Education
Education
Poetic Justice
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 21:04During my time covering the Avery Doninger case, I’ve often pondered better ways of this being handled. Avery Doninger is the high school student who was barred from running for class office after she wrote a blog post at home critical of the school administration, using the word Douchebag and encouraging parents to call the school, when the school administration cancelled, or if you want to parse words the administration’s way, postponed yet again, a battle of the bands known as JamFest.
I don’t know the details of why Jamfest was repeatedly cancelled and rescheduled, but it seems that there should have been a better process. I do know that Avery could have used better language when she encouraged the citizens of the town to get engaged in the issue, and I believe that Avery has learned that herself. I believe that the school administration could have made much better choices in how to take the incident and turn it into a teachable moment instead of a Federal lawsuit.
Now, Principal Karissa Niehoff is being punished for errors that she has made. On May 31st, Principal Niehoff sent an email to Mike Morris concerning details of the case. The email appears to have violated policies of the Board of Education and the Professional Code of Conduct of the State of Connecticut.for School Administrators. As a result, Ms. Niehoff has been asked to write a formal letter of apology to the Avery and her family, has been placed on administrative leave without pay for two days, and has been asked to attend a workshop on the Family Educational Right and Privacy Act. In addition, Ms. Niehoff will be asked to develop at least one goal for the 2008-2009 school year that will show her understanding of the seriousness of this. Perhaps she should start a blog about this and post ideas on how school administrators can better address these issues in a digital age online. Others have suggested that poetic justice would call for her not being allowed to speak at this year’s graduation ceremony.
I applaud the new Superintendent, Alan Beitman, in his efforts to take the situation and make it an educational experience for all involved. I also appreciate the difficulties that a case like this presents. It is difficult to be constrained by advice from lawyers as well as professional responsibility from speaking out when you feel that only the other side is being heard. Yet my interest in the Doninger case has brought me in touch with representatives of other school districts. I have been impressed with the professionalism with which other school administrators address complicated situations, situations much more complicated than the Doninger case.
The age of instant, persistent searchable communications places many new challenges that Ms. Doninger, Ms Niehoff and all of us need to think long and hard about. My interactions with Ms. Doninger leads me to believe that she has learned much about our rights and responsibilities in a digital age. Let us hope that Ms. Niehoff will have similar learning opportunities and will be able to make good use of them.
Teach your children well
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 09:40“I hate you,” she shouted as she stormed out of the room and slammed the door. Shaken and hurt, I sat quietly. I will give her some time to calm down, and then go to her, let her know that I love her, even if I do things that I think are the best for her and she disagrees, even if she behaves in an inappropriate way. I can help her with that another time.
Does this sound familiar? I suspect that anyone with a teenager at home must have experienced something like this. The teenage years are difficult, not only because of the raging hormones, but also because of the need for teenagers to separate themselves from their parents and authority figures, to establish their own identity, authority, sense of self worth, and find ways to express it.
As much as I hate the phrase, “The Internet has changed everything”, there is a hint of truth about it for teenagers. At home, at night, they can shout and slam virtual doors online. They can call the administration of their school douchebags. They can create MySpace parody pages of their school administrators.
Of course, this presents another problem. These outbursts, which in previous years might have been confined to the family room, are now available for everyone to see, including the douchebags at the central office.
It is reasonable to believe that the school administrators may also be shaken and hurt by these outbursts. Since they are acting “In Loco Parentis” at the schools and since they should be much better trained in dealing with the traumas and dramas of teenagers, you would expect them to handle the situation even better than I have in my house.
Yet school administrators are also human. They err. They fail. Since their parental relationships are based upon a job, instead of deep familial love of the children, they may act in ways that are more focused on defending their reputations and their jobs than on being good educators.
It seems as if this provides a useful framework for understanding what went on with Avery Doninger and the school administration at Lewis Mills High School in Burlington, CT. Avery wrote a blog post at home one evening after a dispute with the school administration about a concert she was helping organize. She referred to the ‘douchebags’ at the central office. Some of the administrators’ feelings were hurt and they lashed back at Avery. The case is currently in the courts. Yet Avery’s case is not the only one of its kind.
From the Student Press Law Center, I’ve learned of the case of Justin Layshock. At his grandmother’s house one evening, Justin created a parody profile of his high school principal, Eric Trosch, intimating that the principal was a drunk and a drug user. Mr. Trosch responded in a manner more like Paula Schwartz and Karissa Niehoff from Lewis Mills High School and focused on his reputation rather than his responsibilities as an educator.
