We learn about how seriously our institutions take their ethics when money gets scarce. States suddenly decided that ol’ devil gambling wasn’t so bad after all, once they realized that lots and lots of poor, desperate people without a lot of mathematical skills would fork over billions they needed to buy food with or save to move out of the ghetto in the hope of becoming a tycoon. I’m sure as soon as states realize that their legislators don’t have the guts to make the wealthy and powerful pay for lousy schools, more and more of them will get into the drug dealing business, like Colorado, and let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage.
Somewhere in between those irresponsible and cynical policy decisions way come ideas like this one, from the Prince George’s County Board of Education (in Maryland.) There is a new proposed policy in the perpetually corrupt Washington D.C. neighbor to make all work products created by teachers or students the intellectual property of the County, not the individual who created it:
“Works created by employees and/or students specifically for use by the Prince George’s County Public Schools or a specific school or department within PGCPS, are properties of the Board of Education even if created on the employee’s or student’s time and with the use of their materials. Further, works created during school/work hours, with the use of school system materials, and within the scope of an employee’s position or student’s classroom work assignment(s) are the properties of the Board of Education.”
It isn’t unusual for employers to own intellectual property created on the job by employees, but students? Students are not paid for their time and work; they have to do what they are told. Now Prince George’s County wants to turn them into little slaves, churning out drawings, poems, essays and songs that can be converted into cold cash to help pay for the County’s incurable incompetence and corruption. The policy is worse than theft, though it is that; it is also as effort to change children from students into involuntary cash cows. If passed, the measure will warp class assignments too, from what will be the best learning experience for the children, to the assignments that will be most likely to generate a logo, a book, or a Hallmark card. Next, maybe the school will rent the kids out to generate cheap, clean energy by running on treadmills or in big gerbil wheels. If you think I’m exaggerating, you don’t know Prince George’s County.
Once critics, ethicists and lawyer began pointing out the difficulties with enslaving kids—like the fact that it is exploitive, confiscatory, greedy and unfair— the backpedaling began. School Board Chair Verjeana M. Jacobs, who was one of those who proposed the policy change, said it was never the board’s “intention to declare ownership” of students’ work, but that the district only wanted to “get the recognition . . . not take their work.”
Huh! How odd, then, that the policy worded exactly as stated above, stating that “Works created by employees and/or students specifically for use by the Prince George’s County Public Schools or… with the use of school system materials, and within the… student’s classroom work assignment(s) are the properties of the Board of Education” passed by an 8-1 vote at the school board’s last meeting! What could the explanation for this discrepancy be? Surely it couldn’t be that those who oversee the education of the County’s students can’t read, and thus voted for a policy that it didn’t intend or comprehend, could it? Even though, knowing today’s schools, this is a tempting conclusion, I think it is far more likely that the Board tried to rob its own students of their creative output before anyone found out about it, and is now, through Jacobs, lying through their collective teeth.
It is an axiom of life that when the going gets tough, the tough get unethical. We haven’t seen the last of this, not in Prince George’s County, not in any part of the country.
____________________________
Pointer: Rick Jones
Facts: Washington Post
Graphic: 3bp
Ethics Alarms 
Why stop there?
Why doesn’t the school board set up an ‘assembly line period’ where they can have the students assemble, say, Iphones. This would help educate the students in the value of an education, in a practical sort of way. And, of course, if Apple wanted to buy those iphones from the school district, well, what could they do, right?
As an extra added bonus, the school administrators might get a practical lesson in what could happen when you use unpaid, serf labor to staff an assembly line for something that probably requires attention to details…….
I think that’s a pretty cheap shot at Colorado pot. First, it wasn’t legalized by the state, it was legalized by the people. Second, it wasn’t legalized for the sole purpose of generating revenue, but also because the penalities didn’t fit the crimes, “the crimes” were burdensome and irrational. Also, I don’t know of “legal cocaine” anywhere, so I think it’s unfair to “dramatize” or overstate a rational vote of the people with absurd extensions.
it wasn’t legalized by the state, it was legalized by the people.
