Zero Tolerance Nets Two 11-Year Old Boys Juvenile Criminal Charges For Bringing A Toy Gun To School

from the because-punishing-fakes-keeps-real-guns-out-of-schools dept

Zero tolerance weapons policies at schools continue to be ridiculous. Between Pop Tarts bitten into gun-like shapes and drawings of guns being treated as severely as the real thing, schools enforcing these policies (forced on them by the government's decision to tie funding to weapons policies) have slid into cartoonish parody of discipline.

In news that should come as a surprise to almost no one, two eleven-year old boys at a Flint, MI school were arrested and charged after bringing a toy gun to school. (via The Blaze)

Two Doyle-Ryder Elementary School students were arrested Wednesday after a “toy gun” was found at the school.

The two male students were arrested on disorderly conduct charges about 8:45 a.m., Feb. 5, at the school at 1040 N. Saginaw St., according to a Flint police report. The boys were released to their parents.

The boys are now facing charges of disturbing the peace being brought by the county prosecutor. His statement seems to indicate he's filing charges as part of his ad hoc "scared straight" program rather than as a result of any danger they posed to their school.

Leyton says whether it's a real gun or a toy gun - this is still a serious matter.

"It's always your concern that a young person can get his hands on a real gun and bring it to school. There is no reason to bring a gun to school. Bringing a gun, even if it's a toy gun, to school causes all sorts of chaos and I think these youngsters need to be brought into the courthouse and we need to get their attention so that's what we're going to do," he said.

Because fake guns are real guns in the eyes of the school and the county prosecutor. And any child that can't see the difference needs to have it "brought to their attention" via criminal charges.

No one involved in this incident seems to know exactly what sort of gun was being wielded by the students. Police called it a "toy gun." Superintendent Larry Watkins "believed" it was a BB gun. Prosecutor David Leyton simply described the gun as "orange and plastic." He also noted it was "inoperable."

Here's where the story diverges a bit from the usual "boys will be boys and play with toy guns and schools will overreact" narrative. According to the prosecutor, this is why the "gun" ended up at school.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton says one of the boys had a dispute with a teacher and thought he would teach the teacher a lesson.

I wonder if Leyton will see any irony in that statement as he prepares to teach these two students a lesson. If this is true, I don't necessarily have a problem with Leyton filing charges to address the threatening behavior (and not the supposed "gun"), but he should understand that he's perpetuating this mindset by doing so. So many people think the only way to reach people is to threaten them -- whether it's the boys with their "gun" or Leyton's hauling them to court.

Behind this slightly-more-ominous-than-most narrative lies the same old zero-tolerance thinking. (Note how much of each story is devoted to discussion of the "gun," as compared to a discussion of the students' motivation.) A gun is gun, even if it's plastic, orange and inoperable. An inoperable weapon can look exactly like an operable one, but an orange plastic gun doesn't look like a weapon -- it looks like a toy. Which is what it is. Yes, the chance that a student could get ahold of real weapon should be a concern, but overreacting to fake guns doesn't somehow prevent the worst case scenarios from ever happening. It just makes life more difficult for students who actually comprehend the difference between the fake guns and real guns.

Filed Under: michigan, school, zero tolerance

DailyDirt: Parenting With Technology

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Recently, the LA school district has had some problems with its adoption of iPads into its classrooms. Kids will be kids, and some of them figured out how to use their school-issued iPads for unsanctioned activities like watching movies, playing games and wasting time on Facebook. Clearly, there's a bit of a learning curve for using technology as an educational tool as educators try to figure out how to lock down the devices and keep kids focused on using them solely for school-related work. Many parents with young kids want to encourage their children to use all kinds of technology, but the advice and recommendations from various experts can be a bit conflicting or almost useless. Here are just a few links on kids and screen time.

