Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Big Brother or Big Bother?

Here's a story off the AP that you might have seen today: Illinois School District to Monitor Student Blogs

From the article:
"The board of Community High School District 128 voted
unanimously on Monday to require that all students participating in
extracurricular activities sign a pledge agreeing that evidence of
"illegal or inappropriate" behavior posted on the Internet could
be grounds for disciplinary action."
The article states that officials won't be searching student sites regularly, but will instead rely on tips.

My initial thoughts:
  • Ooh, a pledge. That ought to fix everything.
  • I'm no legal expert, but it seems like the school district is overreaching here.
  • Maybe on the assembly at the first day of school they should just tell all students: 'We know all about your blog/MySpace/FaceBook/other profile, so please don't be an idiot."
Thanks -- Joe

Tag:

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

institutional/ government schools are so  outmoded, need to be rid of them.

Anonymous said...

there they go again.. trying to do the parent's job.

Anonymous said...

joolsinwa, do you offer a workable alternative for the education of our youth?
-Paul

Anonymous said...

h

Anonymous said...

I love your third thought, and think this would actually work quite nicely!!

Anonymous said...

i think this is a parent thing not a school thing.
however if the school gets reports of threats being posted then maybe, maybe they should step in. maybe.

Kathy

Anonymous said...

First of all, I totally agree. My school has suspended a few kids for things they posted on myspace. My favorite though, was when a teacher took a picture of a student drinking WITH his parents, on a cruise over spring break, and he got suspended. Hmm...

But I'm really here to ask you a question. I can't seem to get an answer out of anyone, and the Expressions blog has gone down the tubes since you left it. When is AOL going to update the desktops? There have been no new ones in about forever. If there is anyway you can find that out for me and email me, that would be wonderful. Thanks much. ~Lauren
(masterpink@aol.com)

Anonymous said...

Over here nodding in agreement with you and  also agree with Bill. Pledges are just as easy to break as to make and the first one to break them are the idiots.
Dianna

Anonymous said...

I agree with masterpink... why no new desktops??? It sucks lately...

be well,
Dawn

Anonymous said...

Schools should have 0% say on what a student does outsde of the school. Why not monitor the religion of the students as well? Maybe tap their phones, or just follow them around all day.

Before they go waste the money monitoring Susie and John's blogs, they should maybe try for smaller class sizes, teacher training, and better equipment.

Anonymous said...

They should not be able to punish for anything not done on school time or school grounds. What if they get into a fight, what if they beat up their sibling...right you know how many would be suspended? Child drinking on a cruise...is the child now 18 & where the cruise was it is legal to drink at 18? Maybe in some other countries territory it is sooooooo.

They need new desktops, IM pix, voices ETC! Very boring!

Anonymous said...

Actually I don't think this will hold up in court once something happens & a parent take the time & $ to take them to court.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but isn't this the parents' domain? Why should the schools be the ones to enforce this? Once again, the government thinks it can raise kids better than parents. Makes me glad my kids aren't doing the public school thing.

One thing I know is true in all of this: kids can sign all sorts of pledges, agree to all sorts of things, but that doesn't mean they will actually stick to those pledges. Pledges are some what like putting sanctions on a country. They sound nice on paper and in theory, but in reality neither do anything to enforce the concepts that are supposedly being taught.

Big brother is one hell of an ineffective enforcer. Glad he's not my dad.

Jess
http://journals.aol.com/aurielalata/CIWTheOtherInvisible
http://awomanvisible.blogspot.com