That doesn’t suprise me. 
<Shrug>. I’m inclined not to believe her. I hold people who make completely unsubstantiated claims to a higher standard than you apparently do, what can I say?
How about, “Yep, nothing in either linked story refutes what you quoted.”?
Well, the fact that the teacher appears to be lying, so the claim on which you based your observation appears to be groundless, means that while it is not “refuted” it is, as most of the partisan bullshit flung around these halls, just wrong.
As noted in other reports of the incident, there was no “montage of presidents.” The bulleting board had one portrait of Washington, one portrait of Franklin (maybe the teacher thought Franklin was a president?) and multiple photos of Bush, family, and dog. That is not a montage of presidents. The parents stated that if Bush was going to be championed on a school board in an election year, the challenger should be given space, as well. Only the teacher has pretended that anyone asked that Kerry be added to a group of presidents.
Now, it is true that the stories linked in the OP do not carry all that detail (since the teacher mendaciously spun the first story and the school administration did not offer a point-by-point rebuttal in the second), but it is clear that partisans who believe liars without seeking better informnation are just mindless dittoheads, regardless of affiliation.
As noted in the thread, yesterday, blogger Pete Holiday has done a decent job of compiling most of the early news stories on the topic. (Scroll to October 4 and click open the “Expand this entry >>” link in the Teacher Scandal Summary of Facts section. (I will note that the letter by the purported student, “Ryan Bryce,” demonstrates that there is, indeed, skulduggery going on in the Democrat camp, as well.)
Charges that either side is engaging in “typical” behavior is only true to the extent that individuals in both camps have resorted to dumb spin jobs.
The truly dumb comments are those painted by people wielding wide tar brushes (and generally splattering themselves with their product).
Sweet Jesus, Bushies are a bunch of evil, idiotic assholes.
Please find a specific line that refutes the above statement.
I dunno – I think rjung could stifle his righteous indignation until all the facts come out. Right now, it’s very much a he said-she said situation as demonstrated by tomndebb’s cite. Calling the teacher a “she’s a bald-faced lying <expletive of your choice>” based on a statement released by the opposing side is an act of less than Solomonic wisdim.
However I’m certain that Brutus should just stifle every impulse he has to post, ever.
Disregarding the OP except for the title…
My sister is a teacher & my brother-in-law is a vice-principal. Teachers are not allowed to display partisanship (is that a word?) in school or at school functions. It is also discouraged from said behavior where a student might reasonably expected. Teachers are also not supposed to teach opinion. You teach both sides of the facts of an argument and leave the conclusions to be drawn by the students.
I asked by sister & her husband about this teacher & what would have happened in their districts. Both said if it was a montage of presidents & no partisan comments were made to students, nothing would have happened. If it was just a picture of Bush & no partisan comments were made to students, nothing would have happened. If partisan comments were made to students & none of the picture stuff had even happened, she would have been reprimanded. And if she ignored the reprimand & continued to comment biasedly about political issues she would either be fired or suspended if she had tenure (which she apparantly doesn’t).
Putting Bush’s picture up is not a big deal. Plenty of schools and offices put up the picture of whoever the “reigning” president is. However, pushing personal politics on students, and insulting those students who lean toward “the other party” is uncalled for. In a perfect world, schools would teach how to think, not what to think. Maybe growing up in NYC was a good thing. We had all the different poltical leanings in our neighborhood. Repubs, Dems, borderline fascists, borderline Communists, so I learned to take it all with a grain of salt. I also was able to learn who was apparently full of shit on what subjects. Funny, but it was the “borderline Commies” who taught me to think for myself instead of following any one party line.
Errr…did you go to school in Chesterfield, VA? Because I had an honors government teacher who pulled this exact same shit. Along with endless rants on shrink-swell soil.
Ava
Brutus, you’re being obtuse and making yourself look like an ass. Just because you dislike an OP doesn’t mean he’s wrong. I’m no fan of rjung myself, but I don’t see much reason to criticise him in this case or call his OP “hypocrisy.” Any posts you’d care to reference to back up this claim?
You’re late to that party…
[QUOTE=neuroman I’m no fan of rjung myself, but I don’t see much reason to criticise him in this case or call his OP “hypocrisy.” Any posts you’d care to reference to back up this claim?[/QUOTE]
Actually, criticism could be leveled that this is largely a he-said,she-said situation, and he has taken a stand the board is right, the teacher wrong. There is a lot of slime being tossed around by both sides there, but can we really be sure it is the teacher who is wrong, and the school board telling the truth? We see some weird things come up in education - like a Menorah is considered secular enough to display in a NYC classroom, but a Nativity scene is strictly religious (a Christmas TREE is allowed).
According to New Brunswick Home News Tribune, Pillai-Diaz says even the union is supporting the board. Meanwhile, a union rep says nobody was fired. Sounds to me like the teacher is stirring shit.
BTW: it seems the only “montage” in this story is a poster with all the Presidents’ signatures.
At the moment, I’m inclined to believe the Board of Education’s view of events, because (a) they have nothing to gain from the matter as stated, and (b) they apparently have student witnesses confirming the charges. Ms. Pillai-Diaz has merely given us her say-so, in an apparent attempt to launch herself into the national spotlight as a po’ defenseless conservative lost in a sea of liberals.
If more facts come in, I reserve the right to change my mind (unlike, say, a certain President of the United States). But for the moment, my spider-sense tells me that Ms. Pillai-Diaz is no innocent damsel in distress.
