Los Angeles

Old Testament Treatment For The Miramonte Elementary School Culture

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

It could be worse; at least no teachers have been turned into pillars of salt.

Following the discovery that two Miramonte Elementary School teachers, Mark Berndt and Martin Springer,  allegedly engaged  in lewd activity with students, Los Angeles Unified School District made the brave decision to replace all teachers and staff, with everyone being re-assigned. Predictably, there have been protests and criticism. The basic argument: it is excessive and unfair. The good teachers, whoever they were, weren’t at fault.

Yes, they were; at least, they were responsible, and share accountability for a culture they were part of. The school district’s decision correctly assumes that when two members of a relatively small teaching staff abuse young children over a long period, something is rotten at the school beyond those teachers. Oversight is lax, administrators are looking the other way, teachers are protecting colleagues or refusing to acknowledge the implications of what they see or hear. There is a substantial chance that the Miramonte Elementary School didn’t just have some proverbial bad apples, but that it had created a culture that encouraged apples to go bad. There can be no certainty that Berndt and Springer were the only abusers on the staff, and the safety of children is at stake. Clear out the school, and wipe out the culture; have new personnel from top to bottom. It is easier to start over with a rotten culture than to try to fix it: this was God’s attitude in the Old Testament, and He had a point. The difference is that He killed off corrupt cultures with floods and fire, or just made them wander in the desert for generations.  Luckily, this isn’t Congress, Wall Street, Hollywood, or Rupert Murdoch’s empire. You can start all over with a school. Continue reading →

The Offensive Battle Over “Seven in Heaven Way”

/ Jack Marshall / 113 Comments

"There goes Fred, getting all religious again...."

With some hesitation, I must re-open the issue of officious inter-meddlers and grievance-mongerers who get satisfaction and empowerment from claiming to be offended by things that could not possibly harm them or genuinely infringe on their rights. The atheists are at it again.

My position has been stated here and elsewhere many times: in the absence of genuine long or short term harm, the ethical human response to a symbolic grievance is to keep one’s response proportional to the offense, which sometimes means considering how many individuals will be made miserable in order to satisfy one individual or a small group, and letting it go. Forcing a university to change the long-standing name of its football team based on a dubious argument that the name is an offense to Native Americans when most Native Americans couldn’t care less, for example, is wrong. Forcing a school to stop teaching kindergarteners to sing “Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer” because a Jewish parent thinks the song promotes Christianity is wrong.

Now a group of New York City atheists is demanding that their city re-name a street that was dedicated to the memory of seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.  Continue reading →

Teachers Unions: Not Unethical, Just Uninterested in the Public Welfare

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

His union is competent; it's just that he isn't

Public unions and their Democratic supporters (and supported) are not going to have much luck winning the public relations battle with Republicans as long as teachers unions are front and center. Teachers unions are not— I repeat not-–primarily concerned with the welfare of schoolchildren, or the public, or the deficit, or even education. Their priority is the welfare of their membership, and if any of those other stakeholders have to take it on the chin to make sure that the teachers have good salaries, benefits and iron-clad job security, well, that’s just the way of the world.

This doesn’t make teachers unions unethical any more than lawyers are unethical to represent their clients. But it does mean that any time a teacher’s union official claims to be concerned with anything but his members, he or she is lying through their teeth. And that is unethical. Continue reading →

Defining Fiscal Irresponsibility Down and the $578M School

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The shocking thing about the new $578 million school complex recently unveiled in Los Angeles, other than its obscene price tag, is that it was a one-day news story, and a minor one at that. There are no demonstrations; Fox News isn’t screaming about it. One education blog blandly asked, “Some view the school and its deluxe amenities as a showpiece for the community, while others view it as a waste of taxpayer money. What do you think?”

“What do you think???” WHAT DO YOU THINK???

The Robert F. Kennedy Community School is a showpiece for the community, all right: it shows that the community is run by irresponsible, incompetent officials, and that the community’s taxpayers are the human equivalent of sheep. Continue reading →

The Trouble With Teachers Unions

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Los Angeles teachers union is demonstrating the difficult and complex ethical dilemmas endemic to all teachers unions. Because the unions represent teachers rather than their students, the unions can, and often are, placed in the position of supporting their membership to the detriment of the children the members have a duty to serve. And because the teachers who need the most protection from adverse employment actions are usually the worst and least dedicated teachers, a moderation of the unions’ priorities to recognize a duty to the students is less likely to occur.

The L.A. union’s president just announced that he was organizing a “massive boycott” of The Los Angeles Times because the newspaper has begun publishing a series of articles that explore student test scores to assess the effectiveness of Los Angeles public school teachers. Continue reading →

The Arizona Boycotts: Unethical and Unjustified

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Boulder, Boston, St. Paul, Austin, El Paso, Oakland and San Diego have all announced a boycott of Arizona, which stands condemned, in their view, of “violating basic American principles,” “Draconian law enforcement,” “promoting racism,” and “un-American measures.” All this, for announcing that the state is going to enforce a law long on the books that the Federal government stubbornly fails to enforce itself.

Almost all boycotts are unethical, and this one doesn’t come close to being fair or reasonable. Boycotts use economic power to bend others to the will of large groups that disagree with conduct or policy, bypassing such niceties as debate, argument, and rational persuasion. They can be effective, but they always depend on causing harm to third-parties, bystanders and others not directly involved in the decision that prompted the boycott, thus creating pressure on decision-makers to change direction based on considerations that have nothing whatsoever to do with the underlying controversy. It is a bullying tactic, and the only way it can pass ethical muster is if the reasons for it are clear, strong, virtuous, undeniable, and based on irrefutable logic that the boycott target is so wrong, and doing such harm, that this extreme measure is a utilitarian necessity. Continue reading →