NYC teachers allowed to show political bias?
We read:
"The teachers union has been handing out thousands of Barack Obama campaign buttons to its members, sparking a clampdown by education brass. The Department of Education - which has a long-standing policy barring teachers from wearing campaign buttons in schools - is set to send out an e-mail this week from Schools Chancellor Joel Klein laying down the law. "Schools are not a place for politics and not a place for staff to wear political buttons," said department spokeswoman Ann Forte. "We don't want a school or school staff advocating for any political position or candidate to students and we don't want students feeling intimidated because they might hold a different belief or support a different candidate than their teachers."
United Federation of Teachers official LeRoy Barr told his members in a recent e-mail that union chief Randi Weingarten is fighting the DOE decision. Officials of the union - which has endorsed Obama - said they didn't know of any schools where button-wearing teachers were told to zip it, but they said they were exploring the matter "to ensure members' rights to free speech and expression."
While department officials said the courts are on their side in the matter, many city teachers say their right to wear partisan buttons is a matter of free speech. Several cited a landmark 1969 Supreme Court ruling involving students who planned to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. It affirmed that constitutional rights don't get dropped "at the schoolhouse gate."....
Source
An employer can set conditions for employment but when the employer is a government body it gets murky.
7 comments:
Hmm...it's a matter of free speech? Why then, was Walmart investigated by the ACLU for distributing a letter to their store managers suggesting that McCain was a better choice for President, and how the managers might try to convey that message? I assume the ACLU will hide their pitiful heads on this one. Im not for censorship, but I don't want any teacher wearing any paraphenalia that might influence a child. They need to decide for themselves.
Aren't teachers the ones who impose rules on children and teach them to obey laws! Aren't they supposed to teach children how to come to decisions by looking at all the facts and all sides? Fine example they show! Freedom of speech is fine, but not when you want to indoctrinate young impressionable minds!
People wonder why our education system is so bad. This is a classic example. Teachers are supposed to give children the tools to make their own minds about things. Instead they are teaching them that mediocrity is acceptable and preferable.
You all may be right, but it doesn't apply to the NYC teachers union, it's openly socialist president and it's left-wing members. Even in a Democrat controlled, ultra-liberal place like NYC, these people are far, far to the left. I know. I work with them every day!
Of course, if some kid came to school wearing a McCain T-shirt, he/she would be sent home ASAP!
BTW, isn't electioneering on govt. property illegal?
try distributing McCain buttons at a school and clock the time it takes until you're thrown out in the name of "free speech".
Teacher should be able to support their preferred leaders but:
1) Teachers in their role as teachers are in a position of power and authority.
2) The bulk of NYC teachers are likely Obama fans - McCain supporting teachers and students could fac some hostility.
3) Why would any organisation want to politicise schools? Education is, of course, an enormous political issue but why infect schools?
Hmmm. So the teachers get the right to free political expression and the students don't (see article on student suspended for wearing an anti-Obama T-shirt.). F*cking liberals.
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