Shasta High Volcano (school newspaper) erupts (over flag burning)

[Newsjock]

Source: Redding Record-Searchlight

The adviser calls it sabotage, the principal finds it embarrassing and the superintendent is offended.

The students see it all as a matter of freedom of speech.

Shasta High published its last issue of the Volcano, the student newspaper, before the end of classes last week with an image on the front page of a student burning the American flag and an editorial inside defending the practice.

"The paper's done," said Milan Woollard, Shasta High principal. "There is not going to be a school newspaper next year."


Read more: http://www.redding.com/news/2008/jun/10/shasta-high-volcano-erupts/

[CountAllVotes]

1. you say you want a revolution ...

oh yeah ...



:kick: for Shasta High School and the VOLCANO!!! :)

[trthnd4jstc]

4. Yes n.t.

[saigon68]

21. the superintendent is offended.

Maybe the old crone got aroused

LOL </sarcasm>>

[Deja Q]

2. In my parents' day, school was for getting educated.

In high school, I wanted to get educated but being harassed by bullies and other vermin (never mind the clothes their parents let them wear, "metal up your ass" indeed) made that rather difficult. ((Oh, I scored higher in college than in high school, being away from those god damn animals. Now ask me how I truly feel...))

Forgive me, but there ARE legitimate reasons why our school systems are in disarray - never mind the vicious crimes carried out by these children too. Until they're 18, children have no rights as such. That's what adults are supposed to teach them. After that, they can think what they want.

[gtar100]

15. At 18? Is that a deliniation for convenience?

Because there are many kids under 18 with far more thoughtful intelligence than many who had long ago passed that milestone.

The disarray in our schools you mention I doubt is from students exercising "rights". I think a discussion of items such as the following would shed more light on what causes the disarray you speak of:

• budget priorities
  
• cookie-cutter approaches to teaching
  
• low teacher pay
  
• the odd hours for school
  
• lack of extra-curricular activities
  

Suppression of our youth, even if only in thought or ideal, is unfortunate. There is no magic age that indicates maturity. Our youth need mentors, role models, opportunity, opportunity, and more opportunity. They don't need yet another example of adult fears clamping down on them. Do you want to stop them to teach them or for the revenge of your own sensitivities?

As for the flag burning. God save us all from living in a country that makes flag burning illegal - that to me symbolizes control through fear. Better to make this the type of country in which one would not want to burn the flag out of a natural extension of one's personal respect and gratitude. Imagine if we made this country a place where the thought of flag burning doesn't even occur because it would be meaningless, pointless. But who's willing to do the work to make this such a place?

In the meantime, I hope these students learn clearly the fabric of this country and what they have to deal with when they really do come of age. And I hope they are not jaded by the knee-jerk decision of this "principal". They may be silenced by force but they won't stop thinking.

[trthnd4jstc]

3. That was not offensive, that was expression

Those kids were not showing their immaturity. Those kids were showing there feelings, their perceptions. Those images were not excessive.

[gtar100]

5. How dare those students take freedom of speech so literally

:sarcasm:

Didn't their civic classes teach them that freedom is an ideal, not anything you should take seriously here in the USA... especially if it offends someone who loves the flag more than liberty.

Principal Milan Woollard has just taken the first steps to protect the school from the FOX attack machine and the leagues of shallow thinkers inbred throughout the world. The difference between principle and principal has been demonstrated quite well.

[distantearlywarning]

6. Is there some rule somewhere

that states that if you want to be a high school principal you first have to find the biggest stick around and then permanently jam it up your ass as far as possible, thereby ensuring that you instantly become and remain a totalitarian fascist prick for the rest of eternity?

Because it seems like that's the case.

[hedgehog]

17. Junior High Principals give high school principals lessons in that regard!

Because in junior high, the main goal is to prepare you for high school! (That's the explanation for every jack-ass rule and regulation in junior high!)

[Gman]

7. "There is not going to be a school newspaper next year."

Yeah, that fixes everything, doesn't it?

Fools.

