"But John Dryden said he's not the point. He wants people to focus on the issue he raised: Whether school officials considered that students could incriminate themselves with their answers to the survey that included questions about drug and alcohol use."
To me, that sounds like an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher. He is relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students, and that sounds like good teaching to me. He ought to get a promotion or a raise, based only on this news about his public behavior in the classroom.
It is, of course, sometimes appropriate for schools to distribute surveys to minor students in their care on which there may be questions about student behavior that may be embarrassing or illegal. But the teacher, based on the report here, is just asking his students to think about their lessons and what those lessons mean, not trying to undermine the survey process.
"But Dryden doesn't want this seen as him vs. the administrators. He said he knows they were acting in what they thought was the best interests of the students.
"'These are good, professional, smart people on the other side who want to do what is right by kids,' he said.
"He would rather focus the discussion on the survey.
"'I have asked people (the supporters) to talk about the survey. I think I am a sideshow,' he said. 'This (the survey) was rushed and it wasn't vetted.'
"'I'm not a martyr,' he said. 'I'm trying to refocus people's attentions. Calm down.'"
I really want to understand this "proprietary information" excuse the school is using to justify not releasing the survey. Certainly the kids can go home and tell their parents what they saw (and some have). The kids didn't sign an NDA, they saw it, so why can't we see it?
This story is happening in my town. There is a public hearing tomorrow night and I plan on attending.
There is a public hearing tomorrow night and I plan on attending.
That's awesome. This is what democracy looks like.
I got hooked attending some townhalls on my pet topic. I've learned so much about politics, policy, etc. these last 8 years.
#1 Show up.
#2 Keep showing up.
#3 Bring your friends.
It's ridiculous how few people shape policy. The upside is adding a few more people to the debate can significantly shape outcomes.
If you become credible (learn a topic well enough to speak to all points), and you pack council chambers with your supporters, you will change policy.
Everyone focuses on campaigns. The real action is in policy. Politics is a dirty, filthy business, but it's still worthwhile.
I strongly recommend Camp Wellstone. There's an "activist" track. Anyone aware of methodology or project management will grok their techniques immediately. The focus is policy vs products.
For election integrity, it was a small group of us vs everyone else. I've testified opposite Mark Radke of Diebold, county auditors, county executives, election administrators, retired generals, people representing the disabled community, etc.
One time, our issue followed the kittens and puppies on the agenda. Something about a kennel. Council was PACKED. EVERYONE showed up for the puppies and kittens.
Whereas it was just me and my cohort representing the interests of democracy. Looking at the turnout for the puppies and kittens, I turned to my cohort and said "We're doing this wrong."
The times we "won", it was either because we packed the hearing or I had better (embarrassing) information.
It surprising how few people make decisions about natural habitats and public water too. Most citizens can't be bothered to join a local environmental group, and so the decisions that are made are not in the best interest of the public.
My guess is that the survey was bought from a private company on a contract that says it is that company's property and not to be shared. Therefore if the school released the form, they could be sued by said private company both for violating copyright and contract. (And the company would want that because they want to resell the survey to other schools.)
Stupid, yes. But I think it is likely that the school has a real legal barrier to sharing the survey.
> Stupid, yes. But I think it is likely that the school has a real legal barrier to sharing the survey.
It could be. It could also be that the people who dreamed up this survey saw that legal barrier as a convenience. You can administer an unfair and potentially useless, invasive, survey, to your students, AND you have a "reason" not to tell the media, too! Had I been a student at this school, I would have put my survey directly in the trash.
The idea that a publically funded school is passing out surveys to students, and we cannot read them, makes me rage. If this doesn't anger you, then something is wrong. The reason is irrelevant, they should have thought about that before buying the survey.
When tyranny comes it is not going to introduce itself. No one is going to hand you a pamphlet, entitled: "Your rights, and lack thereof" and roll out the details of how they will all be taken away. It will do so by stealth. It will do so by employing lame excuses. It will come as a trojan horse. Increased security, no more terrorist attacks! This is all secret so we can keep the kids off drugs!
