n5wd wrote:JAllen wrote: I wish we would close the public schools, give the parents or guardians a voucher to be spent as they see fit, and let the market place provide educational opportunities that parents desire.
Frankly, I wished we lived in a society that didn't need lawyers. (Insert well known shark joke here). Looks like we're going to both be disappointed, huh?
That would be something, wouldn't it? Alas, as long as people love to cheat, cut corners, need help staying out of jail for robbing a bank, ignore laws and common sense, etc. there will be a role for lawyers.
The one thing I will miss about living here is swimming in the ocean which I used to love. I need not fear sharks, as I am entitled to professional courtesy.
JAllen wrote: The administration that "warned" against deviating from the approved speech doubtlessly required all graduates to appear for the event or suffer not getting the diploma.
Maybe, maybe not. I know that the high school where I work doe NOT require graduating senior to be present to get their diploma and diploma holder, but close to 99% of our eligible seniors (including ones who were finished with all of the graduating requirements from last year's summer school, and those that finished at mid-term have indicated that they will be there.
Splendid. I wouldn't be surprised to find pockets where ordinary common sense and pride still prevailed. Most schools require it, or the bleachers would be empty.
JAllen wrote: Decades ago, when graduating from school was seen as a genuine accomplishment and an occasion of pride, you did not have to compel attendance, or even a dress code. People were proud the graduates were graduating and dressed in a manner befitting the occasion. Nearly the whole town turned out for the spectacle and welcomed the new graduates into the community of adults, etc.
You are SO wrong about that generalization. Even when I graduated in 1969, administrators had to rein in over-enthusiastic graduation speeches (remember Vietnam - of course, then every high school graduate was facing at least the possibility of having that war in their immediate future, and the valedictorian in our class was ushered away from the microphone when she started railing against the government's policy of using draftees as "cannon fodder". dress codes had to be enforced as well - more than one young lady (remember the hippies?) tried to wear a tye-dyed loosely held shirt and/or low-slung hip-huggers (I do so miss those days!). It's not a modern phenomena, just ask any school administrator who's been doing graduations in the last 20 years.
and that may be the defining difference between when you graduated in 1969 and when I graduated in 1964. It is true we had an occasional "juvenile delinquent" in the school, some guy who Fonzie was modeled on or the miscreant female who disgraced herself with aberrant behavior. Those guys dropped out, unlamented, to lives ruined. Dress and haircut requirements were rigidly enforced and rather inflexible. A certain line was drawn beyond which you went at your peril, in language, manners, dress, and overall behavior. Your shortcomings were not the school's responsibility or problem.
We had no hippies or war protesters while I was in school. We fought over ROTC appointments, the guys were proud to go to A&M, be in the Corps. We grew up on John Wayne, the Sands of Iwo Jima, Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. David Crockett and Sam Houston wouldn't be draft dodgers. We were used to hiding under our desks, surrounded by 5 or 6 AF bases, ground zero for the nuclear war that was always just a miscue away. Nobody ever thought about cannon fodder, although in the event, several of us ended up that way. Starting in the Class of 1966 or so that became somewhat more common, but not for us. None of my classmates went to Woodstock or would have. We wore shirts and ties to graduation under the robes and looked forward eagerly to doing so.
It is somewhere in the mid-60's that I place the tipping point between folks who identify with things as they used to be and those who fought against it, between those who took on responsibility for themselves, exerted effort to better themselves as a matter of course, were proud and eager to do so, bathed and groomed regularly and those who were less so. We in the Class of 64 were more like the Class of 61 than the Class of 67, and far different from the Class of 69.
OTOH, having a rifle in the pick up truck in the parking lot, or a knife in your jeans, raised no eyebrows.
JAllen wrote: Now that government compels every nuance, every step, down to what is allowed to be said at the ceremony, maybe it's not worth fooling with. Most of the "education" inflicted on these hapless innocent children isn't, and everybody knows it.
So, you'd allow a student to stand up at graduation and start railing against a particular church or group of churches, or would let them recommend violent revolution within your little burg, or suggest to the rest of their class that there shouldn't be rules that govern minor's use of alcohol, or praise the act of abortion, or start cussing up a blue streak?
And ruin every other parent's memory of when their little Suzy and Johnnie graduated from high school?
Nope, I didn't think you would, either.
That's why valedictorians speeches have to be pre-approved. And the school, any school whether it's public, private or parochial, has the right to insist that the student keep to his pre-approved script.
I would dispense with them altogether, along with the school. Public schools as presently configured and operated are little more than baby sitting services for prepubescent children and dating services for post-pubescent ones. The only thing I haven't figured out a good solution for is Friday night football.