Tag Archives: Teacher

News

Teacher’s job in jeopardy due to opposition to same-sex marriage

7 Comments

From Fox News.

Excerpt:

A former “Teacher of the Year” in Mount Dora, Fla. has been suspended and could lose his job after he voiced his objection to gay marriage on his personal Facebook page.

Jerry Buell, a veteran American history teacher at Mount Dora High School, was removed from his teaching duties this week as school officials in Lake County investigate allegations that what he posted was biased towards homosexuals.

“We took the allegations seriously,” said Chris Patton, a communication officer with Lake County Schools. “All teachers are bound by a code of special ethics (and) this is a code ethics violation investigation.”

Patton said the school system received a complaint on Tuesday about something Buell had written last July when New York legalized same sex unions. On Wednesday, he was temporarily suspended from the classroom and reassigned.

Patton said Buell has taught in the school system for 22 years and has a spotless record. Last year, he was selected as the high school’s “Teacher of the Year.”

[…]According to the school system, what Buell wrote on his private account was disturbing. They were especially concerned that gay students at the school might be frightened or intimidated walking into his classroom. Patton also disputed the notion that Buell’s Facebook account is private.

“He has (more than) 700 friends,” he said. “How private is that – really? Social media can be troubling if you don’t respect it and know that just because you think you are in a private realm – it’s not private.”

Buell’s attorney strongly disagreed and accused the school system of violating his First Amendment rights.

“The school district is being anti-straight, anti-First Amendment and anti-personal liberty,” said Horatio Mihet, an attorney with the Liberty Counsel. “The idea that public servants have to whole-heartedly endorse homosexual marriage is repugnant to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Mihet told Fox News Radio.

“All he did was speak out on an issue of national importance and because his comments did not fit a particular mold, he is now being investigated and could possibly lose his job. What have we come to?”

Buell said he does not know the individual who filed the complaint, but the past week has caused his family “heartache.”

“To try and say you could lose your job over speaking about something in the venue that I did in the manner that I did is not just a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “It’s a violent reaction to one person making a complaint.”

But Patton said the school system has an obligation to take the comments seriously. He said Buell will not be allowed back in the classroom “until we do all the interviews and do a thorough job of looking at everything – past or previous writings.”

To accomplish that, he said people have been sending the school system screenshots of Buell’s Facebook page.

“Just because you think it’s private, other people are viewing it,” Patton said, noting that the teacher’s Facebook page also contained numerous Bible passages.

Mihet said he was livid.

“These are not fringe ideas that Mr. Buell espoused on his personal Facebook page,” he told Fox News Radio. “They are mainstream textbook opposition to homosexual unions – and now he’s been deemed unfit to teach children because he opposes gay marriage? My goodness.” Buell believes the school system is trying to send a message to Christian teachers.

“There is an intimidation factor if you are a Christian or if you make a statement against it (gay marriage) you are a bigot, a homophobe, you’re a creep, you’re intolerant,” he said. “We should have the right to express our opinions and talk about things.”

I have a friend who is going through an encounter with the tolerant secular left right now. They tend to go after your job and your finances, and they do it publicly, in order to intimidate anyone else from speaking out against them.

Relate posts

News

Rick Perry’s record on teaching the controversy is mixed

1 Comment

From Evolution News.

Excerpt:

It has to be challenging to be a presidential candidate. After all, you are expected to dispense wisdom (or at least comments) on almost everything under the sun, and you never know what question is going to come up next. Still, some questions should be easier to anticipate than others. For example, it has become pretty typical for candidates (especially Republican ones) to be grilled at some point about their views on evolution. So Governor Rick Perry shouldn’t have been surprised when asked earlier today about his own views on evolution, especially given all the controversy over the topic in his home state of Texas. What was a surprise was Perry’s answer. According to the New York Times, Perry claimed: “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools.”

That’s news to me. In fact, Texas public schools do not teach creationism, at least not anywhere in the approved curriculum. But under science standards adopted in 2009, Texas students are asked to “analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations… including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.” This sort of critical inquiry is supposed to apply to the discussion of Darwinian theory, and Texas students are also expected to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for Darwinian claims about natural selection, mutations, cellular complexity, the fossil record, and more.

Alas, most Texas schools probably don’t engage in this sort of scientific weighing of the merits of Darwinian theory — due in large part to Perry’s own education appointees! Earlier this summer, Perry’s education commissioner recommended for use supplementary science curricula that fail to offer any critical analysis of Darwinian claims, contrary to the state’s own science standards. At the same time, Perry’s education commissioner allowed his staff to spike the one proposed curriculum that did try to follow the Texas science standards.

Perry will likely be excoriated for his comments by those on the left who think Perry is somehow a proponent of creationism. Ironically, the Texas Education Agency that Perry oversees has done its best to scuttle even a scientific discussion of the limits of Darwinian claims.

He’s not as good as Michele Bachmann on this education issue. I think that Bachmann would push control down to the state and local level, and abolish the federal Department of Education. She has had personal conflicts with the public school system – she’s hostile to them. She had conflicts with the school board, she homeschooled her own children, she started a charter school. I think she has had it with educational bureaucrats, and she would do more radical things to put control of children’s education in the hands of parents. She would be more likely to emphasize choice and competition, which is proven to lower costs and raise quality. She is more of a radical, and Perry isn’t radical enough.

News

The basics of education policy explained in three videos

Leave a comment

I love the Heritage Foundation videos.

First of three.

Second of three.

Third of three.

Awesome!

Must-see videos on education policy

Related posts