Brickbat: You Don't Say

Seirra Olivero, 13, says she was suspended for telling other students about their legal rights. Olivero says she told other students at her Sparrowbush, New York, school that did not have to take a state English test. She says a teacher told her to "shut my mouth." She later got called to the principal's office and interrogated. When the principal refused to let her call her mother, she left the office. School officials deny Olivero was suspended for telling students they didn't have to take the test. They say she was suspended for refusing to obey administrators.

Comments

[Agammamon]

Eh, I got arrested for telling my troops that they didn't/shouldn't answer questions from the Provost Marshalls without a lawyer present.

[Snark Plissken]

A 13-year-old was telling kids they didn't have to take tests at school then walked out of the principals office for being "bullied".

Sounds like a national tragedy. I hope no one confounds this injustice by telling her that having a big ole pot belly at 13 is just paving the way to diabetes.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

Other way around. The insulin resistance brings on the belly.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/co.....4.abstract
Children with consistently elevated insulin versus those with consistently decreased insulin had increased prevalence of obesity (36-fold) and high blood pressure (2.5-fold) in adulthood.

[Snark Plissken]

Yes the belly is a sign not a cause. It's also a source of inflammation and high population of M1 macrophage population, see this brilliant post. The body reacting to a shitty diet.

[Ted S.]

Charles Oliver doesn't say it, but before checking the link, I'd have to guess this was one of the Common Core exams that some parents are taking their kids out of.

[goes off to read the original article]

Sure enough, the first sentence:

SPARROWBUSH ? A 13-year-old student at Orange-Ulster BOCES believes she was suspended from school this week as a result of telling other students they didn't have to take the Common Core English test Tuesday.

They've got eighth-grade BOCES now? When I was growing up I think it was strictly high school vo-tech.

[invisible furry hand]

She later told other friends they weren't required to take the test, telling one that "the test is set up for the kids to fail."

Was she right? I thought most public school tests were set up for the kid to pass

[UnCivilServant]

To take over the classroom they must first prove the kids ren't learning in the current setup.

[Ted S.]

Good question. There seems to be much more heat than light when it comes to Common Core, however, from both sides. The people pushing it often seem as though they want to nationalize the curriculum, while those opposed sometimes come across as being almost as unhinged as the anti-vaccine people.

That having been said, there should be some tests set up for the kids to fail. Why not test them at the beginning of the year on material they probably shouldn't know, so we can see what exactly they need to learn?

[Bean Counter]

"Why not test them at the beginning of the year on material they probably shouldn't know, so we can see what exactly they need to learn?"
Because that would make sense.

[Rich]

I'm too lazy to google it, but an Onion video has a line to the effect "We should test kids on what they know -- not on what we want them to know".

[Spartacus]

The people pushing Common Core do want to nationalize the curriculum. Whether that is good or bad is a separate question.

Testing at the beginning of the year (pre-testing) is a good idea. Some teachers already do that for individual topics. The tricky part is how to get students to take it seriously without it counting for too much of their grade. It should tell students "Ok, this is the stuff that is most important in what is coming next" but students just want an A on all their assignments so neither they nor (especially) their parents will tolerate a test they don't already know the answers to.

Even in university, I get a lot of students who start their requests for help by saying, "I haven't learned this before so I can't do the problems." My response is that the whole point of education is to learn new things, and if they had already learned it we wouldn't be wasting time on it. Seems obvious to me, but I'm old.

[R C Dean]

Whether that is good or bad is a separate question.

And an easy one.

Its bad.

You're welcome.

[PACW]

Thank you.

[Invisible Finger]

So the kid makes a valid point and you take the leftist approach by pointing out an un-related failing of hers.

[LiveFreeOrDiet]

She later got called to the principal's office and interrogated. When the principal refused to let her call her mother, she left the office.

Right there: The kid wanted adult representation during questioning. She got this exactly right. She was being bullied.

[Rev Match]

The girl said in her statement that she grew increasingly upset with the principal but when she asked to call her mother, the principal refused.

I consider not allowing contact with parents to be fairly concerning.

[John C. Randolph]

I consider this justification for the parents to come down on the apparatchik like a swarm of hornets.

-jcr

[db]

I predict a Supreme Court ruling confirming that students in public schools have no expectation of a right to representation. They already have been stripped.of.free speech rights and others.

[Rich]

Further, the majority opinion will be "sealed". 8-(

[R C Dean]

I consider not allowing contact with parents to be fairly concerning.

If they tried to keep her from leaving, its (borderline?) kidnapping/false imprisonment.

[invisible furry hand]

She's certainly raised my opinion of Beliebers

[Snark Plissken]

But not tiger-striped bedware?

[invisible furry hand]

only if she shot the tiger herself

[Snark Plissken]

I see, you are one of those No True Tigerians.

[Brett L]

So typically Aussie. We don't have dangerous animals behind every tree waiting to come and kill us.

[Ted S.]

She probably wears Zubaz.

[mr simple]

That's zebra, not tiger.

[R C Dean]

Isn't it actually mulatto? You know, half black, half white?

[Roger the Shrubber]

School officials deny Olivero was suspended for telling students they didn't have to take the test. They say she was suspended for refusing to obey administrators.

'You were told to shut your mouth. OBEY!

[db]

School officials deny Olivero was suspended for telling students they didn't have to take the test. They say she was suspended for refusing to obey administrators.

Of course. Just as cops never kill someone for speeding or loitering or jaywalking. That would be ridiculous, shameful, and outrageous. But DISOBEY, and your life is forfeit. Courts will absolve, and people will rush to the internet comment sections to defend those who took it.

[Agile Cyborg]

Obeying has been normalized from the womb to the grave. Obeying greases the wheels of civilization and culture. Disobedience brings things to a screeching halt and that lack of automation can really fuck up a factory.

[Rich]

Hey, AC -- Did you ever read Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman?

Short and sweet.

[Rich]

Her mother [said] her daughter had done what students are told to do when they're being bullied. "She walked away!"

SEE?! She DID obey!

[Night Elf Mohawk]

School officials deny Olivero was suspended for telling students they didn't have to take the test. They say she was suspended for refusing to obey administrators.

She wasn't suspended for telling people they didn't have to take the test. She was suspended for not stopping telling people they didn't have to take the test. Brilliant!

[brec]

Olivero says she told other students at her Sparrowbush, New York, school that [she? they? H&R posters?] did not have to take a state English test.

Was that sentence part of the test?

[R C Dean]

Clearly, she told the other students at her school that did not have to take the test . . . . something.

What did she tell them, Charles? I'm dying to know.