Paid Speech in our Classrooms

Jay Bennish is a teacher who collects paychecks for teaching Colorado high school students about geography. Here is a sample from one of Bennish’s classes:

“Do you see how this economic system [capitalism] is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It is at odds with human rights. Anytime you have a system that’s designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive, money, that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etcetera.”

According to Tustin Amole, Public Information Officer for the Cherry Creek School District, the above statement and the other Bennish statements captured on tape by one of his students are within the context of the geography class. The main issue the school district has with Bennish is that he didn’t provide balance by presenting an opposing point of view.

Apparently, it’s acceptable in the Cherry Creek School District for a geography teacher to use 20 minutes of class time for a left wing, fanatically whacko, socialist diatribe, providing he has made arrangements for Ann Coulter to tell the class what she thinks of communism. Isn’t public education great?

Here’s a better idea. Spend the forty minutes in geography class teaching kids about geography. Then set up an after-school debate to watch Coulter clean the teacher’s clock.

Bennish has hired David Lane as his attorney and takes the position that he should be able to say anything he wants in class. In an interview with the CBS affiliate in Denver, Lane said, “No action should be taken against someone who is exercising their rights under the First Amendment.”

According to Lane’s logic, when the receptionist of his law firm answers the phone, she should be able to express the opinion that all of the attorneys there are incompetent and then provide the caller with phone numbers of better counsel.

Sane people, on the other hand, would think that since Lane and his firm are paying the receptionist, she does not have free speech to answer the phones anyway she wants. Sane people realize the receptionist should be fired if she doesn’t answer the phones exactly as her boss directs. She is not free to speak, she is paid to speak.

The same is true for Bennish. He is paid by taxpayers to teach geography. He can do whatever he wants with his own time, but in the classroom, he should refrain from telling his students that Al-Qaeda didn’t think they were killing innocent people, but that they were attacking legitimate military targets. How on earth does he know what Al-Qaeda thinks? Even if the school district invites a terrorist to come into class and give balance--the correct interpretation of what they are thinking--the taxpayers might prefer class time be used to prepare students for geography tests.

Bennish’s First Amendment right prevents our government from prosecuting him when he compares Bush to Hitler. It does not protect him, or any other employee, from keeping their job when they say something their employer does not like.

Who determines what a teacher can and cannot say? Many teachers like Bennish think it should be the teacher. The school districts think it should be them. Lawyers and teachers unions think it is the teacher. How about the taxpayer? Isn’t there a reasonable expectation that the tax dollars funneled to government schools are not used for propaganda against the capitalist system that generated them?

The Constitution provides no authority for the Federal Government to subsidize education. I think the Department of Education is unconstitutional. How would the education establishment react if teachers started teaching their classes my opinion?

What Bennish said about capitalism and Al-Qaeda has been spiked by the national mainstream media. Sean Allen, the student who recorded Bennish, indicated he has received emails from others aware of teachers doing the same thing Bennish did. We will never hear about those teachers, because the mainstream media is not interested in this story.

On the Today Show, Bennish said, “My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society.”

After the Today Show appearance, the AP filed a dispatch that might as well have been a press release issued by Bennish and his attorney. Too bad the AP doesn’t think its job is to challenge taxpayers to think critically about the way their money is being spent by the public school system.

wolfpat,
The first thing is to educate people that government schools can NEVER be reformed.

Point out that government schools violate the 1st, 13th, and 17th amendments and are therefore child abusers and human rights abusers. It is important to use this harsh language.

A few good court cases would help. To my knowledge the government abuses to the students and parents regarding the 1st, 13th, and 17th Amendments has never been argued in the courts. Hopefully, as the public becomes more educated these issues will come before the courts.

Government schools need two things: Students and money. I encourage everyone to take their children out of government schools if at all possible, then work politically to starve the government schools of money. Encourage your church to open free or low cost schools and take in as many non-members as financially possible.

Work like crazy for tax credits. I do not favor vouchers they would simply make a private schools look-alike government schools.

Change the language about homeschooling. It is the most natural and healthy way to raise a child. Those using government schools are institutionalizing their children. Pointedly asks other who institutionalize their children in government schools why would they do such a thing? It is time parents felt guilty about using government schools. Put them on the defensive.

Ask others why parents living in mini-mansions on the hill or driving beautiful cars why they are sucking the blood of the rest of us by not paying tuition at their "Blue Ribbon" government schools. Hand these people a bill.

Point out that government schools are contribute to the irreversible destruction of the environment. Ask why are putting government schools in outlying areas simply because a development it built?

Any strategy to undermine support for government schools will erode their foundation. Hopefully they will fall like the Berlin Wall.

All schools at all levels (K-12, college, grad schools) should be private. Government should have no involvement in education. This would eliminate a huge tax burden, local, county, state and federal - perhaps 50% or more of State and local taxes in some areas. A new education industry would be created, allowing parents and students the freedom to pick schools based on convenience, price, needs, and quality. Schools of low quality, with poor teachers and facilities, would lose business to better schools. Teachers who teach idiocy would not be protected.

Where to start? Let private education companies bid on teaching K-12 in your county. Sell the buildings to the education companies, or to real estate investors who could then lease them to educ cos. Eliminate county taxes for education. Parents pay the private education companies. Some teachers would get jobs with the new education companies, but many would not. :)-

When it rains it pours. People who have complained about Bennish, parents and former students, are now coming out of the woodwork relating that the principal blew them all off. The district is refusing to provide details about the number of complaints that have been lodged claiming they sannot divulge his personnel file. Not only may Bennish be toast but the principal as well.

You guys are shooting yourselves in the foot. Defend this guy, and then say the arguments that liberals used to defend him apply to the intelligent design curriculum.

I'm not defending him, you misunderstand me, I think this teacher should teach geography and STFU about everything else.

Creationism and/or ID would never stand up in court even with the first amendment defense being used here.

These parents dump their responsibilities on the government and then whine when some classroom bureaucrat says some things they don’t like. If they had their kids in a capitalist, free market, school instead of a socialist school, this wouldn’t be an issue.

This is like people in socialized housing complaining about the color of the carpet or the location of the housing. Most of the people riding the socialized schooling dole would tell the people in socialized housing; “if you don’t like it get out.” They just don’t want t be told that about their subsidy.

Get rid of socialized schooling and the market will take care of things like this.

'On the Today Show, Bennish said, “My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society.”'

In geography class?????????????????????????????????????????

I hope this son of a gun is made an example for teachers everywhere.

Otherwise, he is an example for teachers everywhere.

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