[Carnea]

8. As we know Teachers are not what they used to be.

Many parents today have noticed that their kids teachers are not all that bright. They may think it's the rose colored glasses of youth throwing them off but alas no. Since the success of womans liberation the average IQ of teaching candidates has dropped precipitously. (In other words women who used to go into teaching are now business majors, lawyers, doctors etc.)

School administrators are generally chosen from these ranks and are vetted for non-conformity and creativity and yes intelligence.

As a result you have an entire legion of school administrators who are filled with power and fear and almost universally suffer below average intellect.

Give stupid people (teachers and administrators) power and expecting a good result seems a bit silly. We may want to test the current crop of teachers, double the pay of those that pass, and send the rest to be Walgreen's cashiers or work at Head Start or something.

(This is a bit of a rant. I admit but the media talks about bad schools and its funding this and testing that. Ask parents and the three top complaints are lack of discipline, ridiculous silly rules and teachers that cannot read or write proper English or put a coherent thought together.

[maseman]

27. Hey Carnea

When was the last time you were in a city Junior High school? My wife teaches in a war zone in a city in Ohio. And it is one of the better city schools. Before you haul off calling people stupid and ripping on intellect why don't you reflect on yourself? It is easy to anonymously come on here and blog about idiot teachers. You pay them crap to deal with extremely difficult situations. Silly rules? Like what?

Granted the story about shutting down the school newspaper is wrong. I asked my wife's boss about it and he said he would never do that. But you seem like a horse's ass making sweeping generalizations on here. Nice role model for the youth. I hope you are not a teacher.

[Carnea]

32. I am certainly not attacking anybody in particular.

Actually it's older teachers and parents that point out the math and language skills of many new teachers are awful. My girlfriend has taught 1st and second grade elementary in county schools varying from inner city to nice suburban. She loved the kids but couldn't believe some of the people the ever desperate school system was hiring. She quit two years ago after eight years of frustration.

I give you three recent horror stories from around the grill. ( I live in Florida so I will leave out the female teacher / middle school seduction stories but we have had like eight of them in the Tampa area in the last couple of years. It's really weird)

1. Friend of mines son wrote a paper on the slaves being freed for his Junior high school class. Going beyond the textbook he pointed out (correctly) that some Indian tribes in the Oklahoma territories didn't free their black slaves till 66 and 67. His teacher gave him a c- and pointed that out as factually incorrect. The boy went to the teacher and explained to her that the slaves weren't actually freed till 1866. The teacher then yelled at the boy for telling lies that Indians held slaves. (She apparently called him a racist.) Needless to say the father showed up the next day to talk to an administrator who backed the teacher up in her assertion that the Indians didn't have slaves and of course the teacher denied she had called the boy racist. My friend was so upset they I'm surprised they didn't call a school resource officer. Much googling on the administrator computer he eventually found out about the civilized tribes. The teacher said I not going to teach that kind of crap to the kids and stormed off. The administrator got his son moved to a different class and of course that teacher still teaches history.

2. Another friend's daughter had a heath teacher who was a Scientologist. Lots of strange meditation in class. (Actually the same thing happened to me in the early eighties one of our health teachers spent the semester teaching EST.)

3. Sending notes home with misspellings double negatives and words such as teached.

I actually can tell you a dozen or so stories but the theory remains (and it isn't mine apparently a lot of papers have been written on declining teacher test scores compared to the mean.)


From 1954

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/decline1.htm

Typical of the studies done in that era was the report of the Commission on Human Resources and Advanced Training, by Dael Wolfle. <1> This study looked at the academic quality of those who chose certain majors in college. Here's some revealing comparisons from that study.

1. Wolfle, Dael, America's Resources of Specialized Talent (Report of the Commission on Human Resources and Advanced Training), Harper and Brothers, 1954.


