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Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

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Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#91
post #31

Why are questions asked of students copyrighted so as to not allow any visibility to parents? If I had a child required to answer potentially incriminating questions at school I would want public scrutiny, otherwise this becomes a kind of secret inquisition.

Here is how I see it possibly played out. * School district sees all these school shootings, news reports of troubled teens, suicides, bullying and how badly it reflect on the district. * School district employs below average intelligence administrators who are easily manipulated and controlled by contractors, lobbyists, salesmen, suppliers. Either an administrator or one such salesperson from the test administration…

>School district employs below average intelligence administrators who are easily manipulated and controlled by contractors, lobbyists, salesmen, suppliers.

So if the corruption is the problem why they don't get questioned by the Police?

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#92
He had two obligations, his moral obligations to his students and his obligation as a school system employee, which were in conflict. He choose his moral obligation to his students, but in doing so violated his obligation as a school system employee. The school system did not ask him to perform anything illegal or definitively immoral. It is therefore correct for the school system to punish him for this violation.

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#93
post #43

The teacher should be in hot water for teaching the 5th amendment incorrectly. From the text of the amendment: "No person shall be... compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..." The 5th amendment gives people the right to refuse to testify, as a witness , in a way that might incriminate oneself. Relatedly, it excludes self-incriminating statements in certain circumstances from evidence in crimi…

In Miranda vs. Arizona, the Supreme Court said that the admission of an elicited incriminating statement by a suspect not informed of these rights violates the Fifth and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Thanks for that. I'm not a US citizen and was always curious why it was called the Miranda warning. I just read about the case on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#94
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is how I see it possibly played out. * School district sees all these school shootings, news reports of troubled teens, suicides, bullying and how badly it reflect on the district. * School district employs below average intelligence administrators who are easily manipulated and controlled by contractors, lobbyists, salesmen, suppliers. Either an administrator or one such salesperson from the test administration…

>School district employs below average intelligence administrators who are easily manipulated and controlled by contractors, lobbyists, salesmen, suppliers. So if the corruption is the problem why they don't get questioned by the Police?

The problem here is the definition of corruption. It's the same problem on Capitol Hill. You agree to "listen" to my "problems" and "solution" in exchange for a campaign contribution or some such nonsense. It's just legalized corruption.

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#95
post #43

The teacher should be in hot water for teaching the 5th amendment incorrectly. From the text of the amendment: "No person shall be... compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..." The 5th amendment gives people the right to refuse to testify, as a witness , in a way that might incriminate oneself. Relatedly, it excludes self-incriminating statements in certain circumstances from evidence in crimi…

The right not to incriminate yourself is a basic civil right. The Fifth Amendment is a codification of the right, which was given to you, as our Founding Fathers saw it, by the laws of nature. The Amendment may refer only to some circumstances, but the right was prior to it. So, the teacher was correct to treat the students about their basic, God-given rights.

Whose God?

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#96
post #74
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't actually have the right to provide false answers in many situations and doing so could actually be a crime.

I heard somewhere that lying to police is punishable by something like three years in jail in the US. Unless you killed someone or are a repeat offender, lying may well get you a harsher sentence than your original crime. And of course, it's very easy to lie accidentally: You may honestly be confused, mis-remember, make a mistake, or tell them a true fact that doesn't fit with incorrect information they obtained from…

It varies based on the jurisdiction. It is illegal to lie to federal law enforcement. There may not be laws against lying to state and local police (though I would imagine there are other laws that would be easy to break by lying to them).

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#97
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is how I see it possibly played out. * School district sees all these school shootings, news reports of troubled teens, suicides, bullying and how badly it reflect on the district. * School district employs below average intelligence administrators who are easily manipulated and controlled by contractors, lobbyists, salesmen, suppliers. Either an administrator or one such salesperson from the test administration…

>School district employs below average intelligence administrators who are easily manipulated and controlled by contractors, lobbyists, salesmen, suppliers. So if the corruption is the problem why they don't get questioned by the Police?

Corruption is not necessary for this to happen; the administrators could also be scared or otherwise convinced as described above (but without gifts etc.) into buying the "solution" without thinking everything through.

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#98
post #3

"But John Dryden said he's not the point. He wants people to focus on the issue he raised: Whether school officials considered that students could incriminate themselves with their answers to the survey that included questions about drug and alcohol use." To me, that sounds like an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher. He is relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world s…

I really want to understand this "proprietary information" excuse the school is using to justify not releasing the survey. Certainly the kids can go home and tell their parents what they saw (and some have). The kids didn't sign an NDA, they saw it, so why can't we see it? This story is happening in my town. There is a public hearing tomorrow night and I plan on attending.

It's likely a real psychometric survey that the school pays per copy for, and so the company that produced it (like Pearson) treats it as their IP. They do the same thing to psychologists: sell them a survey, and then 'refills' of the questionaire so that they're only allowed to administer the test n times before paying again.

It's an interesting problem, because the companies involved fund studies to improve the diagnostic power of the test (tweaking the questions and scoring), but then lock up what they find out.

(Here's an example of a commercial psychometric survey: http://www.talentlens.co.uk/select/giotto)

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abuse of treason convictions had occurred so much in England that the framers specifically defined it in the constitution (apparently the only crime to get such a treatment). "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." I don't necessarily think they were right on everything, but they were right on this. You really d…

You meant to reply to sk5t's comment, did you not? Your explanation seems to make much more sense as a reply to that than to your parent.

Weird. Thanks for pointing that out. Not sure how I ended up doing that. I'll copy it to the right place, but sadly it's too late to delete it here.

Re: Teacher under fire for informing kids of their Fifth Amendment rights

#100
post #52

I should like to see the administrator who initiated disciplinary proceedings against this teacher tried and convicted for treason.

[copied from above, sorry for posting in the wrong place]

Abuse of treason convictions had occurred so much in England that the framers specifically defined it in the constitution (apparently the only crime to get such a treatment).

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

I don't necessarily think they were right on everything, but they were right on this. You really don't want to live in a state where Treason is an accusation thrown around lightly.

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