• According to recent surveys, technology is not at the top of the list of concerns that parents have about their newborn to 8yo kids. Parents who have grown up using technology are flexible in their own adoption of technology as a parenting tool -- and not all of them use iPads as toddler pacifiers/babysitters. [url]
• Some prestigious pre-schools are handing iPads to 18mo kids, but not every parent agrees that barely-potty-trained kids should be interacting with a touchscreen instead of other humans. Also, you don't want to touch that iPad after a kid who's not potty trained has used it. [url]
• Plenty of folks are discussing the effects of screen time on kids. Apparently, some are making a distinction between "active" and "passive" screen time -- but it's still not clear if educational apps are actually educational. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: babysitter, computers, education, ipads, kids, mental development, parenting, pre-school, school, screen time, tools, trend

DailyDirt: Who Cares if You Went To A Good School?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The field of education seems ripe for disruption -- with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of online classes. However, it's difficult to judge the quality of these online programs and compare them to the traditional classroom experience. The conventional wisdom has ranked prestigious universities in roughly the same order for decades, so it'll be interesting to see how online courses and degrees might factor into these lists. Here are just a few interesting links on the quality of higher education.

• The college/university rankings from US News & World Report is not as meaningful as most people assume, according to Malcolm Gladwell. Any ranked list generated by weighting multiple variables depends greatly on those weights -- and a simple, single score may be too simple to capture the most important characteristics of a diverse set of schools. [url]
• The US News college rankings don't heavily weight the value (or "bang for the buck") of the schools it covers, but the Washington Monthly ranking does. In 2013, Amherst College is listed as the "best bang for the buck" school, and Harvard/Princeton don't seem to be in the top ten.... [url]
• Northwestern University was once known as a horrible football school, setting a 34 consecutive game losing streak record in 1981, but its football team has turned itself around recently. Unfortunately, there's no special recognition for schools that simultaneously have good academic and athletic performance. [url]
• Newsweek and the Daily Beast have ranked 2,000 US high schools according to their effectiveness to produce college-ready graduates. But after going to college, how much does high school matter? [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: certification, class, college, degree, education, high school, mooc, ranking, school, university

DailyDirt: School Is Out For Summer

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's that time of year again: kids are about to go back to school in the US. (And for some of them, it's a time to try to skim quickly through their assigned summer reading lists.) While some families still have time to squeeze in a real vacation, the debate over whether summer vacation should exist in the US educational system continues -- are summer vacations a horrible anachronism that should be abolished? Here are just a few links on the topic of learning (or the lack thereof) over the summer months.

• Summer learning programs are getting more and more expensive -- just like the rest of education-related fees and tuition. Do summer vacations create unequal opportunities for kids, and can year-round schooling solve some of the achievement gap problems in the US? [url]
• A study of year-round schooling actually found some negative effects on standardized test performance for disadvantaged students. So there's no silver bullet that will solve our education problems? Dang. [url]
• A 2011 RAND study concluded that students typically lose about a month's worth of learning over summer vacation -- and the losses were particularly severe for low-income students. Reading skills for low-income students declined dramatically over summers, especially when compared to higher-income peers who sometimes showed reading improvements over the same period. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: achievement gap, education, inequality, learning, school, standardized test, students, summer, teachers, tuition, vacation
Companies: rand

Demanding A Student's Facebook Password A Violation Of First Amendment Rights, Judge Says

from the well,-we-all-know-who-the-REAL-bully-is-here... dept

For some strange reason, a large number of schools adhere to the notion that their students are not actually citizens of the United States and therefore, not granted the same rights as the "grownups." The rationale for the limitation of these rights usually involves the word "safety," a word that has been (ab)used in various forms to curtail rights of full-grown American citizens in other arenas.

This isn't to say that all, or even most, schools are violating students' rights, but the sheer number of incidents reported isn't very comforting. Fortunately, some decisions are being handed down that should, if nothing else, provide precedent for those challenging administrative overreach.

On September 6, a decision was handed down in a suit brought against the Minnewaska Area School District (Minnesota), dealing with a twelve year old student who was coerced into giving school officials the password to her Facebook account so they could search it for messages they deemed inappropriate.

R.S. was a twelve year old student at a Minnewaska Area middle school. She posted a message to her Facebook page about an adult hall monitor at her school:

"[I hate] a Kathy person at school because [Kathy] was mean to me."

The post was only accessible to her friends. One of her friends brought the post to the attention of the administration. The principal called R.S. into his office and told R.S. “that he considered the message about Kathy to be impermissible bullying.” (???) As a result of the message, R.S. was required to apologize, given detention, and received a disciplinary notation in her records. R.S. was disciplined a second time when she expressed her chagrin that someone had told on her (“I want to know who the f%$# told on me.”) [“f%$#” in original] This time she was disciplined for “insubordination” and “dangerous, harmful, and nuisance substances and articles.” (???)

