The same is true for Bennish. He is paid by taxpayers to teach geography. He can do whatever he wants with his own time, but in the classroom, he should refrain from telling his students that Al-Qaeda didn’t think they were killing innocent people, but that they were attacking legitimate military targets. How on earth does he know what Al-Qaeda thinks? Even if the school district invites a terrorist to come into class and give balance--the correct interpretation of what they are thinking--the taxpayers might prefer class time be used to prepare students for geography tests.
Bennish’s First Amendment right prevents our government from prosecuting him when he compares Bush to Hitler. It does not protect him, or any other employee, from keeping their job when they say something their employer does not like.
Who determines what a teacher can and cannot say? Many teachers like Bennish think it should be the teacher. The school districts think it should be them. Lawyers and teachers unions think it is the teacher. How about the taxpayer? Isn’t there a reasonable expectation that the tax dollars funneled to government schools are not used for propaganda against the capitalist system that generated them?
The Constitution provides no authority for the Federal Government to subsidize education. I think the Department of Education is unconstitutional. How would the education establishment react if teachers started teaching their classes my opinion?
What Bennish said about capitalism and Al-Qaeda has been spiked by the national mainstream media. Sean Allen, the student who recorded Bennish, indicated he has received emails from others aware of teachers doing the same thing Bennish did. We will never hear about those teachers, because the mainstream media is not interested in this story.
On the Today Show, Bennish said, “My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society.”
Many parents might think Bennish’s job is to teach their children geography.
After the Today Show appearance, the AP filed a dispatch that might as well have been a press release issued by Bennish and his attorney. Too bad the AP doesn’t think its job is to challenge taxpayers to think critically about the way their money is being spent by the public school system.