You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘High School’ category.
The organization that administers the SATs has announced that going forward students who take the test multiple times will be allowed to send whichever result they choose to colleges, rather than sending all results along as they do now.
The College Board says this new system “allows students to put their best foot forward,” but others are opposed.
To begin with, they say, the “Score Choice program” advantages those students who can afford to take the tests multiple times, allowing them to cherry-pick scores without informing colleges that they are doing so. It also increases the importance of test-prep services to the college admissions process, and enriches the College Board itself by encouraging students to take the test more often.
Further complicating the situation, colleges are not bound to accept the Score Choice program, and some institutions — including Cornell, Penn, Stanford, and USC — have announced that they will continue to require students to submit all their SAT scores as part of their admissions package.
The College Board implemented Score Choice once before, in 1993, but abandoned it in 2002, concluding that it was unfair to low-income students and students of color. But today, as the New York Times puts it, the organization “sees things differently.”
For those interested in more data on this subject, one blog critical of Score Choice has linked to a 2002 study that found a significant skew in the family income of repeat SAT-takers.
The parents of two Washington State cheerleaders are suing their daughters’ high school for suspending them from the squad after nude photographs of the students began to circulate in the school. The students say that the two photos were distributed inadvertently.
The families charge that school officials allowed staffers to view the photos unnecessarily and that the school should have promptly reported the incident to police as a possible child pornography case.
The lawsuit also contends that the two girls were inappropriately targeted for punishment. It notes that students who may have received or forwarded the photographs, including members of the school’s football team, were not disciplined.
A school official is quoted as saying that “when you sign up to be a cheerleader — or for any student activity — you agree to certain codes of behavior.” “We consider them student leaders,” she continued, “and we want them to be role models.”
I’d want to know more about this particular case before coming to any real conclusions about it, but it does seem to me that distributing a naked picture of a fellow student without permission is a far more serious offense than taking a picture of yourself naked. That fact leaves me sympathetic to the plaintiffs in this suit, and inclined to believe that they’re raising important questions about school policy.
Update: Having done a brief search for additional reporting on this lawsuit, I have to add that I find media outlets’ eagerness to augment their coverage of this story with photographs of cheerleaders — from this high school, in uniform, with their faces blurred out — frankly repulsive.
Joseph Frederick, who was suspended from high school for two weeks in 2002 for displaying a sign reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus,” has settled his lawsuit against the school for $45,000.
Frederick displayed the sign while gathered with fellow students to watch the passing of the Olympic torch. The event took place during school hours but off school property, and his lawsuit reached the Supreme Court in 2007.
In a splintered 6-3 decision, the Court rejected the proposition that Frederick’s sign was protected by the First Amendment, but Frederick’s lawsuit continued in Alaska state court.
Under the terms of the settlement, Frederick’s suspension will be expunged from his school records, and the school district will host a forum on student speech and the constitution.
An essay on free-speech rights in high schools from a First Amendment scholar:
After 12 years of censorship and regimentation, many high school students will graduate this spring with little or no idea about what it means to be a free, active and engaged citizen in a democracy. When they march across the stage to get their diploma, let’s hope someone slips them a copy of the First Amendment – with instructions on how to use it.
Far too many public school officials are afraid of freedom and avoid anything that looks like democracy. Under the heading of “safety and discipline,” administrators censor student religious and political speech, shut down student newspapers and limit student government to discussions about decorations at the prom.
Fortunately, a growing number of brave students defy the odds and take seriously what they hear about free speech in civics class…
Finding that “the claimed interruption and disorder was really much the usual background noise of a middle and high school,” a Florida judge has overturned a school district’s ban on clothes that bear pro-gay messages.
Students at Ponce de Leon High School started sporting the messages after a lesbian student claimed the school’s principal told her that homosexuality was wrong and directed her not to discuss her sexual orientation with other students. When a rumor spread that a school assembly would feature an anti-gay speaker, students began planning a walkout.
Eight students were eventually suspended for activities relating to the protests and the walkout discussions.
studentactivism.net 
Recent Comments