THE CALIFORNIA SURPREMES UPHOLD JESSICA’S LAW
On Monday, the California Supreme Court largely upheld Jessica’s Law dictating where sex offenders are allowed to live—even though, by most accounts, it wreaks havoc with the parolee’s ability find a place to live and to stabilize his life and does little to protect public safety.
Stories on the very disappointing ruling may be found that the Sacramento Bee,the San Jose Murcury News and the LA Times, among others.
REFORMING THE DREADED NCLB
President Obama’s proposed budget includes some serious—and much needed—overhauling of the controversial No Child Left Behind act.
On Monday, KPCC’s Patt Morrison had an informative discussion on what the changes would mean should they take place.
A HIGH SCHOOL FREE OF TAUNTS AND RIDICULE
It shouldn’t be that much to ask. The LA Times has the story about the new school. Here’s how it opens:
Aiden Aizumi almost didn’t graduate from high school.
Aizumi, now 21, is one of many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young people who say they have suffered through school, enduring homophobic taunts and name-calling.
He completed his final semester of high school from home.His mother, Marsha Aizumi, didn’t want others to endure the same treatment, so she approached educators about a new school geared for such students.
The school, which serves grades seven through 12, is a collaboration between Opportunities for Learning, a charter school with 34 locations across Los Angeles and Orange counties, and Lifeworks, a mentoring program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth sponsored by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center….
By the way, the kind of taunting that kids want attend this school to escape is yet one more reason why Prop 8 is so vile: By its existence it says to such kids that there is something wrong with them, that they are not normal, that their desire to one day marry the person they love is not only not allowable, it an active threat to the well being of others.
Being a teenager is hard enough without this kind of abuse.
A HIGH SCHOOL FREE OF TAUNTS AND RIDICULE
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That is an excellent idea, we have seen what happens to a gay or transgender person when they are ridiculed in school.
It leads to an un-happy or angry person who does not achieve sucess as an adult. They will be blaming their personal failures on the government more specifically “Republicans” and “Robber Barons”. They often resort to the Internet as means of finding acceptance and friends.
Everybody is afraid of another Columbine. Good luck with creating a high school free of taunts and ridicule. When somebody accomplishes that maybe they can tell Celeste how to do it on a blog. Then they can tell the Israelis and Palestinians how to do it.
Common Sense, you’re certainly right in that taunts and ridicule are part of adolescence. (And human nature.) But, as it happens, that kind of thing seems to occur less in smaller schools—having nothing to do with the LBGT issue. It’s just that everyone gets to know one another, plus because of the small class size, the adults can more easily nip in the bud the really outrageous stuff. In the 500-kid charters, kids generally seem to have a better social experience then in the monster comprehensive high schools. But certainly mean-kid cliques can form in a small school too.
But if this school helps 200 kids at a time find themselves and bloom, more power to those who got it off the ground.
On the subject of Columbine (having zero to do with this post), one of the discoveries of Dave Cullen’s excellent book “Columbine,” is the fact that the press had it all wrong, that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris weren’t bullied at all (I mean no more than the average kids), in fact they had a great many friends, that something quite different was at work.
Having a taunting free school is a bit unrealistic. But I’ll see those who are pushing for this and raise you these melodramatic idiots who want the Spanish language banned from schools. Talk about sensitive, entitled whiners. The Spanish language doesn’t hurt anyone. Yet, they don’t want it spoken around their children. Talk about people who need to just grow up and get real!
Celeste,
Scools started to adopt no bullying policies after Columbine and the other school shootings. Most school districts now define verbal abuse as bullying and the policy is posted around the school. Before 1999 you never saw bullying policies posted at schools. That’s why I referenced Columbine. It was the first one in 1999.
Realizing that #4 is only here to inspire argument I’ll respond with the simple fact that schools are endowed with the task of providing information within a certain time frame. As it stands there isn’t enough hrs in the school day to provide for the absorbtion level of the spectrum of kids attending. It may be a logical tact to use Spanish language in classes where the predominance of students ARE Spanish speaking, but to mandate its usage in mixed ethnic classes is just another case of impotent education. It’s rancorous as Bush’ No Child Left Behind program. Stupid and non-productive.
One of the ways kids learn is to listen to the teacher answer other students questions. If the majority of the students can’t understand the question being asked, the teacher must repeat it. Imagine the time consumed by this if you’re in a classroom where nine kids speak English, seven kids speak Spanish, four kids speak Mandarin and two kids speak Farsi. First of all, you must have a teacher that understands all of those languages. Not likely. Even if the teacher could translate the question to each group of students and answer it in each language, 95% of the teachers time would be spent translating and not teaching.
There is a logistical reason for soeaking and understanding a universal language in the classroom. Like it or not, different languages being spoken in the classroom is not condusive to quality education for the students as a whole.
Gava Joe, I’m not going to sink down to your level and fight with you today. I’ll be the adult here and just respond to your points, without the personal drama.
I hear what you and WTF are saying about universal languages, or whatever. But the heightened threat the right wing, minutemen morons view the Spanish language as is 20 times more insane than a movement to open up high schools that emphasize a tolerant environment. People threatened by the Spanish language are mentally ill.
Agreed. No argument here.