A high school student in Philadelphia made series of videos, posted on TikTok, showing how exposed how some of his classmates could not read well nor comprehend relatively simple sentences. “whatthevek” posted a video showing single high school-aged students was unable to read the sentence, “She wore a silhouette of clothes that were extraordinary but somewhat gauche.” He made a follow-up video a day later in showing students unable to make sense of the sentence, “The colonel asked the choir to accommodate the governor’s schedule.” The videos were filmed at the city’s Preparatory Charter School of Mathematics, Science, Technology and Careers.
How surprised are you? I’m not.
The two videos went “viral,” accumulating 1.7 million likes and thousands of comments. The student says he won’t be posting a third, however. “I would post a part three, but the school board is trying to expel me, stop me from going to prom, and stop me from walking at graduation,” he revealed on Instagram last week.
South Philly-based Prep Charter has yet to conform or deny this. State test scores show that just 53% of students at the school tested proficient in reading, and 19% were proficient in math. Roughly 71% of Philadelphia’s fourth-graders cannot read at grade level, according to statistics from Philadelphia-based social justice group Achieve Now. The group also holds that about half of all adults in Philadelphia are functionally illiterate, one of the highest rates among large US cities.
Let us assume that the student, whose name is not yet known, is indeed facing punishment for his videos.
Ethics Alarms 
I have a couple of questions:
1. Isn’t what this student did investigative journalism followed by intentionally publishing the findings for public consumption thus giving the student all the protections granted to the news media under the first amendment?
2. Could laws protecting whistleblowers be used to protect this individual?
3. Wouldn’t the student have a first amendment case against the school and the school board if the student is punished in any way by the school?
My Opinion
I think the school district should deal with this in the exact same manner as they would if it was published by a professional journalist in the local newspaper or on the local news. As for using the possibility of school disruption to punish a student when that school disruption has not actually taken place, which would be similar to the plot of the movie “Minority Report” and would be treading on very thin morality and legal ice. Schools have to deal with behavioral disruptions from individuals regularly, and this is likely the only kind of “disruption” that I can foresee other than the public knowing how bad the schools are.
“…risked seriously disrupting education at a school.” You can’t disrupt something that isn’t happening.
That’s a really interesting way of putting it!!
Nice argument.
But “education happening” these days means the students show up in attendance. Similarly, showing up at work means they are working and should be paid for being present. It all seems related. Can’t define education, work or what a woman is.
One of my state’s gubernatorial candidates is running ads stating that the state’s public schools have an 80% failure rate in teaching kids to read. His solution is to send them to get more training from the people who trained them on how to not teach kids to read in the first place.
For every student the public schools in this country lose, they add an additional employee (900,000 fewer students in the last few years, 700,000 new employees).
Nothing will change until the public stops treating public school employees as if they are good people.
“the posts risked seriously disrupting education at a school.”
You can’t disrupt something if it is not taking place in the first place.
That being said, exposing one’s peers to ridicule is, as they say, a “dick move.” While I do not think the school should punish him for exposing the school’s failure to achieve its goals, the students in the video would have a legitimate (and possibly legal) beef with him.
-Jut
JutGory wrote, “the students in the video would have a legitimate (and possibly legal) beef with him.”
As for the legal part; only if it falls within defamation laws, as in, was it publishing something that he knew was a false aka a lie.
Steve: not quite; invasion of privacy torts, which are separate from defamation may apply. There are four of them:
appropriation of name and likeness-not applicable, unless there is some issue with him filming and publishing them. I mean, why did they let him video them. Did they give permission or waiver to show them, particularly if they are minors?
intrusion upon seclusion-not applicable
public disclosure of private facts-probably not applicable
false light-similar to defamation, which is why the State that Mondale Won has never adopted this tort, but might fit here if there was something deceptive about how he portrayed them (like the cursive writing element); and you don’t have to prove damage to your reputation, just that the act caused distress.
bottom line: there may be something there for a creative lawyer to go off of.
-Jut
Thanks, I hadn’t thought of those things – obviously.
Steve,
and why should you. There are better things to think about.
in 20-some years of legal work, I have had to think about invasion of privacy torts twice (only getting paid for it once, which is the far greater injustice). Yet, it still clutters my mind.
-Jut
You can’t disrupt something if it is not taking place in the first place.
I almost included that line in the post, but was confident someone would use it.
Furthermore…
Jack wrote, “In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021), the Supreme Court held that student speech outside of school on social media could be legally punished if, though the principles articulated in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District and Bethel School District v. Fraser, the posts risked seriously disrupting education at a school.”
The Supreme Court might want to review the based on the lack of “imminent lawless action” discussed in Brandenburg v. Ohio.
