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Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

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Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#91

Post by dpark »

rayiner wrote: post #83
dpark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an opt-out notice sent via email to parents, at least several of whom claimed not to have received any such notice. The students were not given any opt-out opportunity. > The teacher then undertook to tell students that they had a right not to fill out the survey, not withstanding their exercise of the opt-out opportunity, as if it were a fact. It might come as a shock, but the students also have their own…

Students have rights, but it is well-settled that they do not have the same rights as adults. The Bill of Rights applies to schools, but cannot be applied wholesale to minors. There is an analysis where the rights are fitted in to the unique requirements of the school context. The only precedent I'm aware of in the context of the 5th amendment is J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011), which found that a uniformed police of…

Minors have largely the same rights as adults. There are reasonable restrictions on those rights, but the default is not "no rights with a few exceptions". It's "all rights with a few exceptions". For example, schools are allowed to place some restrictions on students' speech, but they cannot forbid speech unreasonably (e.g. cannot require pledge of allegiance; could not force students to remove black armbands protesting Vietnam War).

And no one said the school can't ask about drug use. But the students can refuse to answer.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#92

Post by csense »

rayiner wrote: post #54
ctdonath wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was intended to identify students who could use help "We're from the government and we're here to help you" coupled with "you have nothing to hide, right?" seems an unwise combination.

The skepticism is mostly inappropriate in the context of public education. It is the purpose of public school educators to help their kids, and that often requires disclosure of information that would not be required of an adult in the same situation.

> It is the purpose of public school educators to help their kids

Let's assume this statement is true, and public school educators are all saints who would never use the survey responses against their students in any way.

How do you know that only public school educators will have access to the information?

What if the surveys are sent back to the survey company for scanning, so that company now has the results as well? What if the information is stolen, leaked, or hacked, and posted on the Internet for anyone to read?

How do you know that some ambitious prosecutor who's looking for easy targets won't just find a lax judge who'll sign off on a subpoena of the survey results? School officials refusing to comply with a subpoena and going to jail to protect their students in this situation seems to be squarely in the realm of fantasy. Before you say something like "it is the purpose of prosecutors to serve the interests of justice, so they would never do crappy things," please read about Aaron Swartz. And really, by some definition, enforcing anti-drug laws in the most cost-effective manner may be an optimal use of a prosecutor's time.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#93

Post by greenyoda »

warfangle wrote: post #59
tokenadult wrote: post #34

I am on record in the earlier thread about this incident https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5777578 saying that the first news report sounded like John Dryden is an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher, and that he was just relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students. Even after reading the follow-up report submitted to open this thread,…

What I think is rather ridiculous is the reliance on survey methodology to assess drug/alcohol abuse among the student body. Questions about drugs/alcohol/sex on student surveys are typically rather inaccurate.

Yeah, the smarter kids know that their best option is to not volunteer that kind of information, which ensures that the survey only represents the fraction of the students who are naively trusting of the school administrators.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#94

Post by greenyoda »

JonnieCache wrote: post #40
venomsnake wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting it wrong (disclosure - I do not live in the US). Everything you read in the news is outlier in a sort. With 30 million kids in tens of thousands of schools you are guaranteed to get a few cases of something "stupid and abusive from the administrators" daily. After all - a normal school day with no events hardly makes a headline. And with the power of the internet some local news get much more national…

>Everything you read in the news is outlier in a sort. Indeed. Otherwise it wouldn't be news. Anything you see in the news is automatically not worth being afraid of. Your life will be ruined by something mundane, car accidents, cancer etc.

"Anything you see in the news is automatically not worth being afraid of."

That's true on average, but, for example, if your child happens to live in one of the school districts that's run by irrational, power-hungry administrators, then you do have something to be afraid of.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#95

Post by talmand »

fmstephe wrote: post #64
talmand wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm failing to understand, are you saying the survey was manipulation or the teacher reminding the students of their fifth amendment rights? How would debates about the US Constitution and its laws make you worried about the US? These are likely the same discussions and debates that many people from many different countries have over their local issues and/or laws. How is the US any different?

