On January 10, 2011, the Mount Vernon City Schools Board of Education voted 4-1 to terminate the employment of John Freshwater. A middle school science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Freshwater was accused of inappropriate religious activity in the classroom — including displaying posters with the Ten Commandments and Bible verses, branding crosses on the arms of his students with a high-voltage electrical device, and teaching creationism. After a local family sued Freshwater and the district in 2008, the board voted to begin proceedings to terminate his employment in the district. Finally, after administrative hearings that proceeded sporadically over two years, the referee presiding over the hearings issued his recommendation that the board terminate his employment with the district.
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Screeching from First Amendment concern trolls in 3 … 2 … 1…
Plus it cost the district nearly $1,000,000 to conduct the hearings. That would have been a nice sum to dedicate to real science education.
Two years and a million dollars.
Still like unionized teachers between you and your child?
took long enough
WTF? That should be grounds for ARREST! I’m not too savy, but that sounds like assault. I hope this idiot is in jail…
“Two years and a million dollars.
Still like unionized teachers between you and your child?”
Stupid statement. Yes, I want my teachers unionized so that
1) Experience and higher pay doesn’t become a reason for firing and replacing with cheaper labor
2) The teachers who do the right thing and teach evolution and not creationsism, current theories about the history of the universe, make kids think in english, history and other areas aren’t automatically blacklisted for being too hard, too “un-christian”, or any other narrow-minded claptrappy insult.
3) Teachers aren’t hired and fired based on how well they get along with people at the top
Is the system perfect? No, but it’s not as simple a problem as you seem to think it is.
You should also note that it is Ohio law which entitled him to a hearing on his termination.
Bill, yes. Two teachers in our heavily unionized states, in cases I’m very familiar with, carried out single acts of inapropriate violence against kids. One was being heavily harassed by some kids who grabbed his Yamaka, and he punched one. He was gone by the end of the week. The other stabbed a kid, probably by accident but he was yelling at a kid while he did it, with the tip of his pencil. Gone by the end of the week.
The teacher in question here burned crosses into the skins of multiple students.
This was not a matter of unions slowing down the process. Rather, it is problematic to fire a christian teacher doing christian things in a christian social setting, even if the christian carried out acts of torture. This is not a union issue.
@ dean. What’s up with the subtlety? Don’t you realize the world is BLACK and WHITE. Either unions are completely totally great or horrible. There are no other options.
Larian:
“Branding” is too strong a word. It left a red mark that faded in a few days. In fact, the Referee considered that this behaviour was dealt with by the district properly and Freshwater should not be fired because of it.
Well, it was the Anti-Union Concern Troll…
Hold this up an an “example” of why unions are bad is stupid. This is the most time consuming and expensive case of this sort in anyone’s history. Extremes do not make good exemplars.
Yeah I’ll have to echo the above. Forget the rest, “[branding the arms] of his students with a high-voltage electrical device” is enough to land him deservedly in jail no matter what his motives.
But he branded a cross. Had he branded a crescent or a pagan image he would be serving time. Star of David hard to say probably fired right away and fined.
KeithB:
Oh. Well, that makes it all right, then.
@ dean
Unionized or not, a teach still might teach evolution, but still tell their students that while they are teaching it, they do not really believe in it. Now, how is a union going to stop free speech? It’s not. Unions are not all powerful universal beings. People will say what they want wether a union is there or not. I cetainly will.
For example: When I was in Biology class in high school we did cover the chapter on evolution. However, before beginning, our teacher did admit that she was only teaching it becuase the state told her she had to. She also told us that we had to be tested on it and that we should answer the test questions based upon what the textbook taught. It did not mean that we actually had to believe it.
Now, that being said a union would not have helped. If so, I don’t see how.
Those who operate on the basis of the Twitter version won’t be satisfied, but those who want the whole story can click on “Freshwater” in the tag cloud at Panda’s Thumb. The story is considerably more complex than “branded a cross on a student’s arm.”
Warren:
I agree it was a stupid thing to do, and Freshwater stopped when told to. I just don’t want to exaggerate.
KeithB @16: Fair enough.
Fred: Now, how is a union going to stop free speech? It’s not. Unions are not all powerful universal beings. People will say what they want wether a union is there or not. I cetainly will.
That is not how it works. A teacher teaching creatinionism in a science classroom is not expressing fee speech. This has been tested in courts, it is unambiguous.
Think of the simple parallel case. Imagine I hire you to be a spokesperson for Greg Laden’s Blog. You are now my employee in this position. I instruct you to go about the blogosphere and tell people how great my blog is. Instead, you go about the blogosphere and say how crappy my blog is. I fire you. You take me to court for firing you.
What do you think happens next?
A teacher is required to teach certain things. These things are derived from standards. Meeting the standards is the basis for the school’s accreditation and in some cases funding. The standards are used to build curriculum. The teachers are hired to teach from the curriculum. If they do not they can be fired. Unions do not insist that their teachers don’t have to teach the curriculum.
Let’s not forget a word of (high) praise for Richard Hoppe’s amazingly detailed and meticulous reporting of this case on Panda’s Thumb.
Always check Panda’s Thumb for evolution news and views.
“”Branding” is too strong a word. It left a red mark that faded in a few days.”
No. He burned two students. On one it faded, on the other it didn’t.
Besides, as mentioned by others, so the fuck what if it faded? Are you really saying that if there is no lasting mark it doesn’t matter?
He burned numerous students over the course of several years. Haven’t we all seem stupid science demonstrations? Isn’t this one of the great parts of growing up?
But I am sure there were more kids on the football team who got longer lasting marks every game.
Greg @19, another thing to consider is that teachers are required to teach facts as facts. They are not permitted to teach delusional myths as facts.
KeithB @23, this is beginning to sound a lit like apologism.
It is, but not for Freshwater. I am a firm believer in goofy, seemingly dangerous science demonstrations in classrooms! 8^)
It’s all fun until someone gets hurt!
“He burned numerous students over the course of several years. Haven’t we all seem stupid science demonstrations? Isn’t this one of the great parts of growing up?
But I am sure there were more kids on the football team who got longer lasting marks every game.”
This is an incredible level of stupid. I’m sure there were more kids hurt in sports, because more participated. Some probably suffered serious injuries: nobody would deny that or dismiss it. But, those kids chose to play sports, they weren’t forced to do so.
This “teacher” injured kids not by accident, but on purpose, repeatedly, because
a) He could – he was in a position of power
b) He was forcing his religion on them
Implying that there is no difference between freshwater’s actions and accidental injuries is not reasonable.
And really, stupid science demonstrations? These weren’t stupid science demonstrations: they were designed to do one thing, non-scientific, and they did.