Posted on 11/02/2005 2:26:45 PM PST by SmithL
an Francisco (AP) --
A federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by elementary school parents who were outraged that the Palmdale School District had surveyed students about sex.
While the surveys asked students how often they thought about sex, among other questions, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said parents of public school children have no "fundamental right" to be the exclusive provider of sexual information to their children. The parents maintained they had the sole right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex."
The plaintiffs had sought unspecified monetary damages.
In upholding a lower court that had also ruled against the parents, a three-judge panel of the appeals court here dismissed the case, ruling unanimously that "parents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the public schools from providing information on that subject to their students in any forum or manner they select."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I'll agree with that. I would not have given the survey at all.
This decision was absolutely correct. Any other decision would have been judicial activism run wild.
The parents didn't like what their kids were being taught in public school. They didn't try to get the elected local school board to change it; they didn't take their kids out of public school and send them to private school or homeschool them. They sued in federal court for money damages. The 9th Circuit said there is no federal constitutional right to decide what your kids learn in public school (but also held that the parents can still sue in state court if they think state law was violated.)
If the federal court had ruled any other way, each parent could demand an individualized curriculum for their own child, and federal courts would be running every detail of every public school.
The government should be prohibited from mandating any portion of the curriculum taught in schools. Any politician or bureaucrat caught extending favors to influence or dissuade a curriculum should be fired.
Imagine a 'Supreme Court' fashioned with the same Leftist hand as the 9th'. . .a sadistic and. . .masochistic thought. . .
Well I would phrase it as on "thin ice" myself. :) Even if SCOTUS has not ruled regarding the right or lack thereof of parents to restrict what a public school does with their kids during normal school hours, a sex questionaire seems beyond the mission of an educational institution, and thus the thin ice.
That's probably too broad a brush. There are good public schools, as well as bad ones.
Thankyou! That's the case of which I was thinking. I guess the question is will this be overturned next year 9-0, 7-2, 6-3, or 5-4?
I cannot imagine why any parent would have a problem with this. The school district said it was all for the children.
Neither could the estimable Reinhardt, who writes very well, attended the right schools and has years of experience composing fantasy gleaned from emanations of penumbras.
"Good morning, class. Today we will learn about the joys of alternate lifestyles. Meet Chip and Bruce, here to demonstrate for you how they express their love for each other..."
That's my personal opinion. Children in government schools are nothing but livestock to be indoctrinated into, at the very least, Socialism and anti-American concepts. Again, my opinion, based on numerous experiences from coast to coast and border to border in America.
If they'd asked me in first grade how often I thought about sex, I wouldn't have known what the hell they were talking about.
What makes these morons think they would get straight information from such a survey? How many of the kids could even read it? Was this conducted by interview? In private???
Exactly, time to really de-fund the public schools. Problem solved.
home school ping
Sickfreak pingout for this one too.
Just because the Constitution for the United States doesn't mention public schools, doesn't preculde the several States from instituting them. See the Tenth Amendment.
I know it's called an opinion, but it can't be an arbitrary one.
From what I can tell, it's a matter of in loco parentis, IOW when you drop off your kids to a public school, you have tacitly assented to accepting what they do per the written policies and procedures of your local school district. You have every right to bitch about it at the school board or elect different offals who'll fire the principal, but that is your recourse.
This scares the daylights out of me. My first is still three years away from starting school and the more I look at it, the more I want to homeschool.
Almost everything about the public school system is twisted joke, not an education.
San Francisco (AP)
'nuff said.
Not everybody has the financial resources to send their kids to a private school.
LOL, Massachusetts is even worse, if that's possible. In Massachusetts they teach "fisting" in the elementary schools. The teachers and their union have a real fun time in Massachusetts.
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