Every so often I encounter a Republican who makes me proud to be a registered Democrat.
<3 <3
Thank you, Brutus.
By about two years and four months.
So some of you will take the word of the principal over the teacher. Eh. Certainly not suprising.
Most students in middle school are not mature or intelligent enough to have their own informed political views. Their views will be that of their parents. Unfortunately, if the parents are uneducated, uninformed, ignorant trash, then the children will have some crazy - and usually extremist - views.
The best way to avoid confrontation with these particular students, is to make sure they don’t know your political affiliation or you stance on certain topics. While Ms. Pillai-Diaz didn’t help the situation by placing an elephant on the cabinet and pictures of her hero on the bulletin board, there was no possible way for her to hide her political affiliation.
Ms. Pillai-Diaz took time away from school to attend the Republican National Convention. All her students would have known where she was. Think back to when you had a sub, you always knew where your teacher was.
Based on what I’ve read, and my own experiences with middle schools students, I am inclined to think the following are facts.
-Ms. Pillai-Diaz is an opinionated Republican
-Her students never liked her to begin with.
-Her students know she likes Bush. They know she was at the Convention.
-They ask her all the time about Bush. Why are you voting for him. My mom says she’s a murderer. He uses the Army to kill babies. He’s trying to make all black people slaves. . . yada y pues yada.
-She does her best to tell the students to stay off the subject.
-She even removes the elephant to try to prevent further uprising. Probably after a student commented on it and got loud and obnoxious.
-When the parents hear she won’t let their students talk about politics in class, that she is violating and suppressing their freedom of speech. This makes them even madder than the few times she let slip some politically biased statements.
-She does her best to not stir up political debate in class, but when one can only take so much. At one point a student says something like “If I could vote, I would vote for Kerry because he isn’t trying to be Hitler”. She tries to brush it off, but she mumbles, “Well, I’m glad you’re not able to vote”. The student hears that and makes a huge deal out of it. The student tells his parents who make an even bigger deal about it.
-Weeks go by. She is still being pestered by some students. Eventually, a similar comment is made. Again, it is blown into something huge and complaints are made.
-The parents are really starting to hate her.
-The parents (probably know each other), approach her at a parent’s night event and start yelling at her. Yelling, not discussing. They get in her face and demand that she put a Kerry poster on the bulletin board. She declines, so they tell the principal.
-The Principal doesn’t really know Ms. Diaz. She’s a new teacher. All he knows is he’s been getting some complaints from these three parents. He calls her in and an argument insues. In the heat of it all, he tells her to grab her stuff and leave.
-Realizing that he doesn’t have the authority to fire a teacher, the principal gets a union guy involved. He doesn’t want to get in trouble for telling her to grab her stuff and leave. He needs to cover his ass and make sure the union knows he never tried to “fire” anyone. He’s very lucky, and very happy that he never used the word “fired”, so he makes sure to mention that. And he mentions it several times in front of the officer and the union guy to make it extra clear that he never used that specific term. That was a close one. He almost got in trouble for trying to fire a teacher.
So that’s basically my view until I hear different. The students’ “collaborated” testimony is irrelevant to me. The statements of the parents, the principal and the teacher are all relevant, but not one of them is entirely true. Everyone, including the teacher are lying about parts to make his/her side look better. She could have done a much better job of preventing this from escalating. Plus her obvious desire for publicity doesn’t help anything.
The parents should have told their children to ignore and blow off the teacher’s political views. Instead of saying, “It doesn’t matter if she likes Bush. She doesn’t have to have the righ answers to politics, she just needs to know Language Arts.” They didn’t have this attitude. They HATE Bush. When their children say that their teacher was at the Republican National Convention, they comment. They say, “She’s an idiot. How can she like George Bush, he’s a <insert lame and uninformed view here>.” So the students, now fueled with the negativity and insult and disrespect of their parents, show NO respect to their teacher. And they make it clear to the teacher, that they (their parents actually) don’t like Bush.
Somewhere within all the stories, the obvious attempts at national recognition, the fear of getting in trouble or looking bad, the bad kids and the irresponsible parents… lies the truth to this whole situation.
This is how I piece it together. Because of a lack of real witnesses, I don’t think we will ever know the actual and complete truth.
BTW, I wrote this principal a pretty mean letter. I have since apologized for the content but not the context. I believe he DID fire her. He told her to turn in her stuff and leave because he was so fed up with her. I think if he had not done this, the entire situation could have been kept under raps. He could have reprimanded the teacher accordingly. I think he over-stepped his authority in trying to remove a teacher. Later he tried to cover his but with the union with that spin. But I think this whole national media things started with his actions in the office. They started there. Obviously they were fueled by the teachers political agenda, but that’s where it started. The principal should have mediated this situation. He should have scheduled a meeting with the teacher and the parents. And then one with the teachers, the parents AND the students. He could have prevented this from escalating when he first received complaints. Then, he could have prevented this from complete EXPLODING in front of him, when the parents went to him that final time.
At any point he could have scheduled a mediation. His lack of effective leadership is a primary reason for the problem rising to this level.
Are all your views of various stories based wholly on your own conjectures, unilluminated by facts? It is quite possible that the teacher has more to her side of the story than we have seen, but you are ascribing events, thoughts, and feelings to whole groups of people based on nothing more than your desire to create a scenario that would make you happy. (You don’t happen to work for the DoD’s Office of Special Plans, do you? )