Now there’s a distinction I don’t comprehend.
Second, it wasn’t legalized for the sole purpose of generating revenue
The profit motive has provided the tipping point.
but also because the penalities didn’t fit the crimes,
The yuppie stoners want their pot, and are willing to see kids go to school stoned to have it.
Also, I don’t know of “legal cocaine” anywhere, so I think it’s unfair to “dramatize” or overstate a rational vote of the people with absurd extensions.
No, legal coke will come when we need more revenue after our budgets are hooked on pot. Ron Paul wants to legalize cocaine.
1) You really don’t comprehend the difference between a small group (school board, congress) making a policy and a state-wide popular ballot on a policy?
2) I don’t know of any “yuppie stoners” who want pot so bad that they just dismiss kids running off to school high. Thinking something should be legal in no way equates to thinking everyone should have full access all the time and damn the consequences.
3) But you didn’t say that if pot is legalized it’s only a matter of time until cocaine is legalized too. You said
“…more of them will get into the drug dealing business, like Colorado, and let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage.”
You made the direct implication that Colorado has legalized coke as well as pot by lumping them together like that. I understand that you are anti-drug; I am not a user but think the drug laws are both overbroad and ineffective. Still, I respect your opinion and think you can argue it well without resorting to willful ignorance and straw man arguments.
You really don’t understand the rules of grammar, punctuation and sentence construction. I implied nothing if the sort. “…more of them will get into the drug dealing business, like Colorado, and let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage.” describes tow separate statements, introduced by the single phase (more of the them will) expressing what is common to both. There are two parts, the equivalent of two sentences. Instead of writing two sentences,”More of them will get into the drug dealing business, like Colorado. More of them will let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage,” or a compound sentence linking these with “and”: “More of them will get into the drug dealing business, like Colorado, AND more of them will let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage,” I chose a different stylistic form that I am fond of that expresses exactly the same thought: I. “(more of them will)— get into the drug dealing business,” and (more of them will) let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage.” The phrase “like Colorado” applies only to the first part of the sentence, as it comes before the “and” designating the change of topic. If I intended to suggest that Colorado had legalized cocaine, which I obviously didn’t since 1) it hasn’t and 2) I didn’t write it that way, I would have made the sentence read, “Line Colorado, more of them will get into the drug dealing business and let the lives, families and businesses destroyed by the inevitable results of legal pot and cocaine become collateral damage.” Then “Like Colorado” would have become part of the common introduction, “More of them will…”
You’re welcome to take issue with my prolix style, and you are even more welcome to disagree with my assessment of the wisdom of drug legalization, but you’re not welcome to put words into my mouth. My statement was clear to anyone reading it fairly.
I apologize for misinterpreting your meaning but I DID read it fairly, and I still think that your original sentence strongly implies either that Colorado has legalized/will legalize cocaine, or that it is an inevitable follow-up to leglaizing marijuana. As far as I know, no state (either the government or the electorate) is proposing legalized cocaine, so it makes my own internal alarms go off to see it lumped side-by-side with legal marijuana. One does not necessarily follow the other. I re-read a few times and it still looks like you are making a misleading implication, over-stating the slippery slope if nothing else. Nevertheless, I’m sorry if I took a sentence that didn’t scan well to mean something you didn’t intend.
I still have to ask: Do you think that legalization advocates truly don’t care if children are going to school stoned?
I have to answer: if they cared sufficiently, they wouldn’t be advocating legalization of pot. Kids think what is right is signaled by what adults and role models do legally and without shame or guilt. Legalizing drugs sends the message that getting stoned is culturally acceptable conduct. Prominent and successful advocates prominently advocating legalization also sends that message, but the law is part of an effective rebuttal.
I read the entirety of the thread you referred Diego to below: I know you dislike the alcohol/drugs comparison but it’s the easiest way for me to illustrate. Society as a whole finds drinking perfectly acceptable, and sees nothing wrong with having a few beers during a football game or an Irish coffee on a cold day. This casual use is harmless, victimless, and enjoyable. We see a whole lot wrong with children drinking, or people showing up drunk to work. Why do you assume that if marijuana were legalized, there would be no cultural norms whatsoever about adults and children being baked constantly?