In a rather bizarre move, the school district blamed the ACLU for the “damaged reputation because of the publicity the lawsuit elicited”. So, yet again, we see a school administration more concerned about reputation than pedagogical interests.
In a preliminary ruling on the Layshock case, a judge wrote, “They [the school administration] may not like something students say on their home computers and post on the Internet, but it’s for the parents to decide what, if any, discipline is appropriate.”
Yet a bigger question remains for me. What happens when parents show their children love and stand up for the children when they express themselves poorly, but legally? What happens when children learn that what they say matters and that freedom of speech needs to be protected?
Avery will be spending a year working Americorps. In a subsequent article about Justin Layshock’s case, we learn that Justin spent last summer volunteering at an orphanage in Africa.
In can be very difficult for parents and educators to act in love and in the best educational interests of their children when the children criticize them. I must admit, I don’t always do it right myself. But, by managing ones hurt and focusing on helping the child become more effective in speaking up clearly and strongly, we will create a new generation of leaders, like Avery and Justin and our country, and our world will be better off for it.
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A Foreseeable Risk of Substantial Disruption
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 05/30/2008 - 04:33Thursday was a bad day for me. I received an email from a media watchdog organization declining my job application. I received an email from the DNCC declining my application to be a blogger at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, and I received a copy of the Second Circuit of Appeals decision to uphold the District Courts denial of the Doninger’s preliminary injunction motion. Yet all of these tied together into a fairly consistent theme.
In the rejection letter from the media watchdog organization, I was told that they “needed someone with more traditional journalism experience”. I can see why they say that. They are a fairly traditional watchdog organization. It is important to them that their watching of the media does not create any substantial disruption of the media landscape.
The rejection letter from the DNCC didn’t give any reasons other than that “Several hundred great blogs submitted applications.” It suggested that I check out “The Big Tent” organized by “DailyKos, ProgressNow, the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, and the Wright Group… with some of the most well known faces in the non-profit and political world, as well as food, drinks, entertainment.” I’m not sure that well known faces and entertainment being gatekept by people making their name by writing about crashing gates is going to bring about any substantial disruption.
In 2004, bloggers at the Democratic National Convention in Boston were a substantial disruption, at least to the media narrative. People wanted to talk with and about bloggers about how they were changing the media landscape. Subsequent research found that the bloggers, myself included, didn’t really bring about any substantial disruption in the media landscape, but at least coming into the convention there was a foreseeable risk that that might occur.
Many great blogs have been credentialed this year and the Democrats have chosen to have a blog credentialed to sit with each State delegation. This could bring a whole new perspective on the convention, creating a new foreseeable risk of substantial disruption, but I worry that it may not. It may be just part of the new generation of political media, the new boys on the bus.
I’ve often commented about blogs being passé. They are so 2004. “New Media” is being replaced by “Social Media” and I wonder how much the bloggers of 2008 will have moved beyond 2004 style blogging. What role will streaming multimedia, microblogging and lifestreams fit into the picture? That may be where the real potential for a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption of the political media process exists this time.
All of this takes me to the Doninger case. The Second Circuit wrote that “Because Avery’s blog post created a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption at LMHS, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion. We therefore affirm the denial of Doninger’s preliminary injunction motion.”
The substantial disruption that Avery’s words in the blog post are accused of creating a foreseeable risk of, is citizens in the school district getting more involved the school and thereby in the community.
I disagree with the court that this sort of ‘substantial disruption’ is something the existing political structure should be protected against. Instead, the ability to create this sort of ‘substantial disruption’ is exactly what our Constitution is supposed to be protecting the right of each of us to participate in.
The candidate at the Democratic National Convention most likely to become the Democratic Party Nominee for President is running on the slogan “Change We Can Believe In”. We are most likely to see a candidate at the podium who says, “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
This candidate has brought many new people into involvement with the political process, similar to how Avery worked to get more people involved in the politics surrounding her high school.
So, I am frustrated. Unlike Barack Obama or Avery Doninger, I am not managing to generate a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption to current media and political status quo. Yet looking at the successes of Barack Obama and Avery Doninger, I continue to have hope that I may yet contribute to such substantial disruptions.