When did school systems get the ultimate authority to ignore and override a students individual 1st Amendment rights of and punish them for the possibility of disrupting education, literally a disruption that hasn’t yet taken place.
This is absurd.
No I don’t think he should be punished for exactly the reasons Steve laid out. What we should be doing is in this upcoming election season when every politician has education in their platform we should ask what the hell are we getting for our money.
Here is the charter school’s website:
https://www.philasd.org/charterschools/#aboutcharter
It seems that this charter school program might need a bit tighter oversight. Apparently, these schools are supposed to foster high-quality educational opportunities, fair and equitable treatment, and improved outcomes for students and families in Philadelphia through rigorous charter school evaluations, effective oversight, and meaningful supports. Yet, this video shows that the schools might not be achieving those goals.
jvb
My first thought: “This school has a problem.” This is particularly true if it’s a for profit school luring in black kids whose parents are looking for a better situation for their kids than what the public schools offer. I’m sure the administration would love to have the kid who filmed and posted these videos drawn and quartered. I’d say, forget about the ethical and legal niceties of what the kid has done, go after this charter school outfit hammer and tong. Don’t even think about penalizing the kid.
Humina humina humina….
Furious Philly charter school blasts TikTok videos showing multiple high schoolers unable to read basic sentences | Daily Mail Online
In response, Prep Charter said in a statement that the student was not being punished for the videos, and insisted that its students are more literate than the footage showed.
In its statement, Prep Charter said the footage ‘does not accurately reflect our school community or the values we strive to uphold every day.’
‘While some students may have agreed to be filmed, the way the footage was presented lacks important context and has led to a portrayal that is misleading and unfair,’ the school said.
‘The video titled ‘Can You Read?’ does not represent the character, effort, or abilities of our students as a whole.’ The school declined to say what context was missing from the damning clips. (Buhwahaha! Ed.)
According to state data cited by the Inquirer, Prep Charter enrolls roughly 600 students, and over 70 percent are from economically disadvantaged households.
In Pennsylvania state assessments in the 2024/2025 school year, just 46.5% of the school’s students scored proficient in English language arts tests.
The school’s state test scores also showed just 19 percent of its students were proficient in math.
I doubt he was going out of his way to cast students of color in a bad light. The student in question is black himself, and less than 6% of the student body at that particular school is white, according to US News & World Report.
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/pennsylvania/first-philadelphia-preparatory-charter-school-200681#students-teachers
In this instance, he could be properly punished for exposing the students’ faces.
Eli Steele posted an opinion piece carried by the Fox News app a few days ago. In it he discusses the harm that more than 60 years of White Guilt have created. While the societal effects have been broad, the dumbing down, lowering of standards and abdication of basic discipline have virtually destroyed education. In the 50’s and 60’s the public school system provided a fairly high quality curriculum. Those of us who wished to attend University were able to do so. Today even elite universities provide remedial classes for students deficient in English and math. Much of the horrifying outcome can be laid squarely at the feet of administrators who prioritize social engineering over academic achievement.
I agree with Steve – a student who is publicizing the disgraceful state of affairs in education as a whistleblower or journalist is not unethical. He is a hero.
“Today even elite universities provide remedial classes for students deficient in English and math.”
“In 100 Years We’ve Gone From Teaching Latin And Greek In High School To Teaching Remedial English In College” J. Sobran
To no one’s surprise, Lefty finds this RAYcist.
PWS
If the school punishes the kid, it will become an excellent example of the Streisand Effect. The school needs to clarify that “context” remark and provide a preview of the revamping of its core business so that they won’t be taking people’s money and not returning the promised product. In short, they need to come up with a WITTS plan. And it may already have.
Anecdote, related to Jack’s post and your quote:
When our kids became “mobile”, my wife decided to put her degrees to work, and taught Latin in the local county high schools for a number of years. She was at the bottom of the seniority stack when she first started, so was initially assigned one of the schools in a less affluent (and higher minority %) area. The only reason it had a demand for and offered Latin was that it was also the magnet school for the performing arts programs, so had at least one cadre of students with aspirations beyond getting through the mandated 12 years.
Still, there weren’t enough of them for her to have only Latin classes, so she typically had to teach one or two English classes, which had more of a mix. Though the school didn’t generally have any significant discipline problems, there were kids who would speculate on whose parole officer was arriving if they saw a police car pulling onto the school grounds.
One day a (black) girl in her class shyly took her aside and proudly showed her a book she had bought with her own money. The girl expressed her intention of making it the first in her own personal library. My wife could barely keep from tearing up as she learned that the book was not only the first the girl had owned, but the only book in the house that wasn’t one of the girl’s school textbooks.