Anti-Bush sentiment a hot-button issue

Rocky Mountain News ^ | 27 February 2003 | Nancy Mitchell

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Jefferson County Public Schools, the same outfit that brought us Columbine, is now engaging in some serious backpedalling and CYA over this.

School principal Jean Kelley: jkelly@jeffco.k12.co.us

[Coop]

The Fowlers need to obtain a "I support President Bush" button and/or shirt and have their son wear it to school. Then we'll see how the educators feel about freedom of speech.

I actually still have a Bush t-shirt from the campaign which I'll gladly donate to the cause. :-)

[B Knotts]

Solution: HOMESCHOOL!

[Coop]

Flag

[Barry Goldwater]

Don't forget Jefferson County School Districts 25 million dollar computer equipment scandal or the more recent funding of beer parties at Coors field for the faculty of at least two Jeffco high schools from school funds. The county government is also rife with scandal and corruption. Witness the effective action of the Jeffco sheriff at Columbine, the scandals involving county employee expense accounts and the bribery of building and health inspectors.

[cardinal4]

I sent an email.....I hope it works. Keep the pressure on, the power of freeps is well documented.

[Mudboy Slim]

Don't be dissin' on THIS Commander-in-Chief, Lib'rals!!

FReepers got yer back, sir...MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

Fowler went ballistic.


"Both my husband and I were very offended by it. My son, who's in the sixth grade, had some very confused feelings, very hurtful feelings about the whole thing," she said. "I'm trying to stress to my child that (Bush) is the commander in chief and the armed forces are trying to protect us."


Fowler's husband, Tom, fired off an e-mail to school Principal Jean Kelley urging her to "stop this practice immediately" and warning that, if Kelley did not, "I will pursue other means."


Tuesday, the Fowlers received their response: The teacher "has the right to wear any political buttons that she wishes, as part of her protection under the First Amendment," Kelley wrote.


Linda Fowler doesn't like that answer.

NEITHER DO I!!! The Fowlers ROCK...MUD

[The Toad]

Just sent to Kelley:

Dear Ms Kelley:

I recently read about Mrs. Fowler's son and how his sixth-grade teacher has been wearing an anti-Bush button on her clothing.

Although this "teacher" certainly has a right to wear such a button, it is hardly appropriate and a poor civics lesson to the teacher’s sixth grade students. These students are hardly well enough informed to be able to make their own decision on the complicated issue of the 2000 Presidential election and having a teacher parade around the class room with a button announcing her opposition to the President, especially as we are about to go to war, cannot be a good idea.

When I went to school, my teachers were always even-handed in their approach to subjects. They were careful to teach all sides of an issue. Back then, one of my teachers would never have taught a classroom full of impressionable students wearing a button that portrays their opposition to the President of the United States.

But that was 20 years ago and sadly, this apparently has changed. The practice of impartial teachers that would allow their students to come to their own conclusions on such a controversial issue must no longer exist.

To me, the real irony is how students are often not allowed to wear certain clothing because it is “distracting” or “insensitive” to the other students, yet the teachers, apparently, are allowed to do just that. Talk about hypocrisy….

Cordially,

Tom Duensing Chicago, IL.

[Core_Conservative]

Ummmmmmmmmmm ... What would happen if this child wore a button declaring his love for his Risen Lord, Jesus Christ?

[elephant]

You know that it would be taken off of them quicker than it was pinned on!

[The Toad]

I wish I had thought of that. I suppose religious buttons would probably be prohibited. Sigh.

[Coop]

Good for you for writing the note! But one comment - the article did say the teacher was not wearing the button in the classroom but on her coat during a field trip.

[RooRoobird14]

My note to the school district:

"The teacher who is wearing an anti-Bush button should be reprimanded for being overtly partisan around her students. If nothing else, she should setting an example of showing respect for the office of the President, regardless who inhabits the Oval Office.

This teacher has no right to blatantly push her left-wing political viewpoints during working hours when she's being paid by taxpayers to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. If she wants to bang on her nasty left-wing drums, she should be doing it on her own time and away from the classroom.

Would you defend my "First Amendment rights" if I were one of your teachers and wore buttons to school which said "Clinton is a Rapist" or "Return what you stole from the White House, Hillary" on them? Of course you wouldn't!!!

Talk about wretched hypocrisy........"

[MEGoody]

"The teacher has not and is not wearing the button in the classroom," he said. "She has not politicized her classroom, nor tried to convince her students of her point of view."

If this field trip was with students, then she was in the 'classroom'.

The kid should wear a T-shirt with a big picture of a smiling Bush which says "If he's not YOUR President, you are NOT an American!"

[Core_Conservative]

"during a field trip"

That is still a school sanctioned event - she should not be wearing it there either. She should take it off, until she is on her own time!

[Area51]

You can bet that if the kid had a NRA life Member jacket on during that Field Trip he would have been sent home for violating the Zero tolerence policy of the Communists in Charge.

Perhaps they need to dress their child in a "Gun Control means hitting your target" shirt to this class and then sue the shit out of the School after they expell him for Discrimination, violation of Free Speech, Harassment and anything else you can dream up.

[Coop]

That is still a school sanctioned event - she should not be wearing it there either.

I'm not arguing that, but the teacher wasn't wearing the button in the classroom.

[Nick Danger]

Having the teacher take the button off is not going to change what goes on in her head. This same thing is happening throughout Maine, and probably everywhere if truth be known.

The education establishment has become a "no conservatives need apply" area of endeavor, much like most of the media. You can make the teacher take the button off, but you can't make her stop slanting everything the kids hear towards liberal politics.

I used to worry that teachers had the power to brainwash kids into believing liberal politics, but it doesn't seem to stick. Those who are inclined to reject it promptly do so, once mouthing leftist platitudes is no longer a requirement to get a grade or a diploma.

What does happen though is that smaller children are torn, and this is not fair to them. They have alternate authority figures in their lives -- their parents and their teachers -- telling them opposite things about basic 'values' issues. They're too young to figure it out for themselves, so all it does is conflict them. It also exposes them to the truth that grownups don't really know what they're doing, at a time when they could go a few more years without finding that out.

I don't think there is a way to stop liberal advocates from gravitating toward positions like teacher and reporter where they can proselytize on behalf of their politics. It seems to be in their blood to do this, and also to band together to force opposing views out of jobs that wield more than average cultural influence.

The only defense that is known to work against this is to form competing institutions, such as Fox News in the media, and let people make choices. This means that the only way to stop the blizzard of liberal propaganda in the schools is to institute some sort of choice mechanism by which government funding goes with the child, not to the school. Those schools which attract students will then get the funding, and parents will have something to say about that.

Worrying about individual teachers whose heads pop up in a game of liberal whack-a-mole is probably a waste of time. The truth is that every mole in the machine is a liberal ideologue, and most of them will never make a big enough noise to get noticed.

[The Toad]

the article did say the teacher was not wearing the button in the classroom but on her coat during a field trip.

Yeah, Oops. I noticed that after rereading the article--I had already sent the note. Thanks for pointing it out though.