True, some people would let their kids smoke pot just like some people now let their kids drink. And others let their kids blow off school, smoke, have sex, drive, play with guns, be bullies, steal, and run wild. Some people will always be feckless and permissive idiots that I wouldn’t trust with my pet avocado bush.
One reason is that, unlike alcohol, pot has no other purpose BUT to get baked. That means, in my view, that it, unlike alcohol, has no legitimate purpose that can even begin to offset the social destructiveness of making it legal and socially approved. I think cigarettes are the better comp, and yet they don’t incapacitate users–you can still operate heavy machinery and write coherent letters while smoking.
Thanks for reading the thread. It’s not pleasant.
But (barring the most casual uses like a single toast or cooking with sherry) the only purpose of drinking is to induce a buzz of some level, albeit generally not incapacitating. I don’t know a whole lot of stoners, but the ones I do know are generally content to get a moderate buzz on and eat junk food.
I think, perhaps, the best way to sum up my feelings are that I can’t really get behind restricting the majority of people who would use something safely because some people can’t control themselves. It seems like governance via the lowest common denominator, rather than governing via a reasonable man standard and punishing the individuals who screw it up.
And the thread? Not pretty- but I’m a science nerd who is captivated by youtube videos of exotic medical procedures, and comment on this thread between dates with salmonella-riddled meat. I can do unpleasant 🙂
Anyone who get a buzz on with one glass of wine at dinner, a single beer or a cordial after a meal has a big problem or is six. Many people drink for the taste, and cannot ever be accused of seeking “a buzz.” I’m not a fan of alcohol at all, but alcoholic beverages are in fact beverages; some even have nutritional qualities. Do I think the gourmet and other non-destructive uses of booze sufficiently compensate for the harm? No. Other cultures have virtually eliminated alcohol, and it’s too bad that by the time we attempted it, it was impossible.
Sorry, but if you go back 80 years and change ‘pot’ to ‘alcohol’ I’d bet these same arguments were being made to oppose ending Prohibition.
The so-called War on Drugs has accomplished little but to criminalize tens of millions of Americans, aid and abet organized and unorganized crime in this nation and others, and cost the state and feds untold billions to catch, prosecute, and then house hundreds of thousands of citizens for smoking marijuana. It has done nothing to stop the use of pot, but it has helped make us a nation of scofflaws.
People who want to smoke pot do so today. Legalizing it would not be likely to lead to a huge increase in its use. It would, however, be likely to see its price drop dramatically even after imposing excise taxes similar to those on alcohol. It would be likely to put a big hit on the drug cartels and other organized crime, and provide financial relief to the states and feds as the load on the criminal justice system is eased and prison populations are downsized.
I think it would also allow the sort of education, therapy programs, etc. that have been effective in reducing the tobacco using portion of our population.
As far as the kids go, a significant percentage of them already go to school stoned, smoke tobacco, and drink alcohol. Pot use will probably fall under similar legal restrictions as tobacco and alcohol. All of these things are already illegal to most public school students, but all of them still get used.
Yes, it is a utilitarian argument to some degree. However, I don’t have any moral problem with adults using alcohol or pot in a responsible fashion. Addiction and public safety issues (e.g. DUI) are problems with both substances and can and should be addressed.
1. I’m not re-writing all these arguments; if you have something new, I will. You can read this thread, launched when I poked the hive of the pro-pot brigade last year.
2. The arguments for Prohibition were valid too. Just look at the suffering, death, social and financial loss caused by alcohol. The difference is that alcohol use was thoroughly imbedded in mainstream legal, social, religious, family and economic culture and had been for centuries. That is a material difference.
3. We are paying a terrible social price for having two dangerous drugs legally available. We don’t need more.
4. You are welcome to get back to me after reading the thread, if you have something new to add. I’ve been listening to the same flawed arguments since I had to endure the bleary-eyed, semi-coherent preaching from roommates in 1969.