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Tax Day Odds and Ends
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/15/2008 - 13:47It’s been around two weeks, a fairly chaotic two weeks, but I’ve caught back up on my emails. At least, I’ve gotten down to no unread emails in my inbox. There are still plenty of emails that are flagged for follow-up. So, this post will highlight some of the things I’ve been reading.
On areas is on telecommunications. A few weeks ago was Freedom to Connect. This is an annual event organized by David Isen. I made it one year and try to participate as much as possible via chats and video feeds on other years. This year, I did tune in long enough to hear Dewayne Hendricks talking about Net Neutrality issues. He says that the battle for Net Neutrality was lost years ago, and urges people to pay close attention to what the IP Sphere Forum is up to.
Yet the battles for better internet access continues, and there are two articles that I recently read about these battles in Connecticut. Esme Vos has an article about an RFI issued by Manchester, CT about installing city wide wireless access. Speed Matters has an article abilt HB 5682, "An Act Concerning High Speed Broadband Access", submitted by Rep. Roberta Willis to foster the build-out of high speed Internet access for Connecticut's underserved communities and allow local residents to fully take part in the digital age..
This fits nicely with a recent discussion about digital divide issues that has emerged on the Second Life Educators mailing list. For more on that, check out Stan Trevena’s blog post.
One mailing list that I’m following is talking a bit about how to deal with crime, and I pointed everyone to a great paper published by Harvard's Center on the Developing Child entitled, A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy. I would encourage people to read this.
In other topics, it was recently reported that employees from the “Dr. Phil” TV show posted bail for Mercades Nichols. Mercades is one of the girls involved in the Victoria Lindsey beating. My blog post about the beating continues to get lots of hits each day. In a follow up post, I suggested that these girls need serious psychological help. However, I am not sure that Dr. Phil counts, and based on the photographs in this article about the bail hearing, I’m not sure that Dr. Phil chose the right person to work with. I may be reading more into the pictures than is reasonable, but Mercades looks to me like the ringleader trying to finagle something good out of this for herself. I was also struck by the looks of defiance by April Cooper and Cara Murphy. No, if I were reaching out, I’d probably start with Britney Mayes or perhaps Brittini Hardcastle who seem the ones closest to remorse, based on the pictures in the article.
Then, tomorrow, we remember the shooting at Virginia Tech. Friends in Second Life will stop by at the Memorial Park. In Stamford, Protest Easy Guns if organizing a “Lie In” at 11 AM at Stamford Superior Court, on 123 Hoyt Street. The goal of the Lie-In is “To Urge Congress to Close The Gun Show Loophole And For More Common Sense Federal and State Gun Laws”. Other events are noted at http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/
All of this feeds into my mind as I prepare to speak Thursday evening at a talk about the Avery Doninger case, “Fighting to be heard”. The topic is how Avery’s case “informs our thinking about the types of experiences students face in high school and what they bring to community college.” I suspect that not only Avery’s case, but Tori’s case, the fight for better internet access, for safer schools, and even the issues of early childhood education should all fit into our thinking about “the types of experiences students face in high school and what they bring to community college”.
Deconstructing the Region 10 Board of Education Press Release from Yesterday:
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/11/2007 - 13:34PRESS RELEASE REGION 10 SCHOOLS September 10, 2007
From: Beth Duffy, Chairperson of the Region 10 Board of Education
On August 31st U.S. District Judge, Mark Kravitz denied the injunction requested by Avery Doninger and her mother to void the election of senior class secretary at Lewis Mills High School. Until the case documents became public, Region 10 officials and board members were restricted by privacy laws from publicly discussing the case. The press has done a great job of covering Avery's version of the story. However, there has been very little coverage of the district’s side. Now it's time to set the record straight.
Yes, let’s set the record straight. My understanding, based in part from Beth Duffy’s comment at the previous Board of Education meeting is that it is the advice of legal council and the policies of the Board not to discuss issues of pending litigation. The case has been appealed, so litigation is still pending. It appears as if Beth is going against the advice of council and board policy.
On top of that, it is my understanding of case documents have been public for quite a while. I received copies of them back on August 22nd.
Despite what has been reported in the press, Ms. Niehoff and Mrs. Schwartz did not infringe on Avery Doninger’s First Amendment rights.
That is the assertion of that continues to be challenged in court. Duffy, Niehoff, Schwartz and Kravitz seem to believe this assertion. I, and various civil libertarians do not believe it. The real question is will the Second Circuit accept the assertion.
