Bill would let Texas teachers legally kill students

Schoolteachers in Texas will be allowed to use lethal force against students without risking legal repercussions if a new bill being considered in the Lone Star State’s legislature becomes a law. The bill –HB 868, or the “Teacher’s Protection Act” – affords educators legal immunity in the unlikely event that they happen to kill any of their students during school-sanctioned events.

Specifically, the bill – introduced to the Texas State Legislature on January 22 by Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Canton) – says “an educator is justified in using force or deadly force on school property, on a school bus or at a school-sponsored event in defense of the educator’s person or in defense of students of the school that employs the educator if, under the circumstances as the educator reasonably believes them to be, the educator would be justified…in using force or deadly force, as applicable, in defense of the educator or students.”

Indeed, the language does not limit any hypothetical action on the educator’s part to be done in self-defense: the proposed bill actually allows teachers to use deadly force on children if they believe another student or their self is in danger. As of August 2014, Texas was among eight states in the country where laws allow school employees to carry firearms on campus, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And, as the Houston Chronicle pointed out this week, teachers in Texas are already granted immunity if they assault a student, and the “use of force, but not deadly force, against a [student] is justified.”

More at RT USA

The Columbine Cause

Evan Long's "The Columbine Cause" is a feature-length video presentation based on public domain government records related to the official "investigation" of the Columbine High School shootings of April 20, 1999.
It includes quotations from suspect interrogations and witness interviews as recorded in little before publicized police files, 911 recordings and other rare items.
The documents reveal that many corroborating reports from Columbine High School students, faculty and others directly conflicted with the conclusions presented in the Sheriff's Office Final Report concerning the attack timeline, the weapons used and more.

YouTube - List of school shootings in the United States (Wikipedia)

The US schools with their own police

Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school.

In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time. What was once handled with a telling-off by the teacher or a call to parents can now result in arrest and a record that may cost a young person a place in college or a job years later.

"We've taken childhood behaviour and made it criminal," said Kady Simpkins, a lawyer who represented Sarah Bustamantes. "They're kids. Disruption of class? Every time I look at this law I think: good lord, I never would have made it in school in the US. I grew up in Australia and it's just rowdy there. I don't know how these kids do it, how they go to school every day without breaking these laws."

The Guardian

Richard Dawkins attacks 'alien rubbish' taught in Muslim faith schools

Richard Dawkins has attacked Muslim faith schools, saying that they teach students 'alien rubbish'.

The noted atheist claimed that pupils were being taught to ignore scientific evidence in favour of following the Koran. He said that he had even met a science teacher who believed that the earth was only 6,000 years old.

Mr Dawkins, a former Oxford professor who found fame as an evolutionary biologist before becoming a vocal opponent of religion, is a longstanding critic of all faith schools. But he has said that Islamic schools are worse than others, as their teaching is more likely to be influenced by a religious agenda.

Mail Online

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Elitism In Schools Needed To Mend Broken Society

David Cameron has insisted there will be "no more excuses" for failure in schools and that discipline and "elitism" must prevail to mend the country's "broken society". Speaking at the opening of a free school in Norwich on Friday, the prime minister hit back at critics of the new system, saying academies, independence and choice "really works".


"We've got to be ambitious, too, if we want to mend our broken society. Because education doesn't just give people the tools to make a good living - it gives them the character to live a good life, to be good citizens," he said.

The prime minister also said he had asked the government's social policy review to look into whether the benefits of parents whose children frequently play truant should be cut.

More on Huffington Post

Ex-spies to root out fanatics in British classrooms

Former MI5 spies are being recruited to root out Islamic fanatics in schools, Education Secretary Michael Gove said yesterday. Ministers are understood to be so worried about the influence of Muslim preachers of hate and other extremists in the classrooms that a new unit has been set up.

They have recruited former members of the secret service with expertise in the Islamist terrorist threat to investigate. Mr Gove is concerned that comprehensive schools and the Government’s new generation of “free schools” may be targeted by extremists.

“We have been working with people who have been in the Intelligence Services in order to ensure that there is no-one from the wrong sort of background involved in education,” he said. “And, I should add, not just with the free schools,” Mr Gove told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Express.co.uk

Parent 'Trigger Law' in New York would allow Parents to fire Teachers and Principals

A proposed state law would give New York parents significantly more power over their children's schools.

The so called "trigger law" would allow parents who gather a majority at any persistently failing school to either fire 50 percent of the teachers, fire the principal, close the school or turn it into a charter school.

From TIME:

When people first hear about the radical-sounding law, they are almost always taken aback. But what they might not know is that failing schools can already be shut down by school districts under the No Child Left Behind law. The parent trigger simply takes the option provided to the school board and hands the power to the parents

Carl Korn, a spokesman for New York State United Teachers, said parents should be involved in education decisions, but their participation should come before the school is failing.

"We think the time to involve parents is before a school is identified [as persistently lowest-achieving]. Allowing a petition by parents would ignore the research, the other stakeholders, and leave the decision open to politics. Would we have an election-style campaign where we have advertising and mailings and money being spent on both sides, lobbying parents?"

huffingtonpost.com