AGCT Scores
90 100 110 120 130 140 150
| | | | | | |
| | --------********|*******-------- All college graduates
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | |--------**********|******------------ Physical sci.
| | |--------********|*******--------| Chemistry
| | |-------********|********--------| Engineering
| | | ---**********|****------- | Law
| | --------*******|*********------- | English
| | --------*******|*******-------- | Foreign lang.
| | -------**********|*******-------- | Psychology
| | ------********|*******--------- | Economics
| | -----********|*******------- | Earth sciences
| | -------*********|******--------- | Biological sci
| | -------*********|*****---------- | Fine arts
| | ------********|********----------- | Nursing
| | --------*********|******-------- | History
| | -----******|******------- | Agriculture
| | -----********|********----- | Business..
| | ----------******|**********------ | Humanities
| | ---------*******|*********------ | Education
| | --------*******|*********------- | Social sci.
| ------------********|*******------ | | Home economics
| -------------*******|********--------- | | Physical ed.
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |


Legend: |-----|*****|*****|-----|
10 25 50 75 90
Percentile scores

From 2004

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sc129/papers/jpam_published_summer_2004.pdf

Over the 1964–2000 period, women near the
top of the test score distribution became much less likely to enter the teaching profession
than their peers near the middle of the distribution. The apparent consequence
has been a much lower representation of women of very high academic ability
in the pool of elementary and secondary teachers. While the sample sizes of male
teachers are much smaller, we detect the opposite trend among men.

If our results can be applied to the wider population of young teachers in the United
States, a given student in 2000 (conditional on having a female teacher) could expect
to find a teacher who is on average of only slightly lower academic ability than a given
student in 1964. However, that student is much less likely to find a teacher of the
highest academic ability than a student in 1964. Further, given recent research on the
sorting of teachers across schools within states and school districts—the likelihood
that a student in a low income or predominately black school encounters a teacher of
the highest academic ability is likely to be even lower (See Lankford, Loeb, and
Wyckoff, in press). For the casual observer, these results will surprise few. However,
if the significant loss of women in the top decile—those who likely stood to benefit
most from occupational desegregation—is indicative of a wider trend, then these
findings should be of interest to parents, researchers, and policymakers alike.

[LanternWaste]

36. To be honest...

"Many parents today have noticed that their kids teachers are not all that bright."

In the same manner, many teachers today have noticed that their students' parents are not all that bright, either."

At least, that's my perspective of it. Too few teachers asked to teach too many students is bad enough. Add to that too many uninvolved parents who look at the school system as a de-facto nanny, and it's no wonder (to me, anyway) why teachers get burned out and students feel unwelcome at home and at school.

[Carnea]

37. To that I agree 100% nt

[ann_american2004]

9. a last issue parody works so much better

and is virtually untouchable. Our last issues of the school year were dreaded. we poked fun of the principal's student interrogations and spying, school board corruption, misuse of school funds and got results, like school board resignations and a superintendent's 'early retirement'. It was heavenly and funny as hell.

[PittPoliSci]

10. bad jourlnalism? yes.

Not the students, the asshats who wrote the article about the students.

[merwin]

11. Very unbiased, eh? I didn't see a single quote from one of the students involved.

But lots of quotes from everyone else on how much the student tarnished their precious image as an institution of higher learning.

[PittPoliSci]

34. preeeeeeecisely.

not very objective was it?

[Journeyman]

12. "If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it." - Norman Thomas

but then, what'd he know about protests and gestures? . . .

[ozone_man]

20. Fumigating might be less offensive.

Burning works of course. Whatever it takes to get rid of the pestilence.

[dubeskin]

13. I think that was uncalled for to publish that

Look. I'm all for free speech, but I think that a line was crossed here. I mean, if you want to burn flags, go on ahead. It's your constitutional right to burn a flag, of any country for that matter. However, I think a line was crossed by putting it in a school newspaper. Post a picture of yourself burning the flag on your Myspace or Facebook or whatever. But to put it in a school newspaper is over the top and irresponsible. There was no justified reason except to use the 1st Amendment.

However, the adviser to the school newspaper SHOULD have caught this, and the principal should no take away the paper, which is an essential part to every high school.

[Journeyman]

14. SCOTUS has ruled high school student newspapers have limited First Amendment rights. . .

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=484&invol=260


edit to get link correct. . .