Judge Kravitz ruled that they acted appropriately in rendering Avery ineligible to run for the office of senior class secretary because she deliberately and publicly circulated information that was vulgar, false and incited members of the community to disrupt the central office.
Again, the Board seems to not get the facts straight. Judge Kravitz did not rule that Niehoff and Schwartz acted appropriately. Instead, he ruled that the plaintiff’s did not present sufficient information to warrant proactive injunctive relief. There is a very big difference between the two.
Avery took her action after Ms. Niehoff had addressed the issue of appropriate behavior of class officers with her that same day. Ms. Niehoff then withdrew her support of Avery’s candidacy only after it was clear that Avery did not understand that her conduct was unbecoming a class officer.
Holding the position of class officer at Lewis Mills is not a right - it is a privilege.
This gets to the interesting aspect of where rights and privileges intersect. Driving is a privilege, and that privilege cannot be taken away because someone executed their rights of free speech. If it were, you could run into very dangerous precedents. For example, I suspect Duff, Niehoff, Schwartz and Kravitz would not want to see someone’s privilege of driving taken away because that person wrote in a personal blog somewhere about a traffic cop being an asshole. If they do believe that privileges should be taken away in such contexts then that illustrates what poor regard they view the rights of U.S. Citizens.
The definition of privilege in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is "a right or immunity granted as an advantage or favor esp. to some and not to others". At Lewis Mills, the privilege of running for class office must be earned through good citizenship, and appropriate behavior. Mrs. Doninger has admitted publicly that she believes her daughter's behavior was neither appropriate nor acceptable. That means she agrees with the assessment of her daughter's behavior made by the Region 10 administration! She just disagrees with the consequences imposed by the school district, and that is why this matter was in federal court.
This gets to a fundamental question. Who should punish a child for unacceptable behavior that takes place at home. The American tradition has always been that this is the realm of the parents, and Avery’s mother has handled this appropriately. What is inappropriate is when the reach of the government, including public schools extends into our homes.
I should point out here that Region 10 did not start this lawsuit. It was filed by Avery Doninger, her mother and their lawyer, in spite of numerous attempts by the school district to work out a compromise.
I hope the Board will be forthcoming about its efforts to reach a compromise. I have heard that there have been many efforts to reach a compromise, including a meeting with a judge in Bridgeport. None of these have born any fruit and the description I have heard of Niehoff and Schwartz’ approach has been ‘stonewalling’.
Our administrators have acted and continue to act in a professional, ethical and responsible manner. We have tried to settle this matter on at least two occasions and have been met with unreasonable demands by the Doningers. We will continue to defend the administration as long as necessary.
Citing Constitutional rights as protection for bad behavior does that incredible document a grave disservice.
Yet it is precisely these situation where we honor our Constitution, our founders, and the people that have fought so hard for our basic liberties. I am sure that people during the revolutionary war period would have considered refusing to provide housing to soldiers bad behavior. Yet it was abused, and we now have the third amendment to protect against this. Likewise, using a word like douchebag is a bad behavior, but if we reduce our rights to only when everyone is acting above reproach, then we have very few rights left.
This is an issue of standards. We have high standards for our students in Region 10 - good behavior, strong academic achievement, good sportsmanship and civil behavior to one another. Sometimes students make bad decisions because they are young, inexperienced and impulsive. When that happens, we should attempt to help the student learn from his/her mistake. That was done in this case. When a student repeatedly makes the same bad decision, it is the school's responsibility to impose consequences. That was also done here. But if our school system backed down on a fair and just consequence for bad behavior, then we would be letting down the other 2859 students in our district and our communities as well. Judge Krawitz recognized that in his ruling. We have high standards in Region 10, and I for one am proud we do.
It appears as if these ‘high standards’ are viewed as being higher than respect for the Constitution, or using moments of conflict, no matter how far they go, to find valuable teachable moments.
There are many opportunities at Lewis Mills for an intelligent, passionate, determined young lady like Avery to hone her leadership skills. Class secretary was just one of them. I know that both Ms. Niehoff and Mrs. Schwartz would like nothing better than to find an opportunity for Avery to shine in her senior year. I hope that she opens the door to that opportunity.
She has. She has stood up in court to protest the erosion of our civil rights. This goes far beyond anything she would have been able to do as class secretary. I firmly believe this will carry her much further. Avery clearly is the winner in the larger battle. She has shown more maturity than Niehoff or Schwartz. It is a sad commentary on the Region 10 School System.
