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Things should not be hidden, and this wasn't. There are practical limits for how much access can be allowed. I'm sure you've seen how packed gymnasiums and auditoriums can be with students -- now add in every "concerned citizen" who wishes to attend to check things out, to spy on their kids, to deal dope during the intermissions, to check out what their money is going for, whatever their real reason for being there is. The school may as well lease the local sports arena just in case all the taxpayers get a wild hair to attend the latest production of "Up With People".

It's just not practical.

If her daughter had attended against her express wishes. If she had not been given the opportunity to keep her daughter out. If her daughter had been forced to attend. If there were any consquences whatsoever to her daughter not attending.

If...

Then I would agree that Ms. Loveless has a valid beef. She doesn't. She knew what the material was. She kept her daughter away from it. End of story.

No, it isn't the end of the story. You do NOT know whether she had enough information. You do not know that her purpose in attending the assembly was not to gather information that was withheld.

She was invited to attend by a school-board member, and I can see plainly why she would think that such an invitation would be permission enough to attend. It SHOULD be.

There are practical limits for how much access can be allowed.

But using your reasoning, the pracitical limit of space was not a deciding factor cited. She had every right to sample the type of indoctrination the school is capable of. Even though her daughter was not attending this it would be very informational to the parent to see what other kinds of exposure her daughter may be attending.

So now you are only for public scrutiny if it is practical.

I seriously doubt that more than one or two parents would show up for any school activity, so practicality is not really a big problem here. I my town, they have a hard time getting enough people to run for school board to fill all of the vacancies. The parents are not exactly busting down the doors to sit in the back of the classrooms and be bored silly with their kids.

That said, the intermittent parent or citizen who wants to observe would have a very disrable chilling effect on what the schools decide to teach. If a teacher knows that a parent might decide to watch what is going on in some lesson plan or assembly, they will censor themselves accordingly. This is a good thing. This is how the parents and the community assert their rightful control over the education process.

Public education is a public endeavor. For that reason, it must be open to public scrutiny and oversight. If it impractical to do that in a certain situation, the situation must be adapted to permit the necessary public oversight. If the situation cannot be adapted, then the school should not be allowed to do what it was going to do. If these were the rules, I am sure the schools would find a way to operate within them.

The schools should be forced to do everything possible to facilitate complete and effective oversight by the parents. Schools will resist oversight at every turn, because they see themselves as the best judges of what is right and proper in the field of education. Given that public education is a public endeavor, this attitude is diametrically opposed to the way things should be.

Since we spent all that money wiring each classroom to the internet a few years back, why don't we spend the extra $100 per outlet and put a web-cam in every classroom? The school could set up a website, and each cam could be accessed by any parent or citizen who happened to be curious. And the beauty of a web-cam is that the teacher never knows if he is being watched, so the chilling effect on behaviour is in effect at all times.

Now that's oversight!

If your child is having problems in a class, just download the series, and he can study at his leisure. If he says he has a problem with the teacher, evaluate the teacher yourself. If there is a discipline problem, "Let's go to the videotape!"

There is a technological solution to this problem. But the NEA will scream bloody-blue-murder before they let it come to pass.

I'm sure you've seen how packed gymnasiums and auditoriums can be with students -- now add in every "concerned citizen" who wishes to attend to check things out, to spy on their kids, to deal dope during the intermissions, to check out what their money is going for, whatever their real reason for being there is.

Man, I don't know why you spent so much time defending your position. It certainly can't have been because you are sure you're right.

Any school, under normal circumstances, is glad to have parents showing some interest in what the kids are learning and glad (not to be confused with glaad) to have parents become involved because kids can not be taught without parents' help.

But GLSEN doesn't want the parent's help because GLSEN is trying to teach the kids things their parents don't want them taught. GLSEN has to be sneaky because what they want to teach the children offends most people. GLSEN has to be afraid of the light of truth because nobody would tolerate them if they were exposed. So now we get excuses about school events being mobbed by drug-dealers, etc. It ain't a problem and it ain't gonna happen. Schools have been allowing (and helping) parents participate since they began, and they know how to do it without it becoming a logistical nightmare. They could have done it here.

Except GLSEN knows what happens when parents share what happens in a GLSEN assembly. It happened in Boston.

Shalom.