our kids watch and who they communicate with,” he said.

The students involved were disciplined with in-school suspension for one day, and the superintendent says this isn't about religious intolerance. Before reading articles about the incident, I was inclined to agree, knowing only that non-Jewish students were victims of the bullying as well. But then I read about the "South Park" episode in question --which featured Eric Cartman kicking "gingers," or red-haired kids, and I began to wonder how that morphed into "Kick A Jew Day." It certainly seems to suggest that religious intolerance plays more than a passing role in the genesis of this incident, doesn't it, Mr. Superintendent?

But you really only need go as far as the comments to the latest article about the incident to see that intolerance is a significant issue, at least among observers of the controversy (some of whom, it should be noted, do not live in Naples or even in Florida). Comment after comment suggests that this is just "something kids do" and that since the superintendent said it wasn't about religious, everyone should just shut the hell up:

Sounds like a witch hunt in the making to me! If the issue were anything else than hypersensitivity to the word "Jew",this would not even be newsworthy. How long will this "Holocaust mania" continue to cloud peoples minds that there are other people, other religions and cultures or no religious preferences at all that are just as important as those of the Jewish faith? Would "Kick a Muslim Day" be just as dramatic? As was stated by both the article and a previous poster this had absolutely NOTHING to do with raligion or culture? Get it?

******

Who cares? What a bunch of whiners. Only the rich Jews would get all this attention.

Pack up and move back to New York. This news isn't kosher.

******

Kids don't pay attention to the religion of others unless their parents brain wash them.

Facts: There was 2 Jewish kids kicking others too. If you read all the facts, it looks like some kids were horsing around and kicking each other... no matter if they were Jewish or not.

It was the MEDIA that picked out the phrase "Kick a Jew Day" that would sell newspapers... and the MEDIA made an issue of the ONE PHRASE. It is the Naples News that created this problem!!

What are you going to do? Put the kids in jail for horsing around on the playground?

How come no issue is made by the media when kids single out the FAT kids... or the SHORT kids... or the ITALIAN kids... or the MEXICAN kids... or the WHITE TRASH kids... or the BLACK kids or the NERD kids?

Kids can be mean to each other for no reason other than there is nothing else to do at the moment.

It is the fault of the Naples News that this playground horse play got the worldwide attention it did. Do you feel proud of what you did Naples News by making the residents of Naples look like fools? ... just a question

Well, the simple fact is that this wasn't about fat kids or short kids or Italian kids or Mexican kids ... and it would have been just as newsworthy if it were. Instead, somewhere along the way, this prank evolved from mimicking a cartoon to focusing hatred on a particular ethnic group. The fact that two of the miscreants were members of that faith is completely irrelevant. So, where do you suppose kids (at least the ringleaders) are learning that sort of hate, hmmm?

One Collier County School Board member calls the incident a "hate crime." I don't know whether I'd go that far, but I do believe the district's response has been embarrassingly, even painfully tepid. It's a teachable moment ... but instead they appear to want to sweep it under the rug. And yet, in a town like Naples or an area like southwest Florida, I can't say I'm terribly surprised.

Teacher suspended for anti-Obama emails: it's NOT a free speech issue

Predictably, the wingnut commenters are out in force, decrying the suspension of Palm Beach County high school teacher Paula Prudente for sending numerous political emails critical of Barack Obama from her school-provided email account. The wingnut CW seems to be that any teacher who would have, say, criticized Drunky McStagger in an email would have been lauded, not disciplined ... but, needless to say, that's not only overly simplistic, it's just flat-out wrong.

Here's the basic scoop:

Administrators said Prudente defied warnings and repeatedly sent e-mails with "political innuendos" in violation of School Board policy. The e-mails included criticisms of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In an interview, Prudente called the suspension a "wrongful retaliation" for her attempt to expose school district corruption.

Let me throw a little legal knowledge at all you mouth-breathers ranting about freedom of speech and urging Prudente to sue the school district for limiting her First Amendment rights: there's no case. Courts consistently recognize valid limitations to the time, place, and manner of speech, provided such limitations are content-neutral -- that is, they don't favor some content over others. You folks who think emails critical of Republicans would be permitted are, well, just wrong (again).

A government-owned mode of communication for political messages is not a public forum for First Amendment purposes. If the school district has a policy against political email on their system, they have every right to enforce it, whether the employee in question was criticizing Obama or praising him, or anyone else for that matter.