Venkat Balasubramani has added his own punctuation to some of the more dubious or ridiculous statements made by school officials. First off is the charge of "impermissible bullying" (there's a "permissible" variety?), a broad term used nearly as often by school administrators as "disorderly conduct" is used by cops.

In essence, "R.S." was punished for "being a kid" (i.e., not liking something that happened at school, complaining, being ratted out and complaining about that, etc.). The handling of this first incident makes the school appear to be as vindictive and thin-skinned as the child they punished.

This isn't the end of the story, however. The school also received a complaint from a parent that R.S. was discussing "sexual topics" with another student "on the internet." For whatever reason (most likely stated as "concern for her safety"), the school decided to pull R.S. from class and grill her about the particulars of these conversations. Apparently, her answers weren't good enough, so three school counselors and a taser-armed cop interrogated her until she gave up her Facebook password. They proceeded to search her account, including private messages, for evidence of these conversations. Still not satisfied, they decided to search her private email messages.

After this traumatizing and intrusive incident, R.S. decided to sue the school district for violating her constitutional rights. The court agreed with her on both claims:

First Amendment claims: The court has no trouble concluding that assuming the facts as alleged as true, school officials violated R.S.’s First Amendment rights. The court says that posts on social networks are protected unless they are “true threats” or are reasonably calculated to reach the school environment and pose a safety risk or a risk of substantial disruption of the school environment. R.S.’s posts were not true threats. Even assuming the statements were reasonably calculated to reach the school audience, there was no possibility of disruption.

Fourth Amendment claims: The court also says that the school officials violated R.S.’s Fourth Amendment rights to the extent they rummaged around in her Facebook page and her private email account. Private emails were like letters of other private conversations, and subject to Fourth Amendment protections. Private Facebook messages are no different. There was no evidence that the officials tailored their search to minimize the intrusion. Even if they had, they had no underlying basis to search in the first place.

If the alleged facts are true (and the court takes care to point out this "if"), the school will likely be writing out a settlement check. This decision, a response to the school's motion to dismiss, also allows for claims of invasion of privacy (although it does dismiss claims for "intentional inflection of emotional distress"). It doesn't seem like the school is debating the facts as presented, not if its argument that R.S.'s violation of Facebook policy (she's 12 and you "have" to be 13 to sign up for an account) means she's entitled to fewer constitutional rights is any indication.

Eric Goldman adds his own analysis, pointing out the inherent problem with most bullying policies/legislation:

[I]t's a good example of how administrators might use the "bullying" label as a pretextual justification for punishment. The term "bullying" has way too much semantic ambiguity, but it should never stretch as far as calling another person "mean."

This is something administrators should keep in mind when crafting/revamping school policies. They should also be reminded of this simple fact, as stated by Judge Michael Davis in his decision:

For more than forty years, the United States courts have recognized that students do not check their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door.

"Safety" does not trump rights, just as surely as "policy" does not trump (or at least, shouldn't) trump common sense and proportionate responses.

Filed Under: free speech, passwords, school, social networks, students
Companies: facebook

DailyDirt: School's Out For Summer...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The last days of school are coming up in the US (if they're not here already), and kids all over are getting ready for "no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks." Summer school, summer camp or a few weeks of mental atrophy are ahead, so here are just a few links on the subject of not having school all year long.

• If the goal of public education is to just produce good students, then it makes sense to keep them in school for 11 months out of the year. But maybe if we want well-rounded young adults, summer camps or summer jobs are better for giving kids a break from school-learning. [url]
• The season opener of The Simpsons in 1992 was an episode called "Kamp Krusty" -- an instant classic about the last day of school that showed kids destroying their school with animated violence. It's all fun and games -- until life imitates art. [url]
• Decades of research show that kids forget a lot of the stuff they learn in school over the summer, and the losses can be cumulative. Summer school shouldn't be punitive and remedial, but it typically has that stigma. How do communities improve the reputation of summer school? [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: columbine, education, kamp krusty, school, summer break, summer camp, the simpsons

DailyDirt: That's Edutainment!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some folks are out to actively dismantle (or disrupt) the existing education system, and the revolution in public education has only just started. Educational software is getting a lot of buzz for being able to motivate students and more accurately track their progress -- and for its potential to be incredibly cost effective (if everything works perfectly). Here are just a few examples of educational developments aimed at kids these days.

