Posted on 10/22/2002 9:45:22 PM PDT by maxcygregg
LOS ANGELES -- A high school science teacher in Pasadena is on paid administrative leave for claiming in a letter to teachers that African-American students are the most poorly behaved at the school.
Scott Phelps has taught at John Muir High School for 12 years. He was put on leave Monday by the Pasadena Unified School District for what board member Ed Honowitz calls a "disturbing" letter placed in teachers' mailboxes on Friday.
Phelps denies he is racist, saying he was trying to make a point that standardized test scores will go down next year at Muir because ninth- and 11th-grade classes are primarily low socio-economic African-Americans lacking academic focus.
"If you look at their scores and track them over the years you will see that they're horrible,' Phelps said. "I'm not singling out a group. I'm not saying that low test scores are caused by low socio-economic students, I'm saying that low scores and low socio-economic students are directly related."
"There are cultural behaviors... but once you talk about it racist," said Phelps.
District spokesman Erik Nasarenko would only say there was an investigation into allegations of misconduct.
"People found the material within the email to be offensive. That is what is under investigation right now," said Nasarenko.
If misconduct is found, Phelps could be terminated.
Phelps wrote that "overwhelmingly, the students whose behavior makes the hallways deafening, who yell out for the teacher and demand immediate attention in class, who cannot seem to stop chatting and are fascinated by each other and relationships but not with academics ... are African-American."
"You can't classify whole groups of kids based on stereotypes," Horowitz said. "In addition, we need to do a good job educating every kid in this district no matter what background they come from."
The Muir student body is about 47 percent African-American and 42 percent Hispanic.
He should sue them and make the district prove him wrong. (and I hate law suits but this wouldn't be frivolus!)
Hasn't there been a recent study (within the last two years) that proved this point the teacher is attempting to make? My senior brain seems to remember reading this somewhere.
The Tarheel
Then, maybe he and everyone else would come to understand that he is not making a statement about African-Americans per-se, but about democrats. Democrats are our murderers, rapists, car-jackers, and thieves. And they fill our prisons.
Whether or not you actually are a racist or bigot doesn't concern me. But what I want to know is do you have any evidence to support your claim about Moose? Maybe you do, but I'd surely like to see your claim substantiated with empirical evidence.
I don't know whether or not the statement is true, but it appears in any event that any truth to the statement is entirely and absolutely irrelevant.
In other words, if there exists a problem, and someone would be offended by a public statement of the existence of that problem, then our society should now prohibit acknowledging the problem.
In which case, all I can say is: I wish 'em a hell of a lot of luck in solving problems that no one can be permitted to admit even exists. They're going to need it.
Ah, the Democratic solution to our problems. Deny they exist. Pay people for being quiet about them, rather than grappling with the problems in any meaningful way. Persecute those who dare to openly observe them.
When an otherwise dynamic society, en masse, refuses to believe an obvious fact, and goes on to refuse to believe a series of similarly obvious facts, it is doomed.
Shall I recite the roll? Greece, the decadent remnants of Rome, the Burgundians, Russia (several times), the later Khanate, Byzantium, the French monarchy... aw, who cares, no one reads history any more, nor learns from it.
Rome? Isn't that somewhere in Georgia?
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