Just damn.
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Posted on 01/20/2005 5:10:29 AM PST by Obadiah
In an effort to teach educators a lesson about the importance of summer vacation, a Whitnall High School student and his father have filed a lawsuit against the boy's math teacher that seeks to bar teachers from requiring homework over the summer.
In the lawsuit, 17-year-old Peer Larson and his father, Bruce Larson of Hales Corners, argue that school officials have no legal authority to make students do homework over the summer because the state-required 180-day school year is over.
"It is poor public policy," Bruce Larson argues in the lawsuit. "These students are still children, yet they are subjected to increasing pressure to perform to ever-higher standards in numerous theaters.
"Come summer, they need a break."
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
Wow, glad I never had you as a teacher.
As for pressure on kids for ever increasing performance, I'm sorry, but I just don't see that coming from the public schools.
I was "required" to read the Autobiography of Malcom X before the first day of college. I just didn't, and then I skipped the lectures about it during orientation week, and nobody ever noticed.
This is the arrogance of the state at work. Once again, the primary persons responsible for educating children are the parents. Teachers act in locus parenti, not the other way around.
But, since schools are publicly funded and bolstered by statute, teachers have adopted the stance that they are empowered to dictate to children and parents
what is best for them. The modern public schools are, in fact, state schools, where students go to be brainwashed into accepting secular humanism, statism, and the related notion that the authority of the state is the supreme reality. Those who act on behalf of the state to educate the children in those institutions are in a hallowed caste, becaus they create the statist pawns that enable the government to reign supreme.
If you measure victory in the Cold War by which system's ideas have prevailed, we must award the victory to Communism. If you think we are free, ponder the thought that where statism reigns, people have ceased to be free. And when state sponsored teachers can supplant the parents in the matter of rendering education, it is a sign of statism.
I hope this parent prevails, for no other reason except to win a much needed victory over the tyranny of the state.
This guy must never have heard about AP classes where large summer assignments are given out before the class ever starts. This is the norm in such classes, and it keeps a student's mind sharp over the lazy days of summer.
This dad is an idiot.
I bet this ''kid'' has someone hold his lunch money everyday...
''...he was working a full-time job as a counselor at the Indian Mound Reservation Boy Scout Camp in Oconomowoc.''
Two cheers for the lawsuit.
Three cheers for homeschooling.
If you don't do the homework do they send you back to the grade you just finished? To whom is the work turned in, the former teacher or the new teacher?
I agree.
If the kids are off for the summer, they shouldn't have any homework during their vacation.
OTOH, summer vacation is an antiquated concept, dating back to the days when kids had to help with the farm chores during the growing season. Perhaps it's time to start keeping the kids in school all year long. At least the older ones, anyway. Maybe junior-high and above. Heck, college kids should be going year 'round for certain, prepare them for life in the real world.
Just damn.
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From what I heard on the radio this morning it was the kid who initiated the whole thing and the father agreed so he's helping him.
"This is the arrogance of the state at work. Once again, the primary persons responsible for educating children are the parents. Teachers act in locus parenti, not the other way around.
But, since schools are publicly funded and bolstered by statute, teachers have adopted the stance that they are empowered to dictate to children and parents
what is best for them."
I couldn't agree more. (I've fought that "authority" battle with the schools over things such as scoliosis testing, which is a good thing to do, but they were attempting to have the kids disrobe and do the test WITHOUT notifying the parents first. I expect to be fully in charge of my child's medical testing...and their time in the summer!)
I'd be very bothered if our school attempted to give my honors/AP track H.S. student summer homework. It sounds as though the kid in this article had a "broadening" summer job lined up where he would be learning entirely different things than Honors Calculus. Anything else he was to learn that summer is the business of his parents, not the school district. During the summer I usually have a "reading program" set up for my daughter where I give out prizes (free books of her choice) for reading challenging books off a list I prepare. This reading usually "takes off" and helps her develop new interests, such as Shakespeare. I would be unhappy if the school were to butt in and prescribe the reading or math *they* want accomplished. I'd also note that my daughter is extremely stressed by June, what with AP tests, SATs, regular homework, etc. She works darn hard during the school year, and she *is* still a kid. I seriously worry about burnout at times. Becoming an adult should be a gradual process, and the love of learning shouldn't be killed. If the schools were doing a good job during the school year, they wouldn't feel the need to pile on ever-increasing amounts of homework and summer homework. (It's probably not a surprise that after her experiences, I'm homeschooling my younger 3 children!)
I have worked in areas related to the legal profession for many years and am most definitely not a fan of frivolous lawsuits, but I have dealt with so much bureaucratic "We know best" intransigence in the schools over the years, I think sometimes they do have to be hit over the head with a lawsuit.
The parent plans to send the child to law school to become a lawyer for the ACLU.
Smooth move on the part of the parent ... fast forward a few years to the kid looking for a job: the routine background check that is now part of just about every hire in the nation turns up this article along with the lawsuit and the prospective employer knows there is a slacker standing before them. Hope daddy can sue him into a job.
A couple of years ago, one medical doctor was quoted in a newspaper article saying that he's amazed that he became a medical doctor since he didn't have the "benefit" of tons of homework heaped on him when he was a kid. This baloney that students today have to learn so much more today is just that, baloney.
Public school officials are running scared because of NCLB. If they're so concerned about kids losing ground in the summer, let the schools stay open all year around. That will be real popular.
Homework? What's Homework? (Product of Minneapolis Public School System.)
Boo fricken hoo. This is for an honors class. If the boy can't do the work, he needs to go back to regular classes.
My daughter did homework for honors and AP classes over the summer as did the majority of her friends. It is part of the requirement for advanced classes and they had to sign contracts.
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