It's quite simple, and Prudente's discipline was well-deserved -- not because she's a wingnut, but because she broke the rules. But, then, I've never really expected right-wingers to care very much about rules ....

About the FCAT ... there's good news and there's bad news

Longtime Blast Off! readers know that I'm no fan of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), particularly as it has been used as a measure -- really, the sole measure other than graduation rates -- of the quality of public schools in the state. Well, the good news is that beginning next year, Florida will be evaluating high schools on more criteria than just the FCAT.

The bad news, though, is that the FCAT still will be the sole factor for evaluating lower-grade schools, and it still will carry weight even in the high schools.

The grades will also reflect participation numbers in higher-level courses, scores from end-of-course exams, graduation rates and professional industry certifications earned by students. The way grades are assigned to elementary and middle schools will stay the same.

The outcome will be a more complete picture of how well high schools are preparing students to enter the work world or to pursue higher education, state education officials said.

The changes were approved by the State Board of Education Sept. 15, though they were required by a bill passed in the Florida Legislature in 2008. The old formula, which grades high schools in the state on a scale of F to A, was based on graduation rates and Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores.

“This new legislation is not the result of a dissatisfaction with the FCAT,” said Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Destin. “But, the FCAT only measures the proficiency of half the students in high school. If you look at who takes the FCAT, half the students in a high school take the FCAT, but a school’s grade and academic image is based entirely on the FCAT performance of half the students.”

Look, the problem with the FCAT is that, like any standardized test, it essentially shows how well students do on standardized tests -- not how well a student actually learns or how well a student can apply, or synthesize, learned material in new learning. In other words, it tests a student's ability to memorize stuff and regurgitate it on the day of the test ... period. Having just gone through (and passed) yet another mostly-standardized test myself just a couple of months ago, I know that my retention of the material is, well, limited at this point. The same is true for students who take the FCAT.

I know that standardized tests have their place, and they are a useful (albeit not fully determinative) way of assessing a student's academic performance. But that doesn't translate into an accurate measurement of a school's performance. Sen. Gaetz is half right, in that the FCAT reveals only part of the picture. But he's half wrong, in that it shouldn't be any part of the picture insofar as evaluating schools is concerned. Of course the changes aren't because of "dissatisfaction with the FCAT," Sen. Gaetz! You Republicans have loved the FCAT because it's helped you destroy Florida's public schools -- a longtime goal of former governor Jeb! Bush. You're undoubtedly not dissatisfied with your handiwork.

But at least saner minds are beginning to shed some light on the fact that the FCAT hasn't helped public education in Florida -- it's been detrimental. And any action that limits the test's impact is a step in the right direction.

Just when you thought the right-wing couldn't sink any deeper....

....they find a way to do exactly that.

I'm truly outraged by the demented, uninformed, baseless, bigoted, hate-filled ravings of the lunatics on the Right who are opposing President Obama's speech to schoolchildren next week. I just wanted to share a sample of what I've seen with you, so you can see firsthand the slimy detritus that rests where their hearts should be.

First, meet Oklahoma state senator Steve Russell, who fears a "cult of personality," adding, "This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq." I want you to consider what Russell is saying here very, very carefully: he's saying that a speech to schoolchildren by the president of the United States -- something Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did with little if any controversy -- is tantamount to the actions of vicious, totalitarian regimes. The minds of all sentient people must boggle at the cognitive dissonance displayed by the pustulent mind of Steve Russell.

Next, let me share a few comments sent my way by an anonymous source ... okay, a friend of mine (from outside of Florida, so don't go thinking you know who it is!) who copied down this idiocy from her Facebook news feed. The names have been omitted to protect the unfathomably stupid and the emphases are mine ... but the spelling and grammar have been left just as they were written originally, to make it painfully obvious what kind of people we're dealing with here:

POLL: Should President Obama be allowed to do a nationwide address to school children without parental consent?
- Yes
- No

[Person A]
Hell - Hell- no!!! The time for the days for public education & schools is over. The country could save a LOT of money ! Talk about the expense of Health Care! Most school work is done at home anyway "homework". Computers are issued at school, cut out busing-save gas & safty issues. No one is exposed to swine flu, don't have to eat school lunches... Read More, sex ed at home all kinds of issues are solved. Teachers salaries, electric, janatorial, buildings - isn't the bottom line to save taxypayers dollars.You can do it all at home - Honest Abe did and by candle lite no less.

[Person B]
Plus, there are many I would rather my daughter not be around and learn all their ignorant ways from!