Thanks for referring me to that thread — it was before my time here, but I’ll look through it.
There to me little point in endlessly rehashing all the arguments for and against, so I’ll stop now.
Thanks. I don’t want to cut off discussion, but too much deja vu and I start getting sick of myself.
Not only are the students not being paid for their time (unlike an employee of the school), but the kids are paying the school to be there!!!
That would be like paying your boss to come to work, AND your employer owning any patents you come up with for them.
As for your question of what is the discrepancy between the actual policy and Verjeana Jacob’s explanation, hasn’t our electorate gotten used to outright lies that our double speaking politicians use these days?
Law: Thou shalt not do action X ever again.
Citizen: Hey, wait a minute, what’s wrong with action X?
Lawmaker: Um, er….wait…we…er….we’re trying to protect action X, because we like action X!
Citizen: That doesn’t sound right, but ok!
Opposition to stupidity and corruption takes effort and discomfort. But we are lazy electorate and all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But it is as cut and dry as simply stealing from the kiddos? Trying to avoid an immediate Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children agreement with this, and making exception for simple creative works such as art or poetry, what of school projects that involve a great deal of research and use of resources and capital that may be owned by the school system (by extension, the people at large)?
Don’t even Universities have some sort of intellectual property sharing policies, and those students are certainly paying more into that education that the primary school kids.
I think that this particular policy is broadly worded enough to allow for excessive abuse. Even here in standardized-test-ville, once a policy encourages teachers and administrators to focus on one thing, that is all that gets focused on…at the cost of what schools exist for: distilling knowledge and teaching how to learn and think critically.
With regard to 1 or more comments about “Assembly line period”, I have to say that my biggest complaint about schools is that they don’t produce anything other than writing. There’s hardly any “hands on building” going on anymore. I was lucky to have an electronics class in highschool where I was able to design and build a strobe light and a radio. But in many schools, there isn’t shop class or a baking class anymore. All we value in a “school system” anymore is what we can put in our head and pull out in words and thoughts. Art and Music might be where creativity has “survived”, but that too seems diminished. I think the arguments made for “The Arts” needs to be expanded to other applications of education. I guess this is a bit “off-topic”, but I feel maybe a bit more on-topic than my last foray in this post.
If you build something, that is, like, manual labor and that would be wrong. None of OUR children should be associated with manual labor or anything resembling an occupation where people get their hands dirty. All of OUR children are going to rack up $80,000 in student loan debt on a degree in art history with a minor in creative ways to get high, then default on the student loans while working as a waiter at Outback Steakhouse. We aren’t going to let children go to vo-tech because that would mean that they are stupid or that we have given up on them (except for the ones we have given up on and shipped to vo-tech). We can’t push our vo-tech program because the parents will be insulted if we think their children should go to vo-tech and then be really insulted when they find that their college-bound children don’t qualify for vo-tech because they don’t have the prerequisites.
My area’s auto technician program requires a prerequisite of geometry (which isn’t normally taught until the junior year in the city’s high school) and the machinist program requires trigonometry (normally taught senior year only for the college-bound students).
I have no problem with vocational courses being offered in the public schools (or private, for that matter). I think it’d be a valuable addition and not just for those who have no interest in the college prep tracks. It is totally different than my assembly line period, which was obviously more in the ‘if this goes on’ line.
Not exactly a vocational class, but I have often thought the one course in high school that paid the most practical benefits for me was Typing. Being able to touch type 60-80 wpm has been a boon to me (and my employers) more times than I can possibly count. Historical note: I learned on manual typewriters. When I first got to use one, I thought the Selectric II was truly a dream machine. Does anyone remember all the gizmos and addons they came up with in the 1970s and 80s to turn typewriters into word processors?
I believe they have early classes now called keyboarding, but I doubt if they are teaching touch typing, which I still believe is still a valuable skill. Of course, I also believe spelling and usage are valuable skills, too, so what do I know?