[Fumesucker]

25. Burning is the accepted way to dispose of a worn flag..

http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html

(k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

[hedgehog]

16. Yeah, that's right - punish the kids next year for what THIS year's

graduates did!

Reminds me of the incident 10 years ago in which three members of the Green Team at the junior high carefully disassembled a desk and smuggled it out of the classroom piece by piece over several weeks. Ever since then, kids on Red Team and White Team are allowed to use back packs but the kids on Green Team are not.

[truthisfreedom]

18. Neanderthals. Flag-burning is merely a statement. The flag symbolizes something different to each

of us. Some people act like it's more than a piece of dyed cloth on a stick.

[Mrs. Overall]

19. The student editor speaks for himself in the comments section of the article:

Posted by ConnorKennedy on June 10, 2008 at 4:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I would like to address some of the inaccuracies in the recent Record Searchlight article regarding my flag burning editorial.

First, this was not sabotage, and it was not done in secret. The printing of this issue was done no differently than any other issue of the Volcano. Everything was conducted in a routine manner and there was simply no element of sabotage. I know for a fact that our advisor saw both the cover and the article connected with it, as she made final edits on both. She did not voice any objections or concerns and any claims that this was done without her consent are untrue.

Second, the photo and article were not as untimely as the Record Searchlight portrayed them to be. The Senior classes had just finished a lengthy and provocative unit on freedom of speech focusing on flag burning. In the high school community that is the intended audience for the editorial, that is relevant and timely.

Third, I would like to point out that the photo was not a stand-alone piece. I would like to include the final lines of that piece.

“The day an American cannot burn the flag, the day he cannot denounce his country, is the day America is no longer free. It is simply beautiful that we have this right, and it is what has allowed us to create the unique, diverse, and spirited culture that we so proudly boast. God Bless America, and its burning flags too.”

This is a constitutionally protected act as established by Texas v. Johnson. In a 5-4 decision, the supreme court held that “the Government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable, even where our flag is involved… Recognizing that the right to differ is the centerpiece of our First Amendment freedoms, a government cannot mandate by fiat a feeling of unity in its citizens. Therefore that very same government cannot carve out a symbol of unity and prescribe a set of approved messages to be associated with that symbol.”

I do believe this right to dissent, in even its most controversial form is truly what makes America great. I am saddened that the exercise of a constitutional right- the very right which distinguishes the political culture of America- has resulted in the death of our beloved Volcano. I do not believe that this is the proper course of action. I am also unsure of what budgetary issues the school is referencing because the Volcano is self-sufficient. We sell ads in every issue and have a fundraiser dance annually. In fact, our staff raised record amounts of money and left the paper with a surplus of over a thousand dollars. I think the Volcano, like any paper, is an asset to the school and should not be so hastily discarded. I am deeply saddened that the paper will be lost to Shasta High and I find the decision utterly ironic.

[DavidDvorkin]

26. Beautifully said

[otherlander]

22. I hope the kids start an underground newspaper.

[Sam Ervin jret]

23. Right, It's the best way to say what you want without interference.

With laptop publishing available to the kids they don't need a school to publish the paper.

Best lesson learned - journalism cannot be beholden to outside forces. Now if we can just get the kids to teach it to the main stream media...

[XemaSab]

24. One thing that y'all should be aware of:

Redding is FReeper country BIGTIME. Fundies, tweekers, and racists are a big part of the population.

Cross burning and other forms of hate are, if not commonplace, not too rare either...

Kudos to the students of Shasta High for demonstrating freedom of speech! :patriot:

[provis99]

28. I've heard that Redding is peckerwood central

But interesting to see it confirmed. I checked the comments page on the Redding Record; what a bunch of fascist morons! Okies and Arkies to the core.

[XemaSab]

31. We're trying to change that

:patriot:

[CreekDog]

29. i hate headline writers

:spank: :eyes:

[merwin]

30. K&R

[Doctor_J]

33. SHASTA High erupts? Grape or Orange?

or root beer?

;-)

[XemaSab]

35. You are aware that Shasta is a large volcano/mountain in Northern California, no?

:shrug:

[Xenotime]

38. Good for the kids. There will be a newspaper next year.