[Person A]
We could eliminate some durg problems, sex with teachers, video's in the gym plus all the fights on the school buses.We could also save some money on free condoms not to mention abortion pills and abortions without parents consent!

[Person C]
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the Future!
-- Adolf Hitler, speech at the Reichsparteitag, 1935
Critics Decry Obama's 'Indoctrination' Plan for Students - Political News - FOXNews.com
Source: www.foxnews.com

[Person D]
Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on Tuesday, which will be the first day of classes for many children across the country. The address, to be broadcast live on the White House's Web site, was announced in a letter to school principals last week by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. <<>>If my kids were in public school I would have them not participate in that at all! Who is he to think he can do this?? It's getting worse the longer he's in office! We have 3 years to go :(

[Person E]
The more I look at this stuff the madder I get!

[Person A]
Talked to her Dad awhile ago, he didn't know about the school thing! He does now!!! Fred told him he was gonna have to take his gun and guard his plug! LOL!!!

[Person F]
One more reason to homeschool

[Person C]
You are right, [Person F]. I do not want any politician, regardless of political affiliation, to have direct access to the young school children. The content of the speech is less important than the precedence it sets.

[Person G]
..or another reason for Christian school..

[Person C]
True, [Person G] :)

I could spend all day decrying the so-called thought processes of these deranged people, but let me sum up with a handful of key points about some of these imbeciles:

• Person A, besides being completely unable to put together a coherent sentence, would like to eliminate public education altogether. "Hell," "Honest Abe did [it] by candle lite," so it makes perfect sense. ("Honest Abe" also issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a document with which I'm certain Person A would have disagreed vehemently, had she been around in 1863.) She also has a peculiar obsession with sex, "durgs," and violence, although she doesn't seem to care as much about apostrophe usage. Good thing Fred has his gun (but what is "guard his plug?")!


• Person B may wish to review a definition of the word "ignorant." She can begin with a mirror.


• Person C loses automatically. Godwin's Law. Thanks for playing. As a result, we needn't even address her contention that no politician, "regardless of political affiliation," should speak to students; one wonders if she felt, or would have felt, the same when St. Ronnie of Simi Valley spoke to kids about tax cuts.


• To Person D: "If my kids were in public school?" We're all grateful they aren't, and since they aren't, you have no standing to protest and you now are cordially invited to shut the fuck up. Also, "Who is he to think he can do this?? (Extra points for two question marks.) Um ... the president, I think?

Anyway, you get the idea. Truly, the stupid, it BUUUUURRRRNNS.

Obama's speech to kids: the financial burden of the protests

With all the furor about the president's speech to schoolchildren next week, it's easy to lose sight of very basic issues that ought to be taken into account as many schools and districts, regrettably, decide not to broadcast the speech to their students. Sure, the political controversy is important, and the precedent such censorship sets is absolutely abhorrent, but there is a simple reason why those schools and districts are doing a great disservice to their students and parents: the real economic cost of boycotting the speech.

At least among those districts, like Palm Beach County, where the speech will be shown but parents can "opt out," or in other places where organized "keep your kid home from school" protests are taking place, what really is happening, as Momocrats blogger Cynematic points out, is a "one-day systematic de-funding of your public schools and mine."

[The boycott is] promoted by childless right-wing white guys (Beck, Hannity) who apparently are anti-education.

All because some grown ups acting more like babies have lost sight of the common good. Have decided that the Party of No comes before country, or anyone else. Including their neighbors. Including your kids.

So keep that in mind. The kid who sits out of public school on September 8 just took money out of the public pot that all his or her schoolmates use.

Parents who vehemently disagree with what the school curriculum can ALWAYS teach their own values at home. Everyone has that right, if not obligation.

But since when did they start messing with the quality of your kid's education? All those $47/days lost to your school start adding up. Music classes or school supplies, band uniforms or special field trips that are already imperiled because of school budget cuts--and now you'll have to make up the difference, somehow, because someone wants to make a statement.

Your neighbor, your kid's friend's parent, the other people at your school are gonna do you like that?

Illuminating, isn't it?

Spot on, Cynematic.

It's disgusting to me that this is even happening, but it's even worse when you consider the damage to every school system and every school, just because a few wild-eyed wingnut fanatics (several of whom happen to have a national forum through TV or radio) hate the president SOOOOOO much that they would push for this "boycott." It didn't happen with Reagan, it didn't happen with Bush 41, it wouldn't have happened with McCain, but it's happening now.