• Educational apps are on every platform, but should parents really expect to pay more than couple bucks for a kid's app? Parents should also remember to make sure their kids can't rack up huge bills from in-app purchases. [url]
• Experience points instead of grades sounds like an interesting idea, but a 4.0 grading scale is a much more established system -- and it's a bit more standardized. Prof Sheldon notes, "There will always be a portion of the class who will not be motivated to learn no matter what an instructor may try..." [url]
• Can every class be taught as a video game? There are a bunch of startups like DimensionU that are going to find out soon enough. [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: apps, education, experience points, games, gamification, grades, school
Companies: dimensionu

Swedish Teenager Turned Over To Police By School Headmaster For File Sharing Acquitted By Court

from the one-part-of-this-is-absurd dept

Last week, there was a lot of attention to criminal charges brought against a 15-year-old kid in Sweden, after his school's headmaster turned him over to the police after discovering some downloaded films and file sharing software on his computer. It did seem absurd to charge him with a crime, rather than civil infringement, but that's what happened, and the prosecutor in the case seemed almost gleeful about the possibility of convicting the boy of a crime. Except... it took just a few days for the court to acquit the boy. The ruling involved a head judge and three "lay judges." From my understanding of the Swedish judicial system, "lay judges" are somewhat (though not exactly) akin to a jury in the US (Swedes feel free to chime in and clarify). There was apparently a split among the lay judges, with two voting against conviction and one being in favor. The split resulted in acquittal. The prosecutor, rather than recognizing the sheer absurdity of the case, instead insists that it's "absurd" the kid was acquitted, and now vows to appeal. Because there's nothing more important than convicting someone of a crime for sharing a couple movies. Honestly, if Swedish prosecutors wanted to draw more support for the Swedish Pirate Party, I don't think they could have picked a better strategy.

Filed Under: acquittal, copyright, crime, school, sweden

Public Knowledge Offering $1,000 For Creating A Better 'Copyright School' Video Than YouTube's

from the where's-copyright-man-when-you-need-him... dept

Following Google's decision to create a misleading, myth perpetuating video, supposedly to teach people accused of infringement about copyright law... Public Knowledge has set up a contest offering $1,000 to whoever can create the "best" copyright school video that helps teach people about copyright. Quick! Someone break out the giant © symbol and call on Copyright Man to come help save the day...

Filed Under: copyright, education, school, youtube
Companies: public knowledge

Is It A First Amendment Violation To Kick A Student Out Of Nursing School For Blogging About A Patient?

from the questions,-questions dept

Michael Scott points us to an interesting lawsuit, in which a student who was expelled from nursing school after blogging about patients, is fighting to say that the expulsion violated her First Amendment rights and her due process rights. Of course, the First Amendment doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want, but I believe the key issue here is that she was attending the University of Louisville -- which is a state school, so there is some aspect of government action here. On the due process side, she claims that she was never given a fair hearing and never told what specific rules she violated. The district court had ruled in her favor, ordering the university to reinstate her, but did so by effectively ignoring her specific charges, and claiming instead that the woman had not violated the university's honor code or confidentiality agreement, so it was a simple contract dispute where she had not violated the contract.

However, the university reasonably appealed, pointing out that the woman hadn't even argued that point, so it was wrong to decide the case on those grounds, and now an appeals court has agreed, sending the case back to the district court to consider the First Amendment issues. While I'm a big supporter of the First Amendment, I'm not sure I see how she has any significant claim here. The university did nothing to silence her speech, but merely said that if she wanted to say those things, she couldn't do it while a student in their school. The due process claim may have a bit more to it, in that the situation was handled poorly, and it appears the woman had no chance to defend herself or argue her side of the story. But, you would think that a university has the right to determine who to allow in and who to expel without it being a constitutional issue...

Filed Under: expelled, first amendment, free speech, school