DailyDirt: Can Education Ever Be One-Size-Fits-All?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The national debate over education in the US seems to be gaining more steam. Part of the issue is that funding for education is at a crossroads, and decisions about how to best allocate funds need to be made soon. There don’t seem to be any clear solutions so far, but there are plenty of opinions. Here are just a few.

• No Child Left Behind is about to be ousted, as many states are facing far less than 100% proficiency in math and reading skills by 2014. I can haz education, 2? [url]
• “The best thing you can do is get children in front of an extraordinary teacher.“ There might be a ceteris paribus missing from that statement. [url]
• Smaller class sizes don’t seem to necessarily mean kids will learn more… But that doesn’t mean class size doesn’t matter at all. [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: classes, education, no child left behind, schools, students, teachers

New Missouri Law May Make It Illegal To Friend Your Former Teachers On Facebook

from the for-the-children! dept

Gabriel Tane points us to another odd state law coming out of Missouri, where it appears that schoolteachers could run afoul of the law if they friend any former student on Facebook. Part of the problem here is that the law in question is worded incredibly vaguely. But the text does say:

Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student.

This is the part that would seem to cover friending any current or former student on Facebook. While plenty of teachers I know refuse to friend students on Facebook just out of principle (and general caution), to make it illegal seems extreme. That’s doubly true when it includes “former” students. At some point, former students grow up and become fully functioning adults (one hopes). At that point, does it still make sense to make it illegal for the student and teacher to have contact? Update: As pointed out in the comments, the law does define “former student” to mean someone under the age of 18, meaning that former students over the age of 18 can be friended safely…

The bill is clearly targeted at stopping sexual relationships between teachers and students, which is a perfectly admirable goal. But, like so many laws, it appears this one was written very poorly, and creates massive unintended consequences.

Filed Under: friending, missouri, teachers
Companies: facebook

DailyDirt: Teach Your Children Well

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Teachers don’t have an easy job, but at least they get the summers off (in the US). Technology might be able to help improve things by increasing the amount of teacher-to-student attention time, but investments in classroom technology are also competing for pretty limited resources. It’s a tough problem to solve, and here are a few interesting links about education and the American school system.

• The Khan Academy is developing some really cool software to help kids learn more effectively and efficiently. And it’ll be really cool when the Khan Academy starts training anyone on how to create lessons for anything…. [url]
• Bill Gates is concerned that federal and state budget deficits are going to squeeze education investments pretty soon. No solutions are presented by Mr. Gates in his talk, but the Gates Foundation does have a mission to help improve education in the US. [url]
• Toledo teachers have a peer review system that helps identify which teachers are good or bad. However, the effectiveness of this system is still debated. [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: bill gates, education, khan academy, new math, teachers

Students Given Detention Just For Becoming 'Fans' Of A Page Making Fun Of A Teacher

from the not-a-fan dept

We’ve been seeing more and more stories like this, as various schools seem to overstep the boundaries of school property into the online world to try to regulate student speech. It’s highly questionable as to whether or not they have the legal right to do so (and, in fact, there are cases that suggest that there’s a significant limit to how much schools can even prevent students from speaking out while on campus as well). This latest case, sent in by reader Keyop, highlights a high school in Syracuse that gave detention to a group of students who had joined a Facebook group that made fun of a teacher. The school claims that the page about the group was derogatory and libelous. Even if we accept that’s true, this seems to step over the line in a variety of ways. First, students always make fun of teachers they don’t like. It’s part of being in high school. Pretending you can stop that isn’t going to change the human nature of teenagers. Second, even if the content is libelous, at most, shouldn’t the detention have only been given to those who actually posted the libelous information, rather than to everyone who became a “fan” or “member” of the group?

Filed Under: detention, facebook, students, teachers

Another Battle: Can Teachers Sell Lesson Plans?

from the so-first-we'll-learn-that-1+1-equals-2 dept

I missed this last month, but a friend sent over a NY Times article looking at the growing practice of teachers making additional money by selling lesson plans. Marketplaces are emerging, and teachers who have crafted smart and useful lesson plans are able to earn extra cash, while other teachers who are looking for help in crafting smart lesson plans, or understanding what kinds of lesson plans work gain the ability to learn from others, rather than starting from scratch. However, there’s a problem (isn’t there always?). Some school districts are upset that the teachers are selling lesson plans, believing they deserve some of the “cut.” Thanks to our “ownership society,” we’ve built up this belief that every idea must be “owned” and if anyone makes money, others come grabbing as well.

Of course, while the article doesn’t go there, I would bet that a growing number of teachers are seeing value not just in “selling” lesson plans, but posting them publicly for free. In doing that, you can get better feedback and open a nice discussion among other teachers to share what they all have learned, and create a better overall lesson plan that helps everyone out (especially the students). In fact, the more you think about it, the more you realize that expecting teachers to keep coming up with their own lesson plans entirely separate from what thousands of other teachers are doing, seems positively backwards.

Filed Under: copyright, lesson plans, markets, teachers

Student Files Lawsuit After Teacher Demands Facebook Password, Logs Into Account & Distributes Private Messages

from the wow dept

Remember the story recently about how Bozeman, Montana was asking all applicants for city jobs to hand over their social networking passwords so city officials could log into their accounts? After some widespread complaints, the city smartly backed down, but apparently they’re not the only ones demanding passwords. CitMediaLaw points us to a lawsuit filed in Mississippi, concerning a high school student who turned over her Facebook password at the demand of a teacher at the school. The teacher proceeded to log into her account, read her private messages and then send them around to others at the school, causing a lot of problems for the girl.