I can't help but marvel, too, at the irony of parents who will keep their children home from public, government-provided schools because they fear some "socialist" message will be transmitted ... maybe by backwards-masking, blinked Morse code, whatever, I don't know. I've already demonstrated that not only will the president not deliver a socialist message, but he's not even a socialist. But try telling that to the people who have been marinating in the constant anti-American drumbeat from the Becks and Limbaughs of the world.

Maybe those districts that are refusing to show the speech altogether, like Collier and Lee counties in southwest Florida, ought to forgo their federal funding from here on out, since clearly they don't have any need for the federal government. (But I guess that would amount to coercion to broadcast the speech, and we certainly wouldn't want to force anyone to listen to the president!)

Look, I know I can't very well wax indignant about disrespect to the president, because this blog hardly has been respectful to President Obama's predecessor. But I never would have told my son (or my daughter, although she was too young for school when Drunky McStagger was in the White House) that they shouldn't listen to a speech from the president. All parents who keep their children home on Tuesday, and even those who "opt out" and have their kids in some alternative activity during the speech, are delivering a chilling message: education doesn't matter, and the president of the United States ought to be shunned.

And, ultimately, that hurts all of us.

Broward School District: completely tone-deaf

I'm the first to admit that I'm a little anal-retentive when it comes to editing. I carefully scrutinize everything I write to seek out typos, misspellings, or misused words, and I easily get into arguments about word usage (as I recently did about using the term "south Florida" instead of "South Florida," based on my belief that, as used here, "south" is an adjective describing "Florida" and "South Florida" is not a state of its own ... well, maybe culturally, but you know what I mean).

This made me a very good law review editor in law school, but sometimes not the best person with whom to engage in a conversation or correspondence.

Anyway, I do tend to spot errors very easily -- I liken it to John Nash (as played by Russell Crowe) in A Beautiful Mind, where the coded letters fairly jumped off the page at him -- and I tend to get a little aggravated when obvious errors are allowed to make it to publication. That's why I'm especially aghast at the Broward County (Fla.) School District, whose 2009-2010 students' code of conduct book included a form that contained the racially-charged (and horribly anachronistic) word "Negro."

Schools are supposed to collect student information by race and ethnicity using new categories from the state Department of Education, said Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter. The district created its form using categories and descriptions from the state Department of Education.

The Department of Education, in turn, got its wording from the federal Office of Management and Budget, said Education Department spokesman Tom Butler.

The state has since changed its wording to eliminate "Negro" as an acceptable term, he said.

Last week, the Broward district sent out a memo and copies of new forms for students to take to their parents but not before upsetting some parents and students such as Jake Edri, 15, of Sunrise, a sophomore in Deerfield Beach High's communications broadcast arts magnet program.

Edri noticed the word when he read through his code of conduct book last week. He was shocked at the description next to "Black or African American," especially since other categories didn't include additional terms.

"For white, it doesn't use Caucasian," Edri said.

Blast Off! tips its bloggy hat to young Jake Edri for demonstrating the initiative to bring this to the attention of the district and others. And shame on Broward County, the state, and the federal government, each of whom (according to the article) seems to be passing blame on to the next, for allowing this to get out to the students.

Sure, it's just a word ... but it has a very particular -- and offensive -- meaning to many, especially in the South. And it's embarrassing that we should have to deal with this sort of thing in 2009. If Broward County needs a proofreader, though, I'm available ....

You were fifth grade, I was sex ... I mean, sixth*

Oh, boy, get ready for the fireworks that you just know are coming. Palm Beach County schools will be teaching about contraceptives in sixth grade. Most wingnuts, especially the fundie variety, would prefer not to know anything about sex at all, even as adults -- let alone contraceptives. Indeed, many of them probably have never heard of contraceptives in the first place.

So prepare for the "outrage" as the crazed fundies try to figure out how to resist the inexorable onslaught of science yet again.

"Florida is the sixth-highest in the nation for pregnant teens, and that tells us we need to get information to our students" well before they enter their teenage years, said Judy Klinek, who oversees health education for the district.

Previously, students in sixth grade - typically 11- and 12-year-olds - learned about sexually transmitted diseases and how to resist pressure to have sex by focusing on goals to help them remain abstinent. But details about diseases were scant, and there was no mention of condoms. Now students will get more detailed lessons about how contraceptives help prevent disease and pregnancy.

