School District to Taxpayers and Parents: Up Yours (Jay Bennish Reinstated without Visible Penalty)

….. and the Homeschooling Movement Gets a Yet Another Shot in the Arm

Stealing shamelessly from S.O.B. Alliance member Return of the Conservatives, who blogged on this when the story broke–

Here is Reason Number for parents to homeschool their children if at all possible (By the way, the story is hopelessly slanted — The lecture was objectively biased; plus, the primary issue here is teaching the subject matter, and secondarily the political indoctrination Jay Bennish engaged in while not doing his job):

Bennish to teach again
Punishment not revealed; teacher returns Monday

An Aurora social studies teacher accused of giving a biased lecture that sparked national debate over academic freedom was reinstated Friday after assuring administrators he would give balanced viewpoints in all classroom discussions.

Jay Bennish will return Monday to his teaching duties at Overland High School, less than two weeks after Cherry Creek School District administrators placed the 28-year-old on paid administrative leave.

Speaking after a meeting with administrators Friday, Bennish said that he was “excited to be back in the classroom” and that he would continue to use his job as a way to “encourage democratic values in our society” and to “promote social justice, just as I have always attempted to do.”

“I continue trying to improve myself as a teacher,” he said, adding he would still seek to make his students “think critically.”

Disciplinary action was taken against the teacher, though Superintendent onte Moses declined to provide details. Bennish did not lose any of his salary, his attorney said.

In his lecture during a geography class last month - which student Sean Allen recorded and then made public - Bennish compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler, criticized U.S. foreign policy and said capitalism is “at odds with human rights.”

The message to indoctrinating teachers is, “Indoctrinate to your heart’s content. When you get caught, you’ll get a slap on the wrist (you might even become famous), and then you’ll have to ‘be good’ for a few years. After a while, you can resume your regular habits of indoctrination. Rinse and repeat as necessary until retirement.”

The message to taxpayers and parents who expect their kids to be taught the classroom subject matter instead of having them subjected to political rants: “Up yours. You can’t touch us.”
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UPDATE: And yet, as Michelle Malkin noted this morning, 13 year-old Raven Furbert (”The Girl with the Patriotic Beads”) is having to sue her school district to be able to wear “red, white, and blue jewelry she handcrafted as a tribute to her relatives in the military.”

UPDATE 2: Well, well — It looks a parallel treatment case has come along quite quickly (HT Joanne Jacobs):

Comments on gays broadcast at school raise furor
A teacher who condemned homosexuality as part of a broadcast at Miami Sunset Senior High has come under fire, as have administrators who failed to screen the program.

On the first day, a few students talked about supporting gay rights, and no one paid much attention.

On the second day, a school counselor talked about respecting each other, and no one paid much attention.

On the third day, a few students spoke against homosexuality and a teacher said it is ”wrong according to the Bible” — and people noticed very much.

That final segment of a Miami Sunset Senior High television project roiled the normally placid West Dade campus, drew sharp response from both students and teachers and has raised questions about the free exchange of ideas and religion in public schools.

Let’s see if these kids and the teacher get the same kid-glove treatment Jay Bennish got. Intercepts predicts: “….. head down to Miami, just so you can watch everyone change sides.”

UPDATE 3: I hope someone watches the Bennish story closely, as I suspect that Bennish or the ACLU may go after Sean Allen civilly.

UPDATE 4: Jim Spencer, who wrote this column Friday criticizing the Colorado State Board of Education for letting the Bennish issue keep other work from getting done, e-mailed me twice in response to one I sent him regarding the timing of things:

(first e-mail)
I talked to school officials Friday. Allen’s father gave the recording of Bennish to conservative columnist/Rush Limbaugh fill-in Walter Williams on Feb. 22. On that day, he also called the principal at Overland High School and said his son had a problem with Bennish, but did not give her the recording. The school division was getting calls from people who saw Williams’ internet posting before Allen’s father called the principal, a spokeswoman told me. The Overland prinicpal told Mr. Allen she would investigate and get back to him by the end of the week. But the next day Mr. Allen gave a copy of the recording to right wing talk show host Mike Rosen. Neither Allen nor his parents ever provided the school or the school district with a copy of the recording. They had to get it from Rosen on Feb. 29.

NOTE: An astute commenter caught the fact that there is no Feb. 29 this year (doh). I sent Spencer an e-mail requesting clarification.

(second e-mail)
By the way, there had been no contact between Allen, his parents, Bennish, the principal or the administration before Feb. 22 about problems Sean was having.

I think I’m supposed to conclude that Allen was a bad boy for not working things out totally with the principal first. I’d be inclined to give that criticism a little more sympathy except for three things:

• Now that we know the ultimate result (even with all the pressure, no meaningful punishment was meted out to Bennish despite a track record of indoctrinating behavior), I can say with confidence that absolutely nothing would have happeneded to Bennish if the tape had been directly turned over to the principal. At least the world now knows what a lout Bennish is, and district parents can act on that knowledge, by for example demanding that their kids not be placed in a Bennish classroom (one would hope they have that right).
• The past track record of the school in enforcing teaching standards may already have been known to be so bad that Allen knew that nothing would come of it without outside pressure.
• I don’t recall whisteblowers in general being required to turn all their evidence over to the people they are charging with malfeasance before going to the authorities or the press with their stories. So why should we feel it necessary to put restrictions on Allen’s options for blowing the whistle?

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Previous Post:
March 7 — The Breakout of the Jay Bennish Indoctrination Story — And How the AP Avoided Reporting It

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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March 11: Wizbang Weekend Carnival Participant.