> The idea that a publically funded school is passing out surveys to students, and we cannot read them, makes me rage. I
I bet all that was done was done under the public guise of "protecting the children" (then again what isn't these days...). Privately all that was done was to protect the behinds of the administrator in case some kid does something "crazy" and the school is sued or criticized. They want to have something to point to and say "Aha but we did everything we could, see...! we hired professionals in the field to find troubled teens, if they couldn't don't blame us".
Simple as that.
That is the reason there are so many bullshit business consulting companies. It lets those implementing risky and unsound/unpopular idea to go and point their finger to and say "see we hired professional and they agreed with us, these are world class consultants, if they couldn't predict failure, how could you blame us, simple administrators/executives/board of directors..." stuff like that.
It is all basically about having a scapegoat in the end.
Never blame on malice what can be blamed on incompetence.
In this case my capacity for outrage is exhausted. I've been through too many permutations of this particular type of outrage that this is in line with my expectations.
And yes, if the survey is as described, the teacher should be commended. Not punished. But that's out of my hands, though if someone gives me someone to email, I will do so.
> Never blame on malice what can be blamed on incompetence.
So, does the early bird get the worm or do good things come to those who wait? We're maybe too inclined to just assert these sorts of things as fact. (This includes me.)
Except this piece of wisdom is extremely valid. Assuming everybody else is both supremely competent and consistently malicious goes against most people's experience. You give humanity far too much credit by assuming everyone is an evil mastermind.
Someone who attributes to incompetence too regularly is one we may call a "chump" or a "sucker" and is an easy mark for charlatans of all stripes. If I don't get taken for a fool occasionally, maybe I could have a little more human faith. If I get taken for a fool all the time, I should get pissed off more.
He messed up the quote a bit, omitting an important qualifier:
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"
-- Napoleon (allegedly)
I don't think I need to explain how this shifts the meaning.
"And this is why we draw and quarter drunk drivers" ....wait
Of course we don't draw and quarter drunk drivers. Just because an offense does not require mens rea does not mean that we throw out all sense of proportional punishment.
Firing programmers for creating bugs (an offense without mens rea) is massively disproportionate, which is why we don't do it (at least until the severity and frequency of the bugs becomes unreasonable and other corrective options have been expended.)
An offense without mens rea is an offense without malicious intent. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that there was no malicious intent, only incompetence. How can you not get this?
Drunk driving laws use strict liability, meaning that absolutely no mens rea is required to prosecute a drunk driver. Incompetence, rather than malicious intent, can be assumed but the drunk driver is nevertheless pursued and ultimately punished in a proportionate fashion.
Nobody here is suggesting that we drag these school administrators off to criminal or civil court for being spineless tyrants through incompetence. What we are suggesting is that in the "court of public opinion", their 'crime' should use strict liability. School administrators do not need to act maliciously for us to criticize them. Incompetence, without mens rea, is fair game for criticism.
Who gives a shit if they are just incompetent? I assume that they are. That does not get them off the hook.
No. Incompetence isn't potentially harmful, it is invariably harmful. It creates environments with a slavish adherence to protocol unsuitable for purpose. If you are sufficiently old you have seen workplaces like that and if you have any sense of purpose you got out of them as fast as you could.
It's likely a real psychometric survey that the school pays per copy for, and so the company that produced it (like Pearson) treats it as their IP. They do the same thing to psychologists: sell them a survey, and then 'refills' of the questionaire so that they're only allowed to administer the test n times before paying again.
It's an interesting problem, because the companies involved fund studies to improve the diagnostic power of the test (tweaking the questions and scoring), but then lock up what they find out.
And the education machine buys this stuff non-stop.
At the same time every individual school will have dozens of people with graduate degrees. Much of those graduate degrees will be based on classes and research about how to acquire exactly this type of data. And yet, they are unable to make these things themselves and go out and purchase them in the most expensive way possible.
The amount of waste involved in the education process is mind boggling.
That's like saying that because hospitals have radiation techs, they should save money by building their own MRIs.
I was trying very carefully not to say that there's no value in these surveys, because they are designed by experts: PhDs, running statistically significant experiments. Sample sizes on the ones I've looked at are in the hundreds, which is pretty huge for a psych experiment. Just slapping one together based on a few classes you took would be irresponsible and probably not very useful as a diagnostic. My complaint is mostly that since we're publicly funding these experiments anyways (one government body buys them from a company, who gives some money to another government body), we should cut out the middle-man.