One of the lessons for seventh-graders [sic] gives tips on how to store and use condoms and encourages teachers to invite a medical professional to demonstrate their use. Students also will be told where to get more information on contraceptives. Students will have the choice to opt out of the class.

Of course, the fundies will say that we must teach abstinence, since the dirty, dirty act of fornication must never take place outside of marriage. At least, that's what Ted Haggard told me. Anyway, the problem is that abstinence programs aren't working:

This year, discussion of revamping sex education has begun on the state level. Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is sponsoring legislation that would require public schools that get state funding to provide comprehensive sex education, citing studies that show parents and teachers feel schools aren't doing enough to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Across the country, abstinence-only education programs are in jeopardy. Fifteen states have rejected federal funding for it.

Florida received the second-largest share of the funding in the nation, but it still has the second-highest annual HIV infection rate and the sixth-highest teen pregnancy rate.

Nationwide, studies show the programs may not be working. Last year a Mathematica Policy Research study found that abstinence-only programs don't reduce teen sexual activity or unprotected sex, and a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the teen sex rate had remain unchanged over five years.

But when have folks on the Right ever let facts deter them? The sound you'll be hearing very shortly is the collective explosion of wingnuts' heads all over Palm Beach County.

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* You won't get that title if you're under 40, I fear, but just look up Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' song, "My Eyes Adored You."

When fundies attack

One typically wouldn't think of largely-urbanized (at least on the east side) Palm Beach County as a comfortable place for batshit crazy fundamentalist Christians ... but perhaps it's not the quantity but the volume that makes the difference.

Laura Lopez of West Palm Beach has been trying unsuccessfully since September to persuade the Palm Beach County School Board to remove certain books that deal with homosexuality and evolution, among other things.

Lopez had 15 minutes to make her case during a school board workshop. She listed a litany of sins that she says are promoted by books she found doing a simple key word search on the library computers at Dreyfoos School of the Arts and Royal Palm Beach High School. She acknowledged she hadn't read a single one of the books cover-to-cover.

Among the objectionable books were: Medical Ethics: Moral and Legal Conflicts in Health Care, Coping When a Parent is Gay and The Cider House Rules, a John Irving novel about a rural doctor who runs an orphanage and performs illegal abortions.

She also expanded her objections to include the curriculum taught in schools.

"They're teaching kids the Big Bang. They're teaching kids lies," she told the board. "The world was created 6,000 years ago. In my son's elementary school book, it says the world was created several million years ago."

I don't have a problem with people believing theories from the Bible. Hell, I don't even object to people advocating them in the appropriate places and times. But it's the irrational, willful rejection of provable (and proven) scientific facts and, worse yet, the insistence that those facts shouldn't be taught in public schools that get my dander up.

Ms. Lopez appears to have created a difference of opinion in her own home:

One of Lopez's two teenaged sons, Jesse, a sophomore at Royal Palm Beach, came to support his mother. Her oldest son, whom she did not name, does not agree with his mother's objections to the library books.

Jesse Lopez said he worries about his fellow classmates who turn to friends for information, who may consult books full of lies. "If their friends rely on them and if those books are teaching evil, that's just corrupt," he said.

Well, kudos for the PBC School Board for hearing Ms. Lopez out and for making the right decision. But it's just sad when someone's religious beliefs get in the way of their ability to make sound, rational decisions.

Isn't that right, Mr. President?

Gay is okay in Palm Beach County schools

Well, that might be overstating things a bit, but Palm Beach County Schools have removed filters that blocked access to gay and lesbian rights websites on school computers.

After months of negotiations with gay and lesbian advocacy groups and the Americans Civil Liberties Union, the district began allowing access to the Web site Thursday.

"Before, if a kid wanted to find out about homosexuality this system allowed them to get these horrible Web sites ... with false information," said Rand Hoch, president of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council. "That was the only kind of information that was getting through."

The council, which fights discrimination against gays and lesbians, complained this year after they learned the district had blocked access to gay and lesbian advocacy Web sites, including one belonging to a West Palm Beach-based gay and lesbian youth center at Compass. But they were allowing students to surf sites of organizations that oppose gay rights.

Obviously, that begs a couple of questions:

1. Why did it take "months of negotiations" for the district to permit access to these sites?
   
2. Why were anti-gay sites not blocked along with the gay and lesbian advocacy ones?

This is a nice gesture by the district, but for now, that's all it is: a gesture. We obviously still have a very long way to go before the closed-minded bigotry of our officials, elected and otherwise, can be eradicated.