I may have chosen the wrong word with 'manipulation'. I think that the school administration is unhappy that the students were told they could reasonably choose not to fill in the survey. What makes me feel uneasy here, and why I used the word manipulation, was that this choice _was_ available to the students but the school felt that informing them of this fact was inappropriate. This, in my mind, amounts to manipula…

Well, now that I know the context I wouldn't necessarily disagree with your usage of manipulation. It seems to fit to me.

First, I would say I agree with your thought on how people should treat our children. I guess I would explain the reason the constitutional discussion is very relevant in this case because the laws define how the government may treat the citizens. In this case the students are citizens and the school is the government entity. The school asking the students to fill out a survey that could possibly be used to incriminate them in some form of crime is a potential violation of the students' fifth amendment protections.

If the school in question were a non-government entity, such as a private school, then there is no worries over fifth amendment protections. At that point it's more like what you say, a privacy and courtesy issue. The student in that private school could refuse to answer the survey but there might be consequences of that choice, such as being expelled from the school.

Either way, a person has the total right to not say anything at all for any reason regardless of who asks, unless compelled to do so by a court of law. Even then, in the US and I'm sure many countries, there are restrictions on what the court can compel you to say which leads us back to the fifth amendment.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#96

Post by flyinRyan »

betterunix wrote: post #73
flyinRyan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your views are likely outside the mainstream in the same way Alex Jones' views are outside the mainstream. Your "simple deduction" would better be labeled "uneducated guessing based on nothing". The reasons behind the dramatic decline in the American education system are obvious and known very well to any public school teacher: "No child left behind".

Education was on the decline as far back as I can remember. In the 90s, New York City's public school system was embroiled in scandals -- overcrowding, converting bathrooms into classrooms, illiterate teaching assistants, illiterate high school graduates, etc. This was long before No Child Left Behind (and in fact, NCLB was meant to address the concerns people had about American education), and it was not unique to N…

Teachers like to point to it because it's destroyed any chance we had of fixing the issue.

And the issues previous to the law were appallingly bad salaries. There are some people who love teaching so much they would do it even though they earn probably 40% of what they could be doing with their credentials. But not as many as we need.

Sprinkle in the problem of parents blaming teachers for bad grades instead of kids and it all gets worse.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#97

Post by flyinRyan »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #71
flyinRyan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your views are likely outside the mainstream in the same way Alex Jones' views are outside the mainstream. Your "simple deduction" would better be labeled "uneducated guessing based on nothing". The reasons behind the dramatic decline in the American education system are obvious and known very well to any public school teacher: "No child left behind".

I'm confused - which part of my deduction is a guess? I'll ignore your ad hominem attacks.

> If you believe teacher quality is the primary drivers of educational outcomes and outcomes are not as you desire, it must be caused by low teacher quality.

Wrong. If you believe teacher quality is the primary driver of educational outcome then anything effecting teacher performance could effect those outcomes. It does not follow that only teacher quality plays the only role unless the teachers are completely empowered.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#98

Post by fmstephe »

talmand wrote: post #95
fmstephe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have chosen the wrong word with 'manipulation'. I think that the school administration is unhappy that the students were told they could reasonably choose not to fill in the survey. What makes me feel uneasy here, and why I used the word manipulation, was that this choice _was_ available to the students but the school felt that informing them of this fact was inappropriate. This, in my mind, amounts to manipula…

Well, now that I know the context I wouldn't necessarily disagree with your usage of manipulation. It seems to fit to me. First, I would say I agree with your thought on how people should treat our children. I guess I would explain the reason the constitutional discussion is very relevant in this case because the laws define how the government may treat the citizens. In this case the students are citizens and the sch…

Thanks a good explanation.
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