Thanks in advance for reporting back! Saving the thread here, to read it later..
As the teacher said, the focus should be on the survey, not his acts. Of course, provided that he doesn't suffer any unfair and ridiculous disciplinary actions.
This is a terrific idea. I've done many FOIA requests. It's worthwhile in so many ways.
If the gatekeepers don't provide the information (malicious compliance, obfuscation, foot dragging, denying request), you've got grist for the mill. EVERYONE supports "open government" and will support your efforts.
It's best (PR wise) to get the incriminating information after a long drawn out fight.
It's copyrighted information. How much could be released under "fair use" is questionable. Schools abuse copyright in some ways, and probably compensate by being rigorous in others.
Further, if it comes from a company that also offers more conventional achievement kinds of tests, it may come with bloodthirsty NDAs, as a matter of habit for such companies.
Sort-of. If the copies came with a license agreement forbidding you giving a copy to the press, then you might be liable if you did.
Furthermore if members of the press got a copy, they might be forbidden from publishing the test in full. A sample single question from the test (alluding to illegal activity) would likely be fair-use.
"Sort-of. If the copies came with a license agreement forbidding you giving a copy to the press, then you might be liable if you did."
Except that you do not need a license unless you are making copies. The only reason you see licenses with software is that the process of installing software is making a copy of that software. Books do not come with licenses, because you do not copy a book in order to read it.
"Furthermore if members of the press got a copy, they might be forbidden from publishing the test in full."
I am pretty sure that even a full reproduction in a newspaper could be fair use, since it is for purely journalistic purposes and the publishing of the questionnaire would not impact the market in any way (the scrutiny by the press might, but criticism is also covered by fair use).
Actually, software licenses aren't required to simply use a program - though you can certainly obtain a copy by licensing it.
Essentially, copies made that are inherently required for the expected function of the work (to the HD if required, to RAM, to screen, etc) aren't copyright violations. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117
Can you legally hold students (minors) to an NDA? I wonder what kind out outcome there would be if a 9th-grader photographed and published this survey.
It's a public school. So copyrights are now more important than parents rights? What a lame excuse.
Maybe that's also why our - so called - Representatives in Congress can't see the Acts they are voting into the Law? Because it's copyrighted by Lobbyists?
So there were more than 100 people crowded into a small room and spilling out into the hallway.
Some highlights:
- A father who made a point of stating he disagrees politically with Dryden but vehemently supports him and his views on the 5th amendment
- A mother complained the "opt out" email that was sent did not mention the self incriminating nature of the questions. She was concerned about the lack of confidentiality and the overall effectiveness of a survey that kids had admitted lying on.
- A student noted the inconsistency in teaching children about their rights academically, only to deny them in practice.
In the end, I was impressed with this community's response and how this issue managed to bring so many political opposites together in support of our rights.
He sounds a lot like my social studies teacher in high school. He was the best teacher I ever had because he was a complete, utter bastard. He didn't care if you had the right answer, you had to back it up with facts. He gave us 5 page papers to do every night and a 10 page research paper every semester. Both of those things were crucial to my development of critical thought and being able to communicate it, something nobody else bothered to teach, even in college.
He was fired a few years after I graduated. Which wasn't surprising - he constantly pissed off the school board and other teachers. Dryden sounds a lot more politic than my teacher was.
To me, that sounds like an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher. He is relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students, and that sounds like good teaching to me. He ought to get a promotion or a raise, based only on this news about his public behavior in the classroom.
It is, of course, sometimes appropriate for schools to distribute surveys to minor students in their care on which there may be questions about student behavior that may be embarrassing or illegal. But the teacher, based on the report here, is just asking his students to think about their lessons and what those lessons mean, not trying to undermine the survey process.
"But Dryden doesn't want this seen as him vs. the administrators. He said he knows they were acting in what they thought was the best interests of the students.
"'These are good, professional, smart people on the other side who want to do what is right by kids,' he said.
"He would rather focus the discussion on the survey.
"'I have asked people (the supporters) to talk about the survey. I think I am a sideshow,' he said. 'This (the survey) was rushed and it wasn't vetted.'
"'I'm not a martyr,' he said. 'I'm trying to refocus people's attentions. Calm down.'"