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?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.
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.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.
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.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.
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?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.
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.