Apparently, the teacher had originally demanded usernames and passwords to Facebook from a bunch of students to see if they were doing anything illegal (drugs, drinking, etc.), which is already pretty questionable from a privacy standpoint (and violates Facebooks’ terms of service). But to then use the contents of private communication to publicly humiliate the girl and punish her for her private messages seems to go way beyond what is both right and legal. Other students at the school had quickly deleted their Facebook profiles when the teacher demanded their passwords, but this girl chose not to, but certainly never expected what followed. It’s amazing that any teacher would think that they have a right to demand access to private social networking accounts and then to make use of the content of private messages in that manner.

Filed Under: passwords, social networks, students, teachers
Companies: facebook

MPAA Shows How Teachers Should Record Movies By Camcording Their TVs

from the ok-then... dept

As you probably know, every three years, the Librarian of Congress gets to review requests for special “exemptions” to the DMCA. It’s a ritual every three years, and every three years most people hoping to get rid of some of the worst abuses of the DMCA are disappointed. Back in 2003 very few exemptions were issued, and in 2006 it basically extended the exemptions and added a few very, very narrowly defined and specific exemptions — and did nothing for consumers. This year, the process is going on again with a variety of requests for exemptions.

But, of course, the process also has some requests in the other direction as well… The entertainment industry, for example, would like fewer examples. Kevin alerts us to some video of a recent hearing, where the MPAA actually (you have to see it to believe it) demonstrates how to use a camcorder to videotape a movie off a TV:

Why would the MPAA show this? Because it wants to remove the (very narrow) exemptions that were granted in 2006 to media professors who wanted to copy clips of movies from DVDs for the purpose of education. But the MPAA wants the Library of Congress to take away that exemption, and is using this demonstration to show that a media professor shouldn’t need to break DRM on DVDs, when they can go through the cumbersome process of recording the DVD via the “analog hole” of playing it on a TV and capturing it with a video camera.

Filed Under: analog hole, dmca, exemptions, recording, teachers, video

How Is It Cyberbullying When Students Are Exposing Teacher Abuses?

from the trying-to-understand... dept

Over in the Czech Republic, the education ministry has drawn up “guidelines” for how schools can deal with “cyberbullies” and just like other recent stories, it’s the teachers who are afraid of being bullied more than other students. But, as you read the details, it sounds that what the teachers define as “cyberbullying” is actually something more like “students exposing teacher abuses.” We’ve seen this before. A school district in the US punished students for recording a teacher’s outburst, and in another case, a student was suspended for filming the principal smoking on school grounds — against regulations. In this case, the rules against cyberbullying came after students uploaded a video of a teacher hitting a kid. It’s difficult to see how that’s cyberbullying at all. It sounds like the students were effectively exposing a teacher abusing his position. Yet, the response, again, is to figure out a way to blame the kids and make it more difficult for them to expose teachers acting badly.

Filed Under: cyberbullying, czech republic, teachers

Student Sues School For Suspending Her Over Facebook Group

from the free-speech-or-cyberbullying dept

Last year, we pointed out that teachers are increasingly complaining that students are cyberbullying not each other… but the teachers themselves. Of course, in a lot of cases these seem overblown. Yet, that hasn’t stopped some teachers from arguing that cyberbullying should be a criminal offense. Yet, when teachers overreact and consider just about any criticism “cyberbullying” you’re going to run into problems. Take, for example, the case of Katherine Evans. As a high school student who didn’t much like her English teacher, she created a Facebook group called “Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met!” That doesn’t seem like cyberbullying. That seems like garden variety student-bitching-about-teacher. Even worse, Evans’ fellow students told her it was a stupid group, and expressed support for the teacher, such that Evans decided to take down the group herself

But, the school apparently felt this was a big problem, claiming that this was cyberbullying harassment and “disruptive behavior.” It suspended Evans for three days and pulled her out of various advanced placement classes. Now, Evans is suing the school for violating her free speech rights. As the Wired article notes, there have been lawsuits about free speech in school in the past, but the internet makes the issues a bit different here. Either way, it’s quite difficult to see how the school can claim that such a group is actually cyberbullying, and punishing the girl for venting hardly seems like a reasonable response (especially for an issue that was dealt with by other students in a reasonable manner). What is this world coming to when people can’t take the slightest criticism and insist that it’s somehow “cyberbullying” that requires punishment or discipline?

Filed Under: cyberbully, florida, students, teachers
Companies: facebook

Judge Says School Can Suspend Student For Fake MySpace Page Of Principal

from the questionable-reading-of-the-legal-tea-leaves dept

Just about a month ago we wrote about a principal losing a lawsuit against some students for posting a fake MySpace page pretending to be the principal. However, in a different case, a court has ruled that a school has every right to suspend students for creating a fake MySpace page of a principal. The two cases are different in a few ways, as the first one involved the principal suing the student, rather than just suspending the student. That said, the ruling by the court in this case seems problematic, and I’d be surprised if it was upheld on appeal (assuming the student appeals). The Supreme Court’s famous Tinker v. Des Moines case established the precedent that schools can’t punish students for protected free speech — especially if that speech takes place off of the school campus. The court said that other Supreme Court rulings applied over Tinker, but both of the cases it cites in support involve disruptive actions at school events. A MySpace page created at home doesn’t seem to qualify. Either way, if the principal’s intent was to get the pages hidden so people didn’t talk about them, this resulting lawsuit seems to have created the opposite situation.

Filed Under: fake profile, first amendment, free speech, students, teachers