The 36% who believe newspapers should get government approval for stories are the scary ones. It speaks to the miseducation of the american child.

Some U.S. Students Say Press Freedoms Go Too Far
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY


One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys "too much freedom," not enough or about the right amount, 32% say "too much," and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.

The findings aren't surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. "Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment," he says.

The survey "confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time," he says: Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults' attitudes.

"It's part of our Constitution, so this should be part of a formal education," says Dvorak, who has worked with student journalists since 1968.

Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express "unpopular opinions," 74% say people shouldn't be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement; 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 ruled that burning or defacing a flag is protected free speech. Congress has debated flag-burning amendments regularly since then; none has passed both the

Derek Springer, a first-year student at Ivy Tech State College in Muncie, Ind., credits his journalism adviser at Muncie Central High School with teaching students about the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, press and religion.

Last year, Springer led a group of student journalists who exposed payments a local basketball coach made to players for such things as attending practices and blocking shots. The newspaper also questioned requirements that students register their cars with the school to get parking passes.

Because they studied the First Amendment, he says, "we know that we can publish our opinion, and that we might be scrutinized, but we know we didn't do anything wrong."

The 36% who believe newspapers should get government approval for stories are the scary ones. It speaks to the miseducation of the american child.

Some U.S. Students Say Press Freedoms Go Too Far
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY


One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.



That's right, kids, freedom means the freedom to vote for Republicans who will protect us from the truth!
At the rate we're going our school textbooks will be edited by Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough!
:o

See i don't know where they find these people. On my many stays in the states i meet a lot of people.. mainly because i am loud, recognisable and obviously not from those parts. Every single person my age and like.. 2-3 years younger and 2-3 years older was very Liberal. On my last trip almost all complained about Dubyah and had some grasp of the Political system.

I appreciate this is slightly off topic but i can't for a minuete belive that 36% really think that. They must hide in there bedrooms and salute the Murdoch flag every night because i sure as hell didn't meet one of them.

See i don't know where they find these people. On my many stays in the states i meet a lot of people.. mainly because i am loud, recognisable and obviously not from those parts. Every single person my age and like.. 2-3 years younger and 2-3 years older was very Liberal. On my last trip almost all complained about Dubyah and had some grasp of the Political system.

I appreciate this is slightly off topic but i can't for a minuete belive that 36% really think that. They must hide in there bedrooms and salute the Murdoch flag every night because i sure as hell didn't meet one of them.


I hope the people you met are more representative than the sample.  Some years ago a group of grad students at Princeton - Princeton mind you - rewrote the bill of rights as a series of demand and asked Princeton undergrads to sign it.  I don't remember the stats, but a substantial majority REFUSED to sign that "commie pinko petition".  Rights, like muscles, unused tend to atrophy, and the ones we have are too costly in blood and sacrifice, and too valuable to our democratic republic to let that happen.  And freedom of the press is one of the most important.  I use it regulary.  Most recently I called the Chancellor of the Vt. State Colleges and "education pimp".

I read about this. VERY SCARY!!!! I don't really know what is more scary, the fact that they don't really know what the Constitution (especially the First Admendment) states or that they feel that government should restict the First Admendment.




Cat

I read about this. VERY SCARY!!!! I don't really know what is more scary, the fact that they don't really know what the Constitution (especially the First Admendment) states or that they feel that government should restict the First Admendment.




Cat


Its the same mentality that says if you critsize gov't policy you are being unpatriotic. 

And some wonder why us on the right fear the youth movement, they are young and still ignorant (and no not all of them.)

Those 36% are making two presumable mistakes in their thinking. First, they assume that the government is always trustworthy and working in the best interests of the people. Always being fiar, always looking out for us. Secondly, they are thinking along the lines of Michael Jackson stories, or too many murders being reported, or celebrity garbage, etc... They aren't taking possible propaganda and cover-up attempts into account. Almost all of these students will grow up to be the very people that society always has to look out for. The eternally confused.

And some wonder why us on the right fear the youth movement, they are young and still ignorant (and no not all of them.)


Fear of our own children?  Seems conservatives are afeared of just about everything.  As the Buffalo Springfield said in their one hit song "paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep..."

Fear of our own children?  Seems conservatives are afeared of just about everything.  As the Buffalo Springfield said in their one hit song "paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep..."

The capitalist bourgeoisie is afraid of the collective interests of the people.  That's why they spend so much time playing off different groups of people against one another---Black against White, Jew against Musilm, Christian against secularist, young against old, worker against welfere recipient, traditionalist against progressive, and so on and so on!
Anything but labor versus capital.  That's the only one that matters.  You might deny it, but the Bush family knows it in their hearts!
NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR!

The capitalist bourgeoisie is afraid of the collective interests of the people.  That's why they spend so much time playing off different groups of people against one another---Black against White, Jew against Musilm, Christian against secularist, young against old, worker against welfere recipient, traditionalist against progressive, and so on and so on!
Anything but labor versus capital.  That's the only one that matters.  You might deny it, but the Bush family knows it in their hearts!
NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR!


Yell it, brother. SCREAM it!

The capitalist bourgeoisie is afraid of the collective interests of the people.  That's why they spend so much time playing off different groups of people against one another---Black against White, Jew against Musilm, Christian against secularist, young against old, worker against welfere recipient, traditionalist against progressive, and so on and so on!
Anything but labor versus capital.  That's the only one that matters.  You might deny it, but the Bush family knows it in their hearts!
NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR!


Divide and conquor has always been an effective technique, and in this country goes back to the aftermath of Nathanial Bacon's rebellion against the Virgina tidewater establishment in 1676.  Nothing has changed.

As Joe Hill said, DON'T MOURN, ORGANIZE

Divide and conquor has always been an effective technique, and in this country goes back to the aftermath of Nathanial Bacon's rebellion against the Virgina tidewater establishment in 1676.  Nothing has changed.

As Joe Hill said, DON'T MOURN, ORGANIZE

Indeed, the the organizing is the hard part.  However, I have been impressed with the organizing I've seen since the start of the first Dubya administration.  In order for anything of consequence to change, they'll have to bring it to a boil like in the '60s...that may happen if affairs continue in the manner they are!

Cheer wrote
112,300 high school students?  From where?  Was it a private school poll?  If it is a rightwing poll, it probably means public school, as they're always out there kicking public schools in the shins.
They never acknowledge the studies that show homeschooled kids fare worse academically than public school students.
As for the preppies, anybody who thinks private school preppies are immune from ignorance needs to come and spend some time on the campuses of New England's elite boarding schools!

Cheer wrote If it is a rightwing poll, it probably means public school, as they're always out there kicking public schools in the shins.
They never acknowledge the studies that show homeschooled kids fare worse academically than public school students.
As for the preppies, anybody who thinks private school preppies are immune from ignorance needs to come and spend some time on the campuses of New England's elite boarding schools!


First, I totally agree with  you that a big part of the neofascist attack on our deomocratic rebublic is aimed at the public schools, no question.  They are hot beds of secular humanism, ty\eaching things like tolarance, eivolution, and the rights of man.

I have to question you assertion regarding home schooling though.  Its been a while, so I'm not up on the stats, but all my kids were home schooled for at least part of their education, and I would pit their intellectual development against any kid in the country.  They recieved, as you might expect, a secular humanist education.  Why?  Fact is that our public schools ARE screwing up (and I try to teach them college level history, and they don't know s..t, so tyhere is little to work with).

So, if we accept my observation, we must ask why, and whose fault.

First, many of my ignorant (not dumb) students aspire to be teachers, but they have been inadequately educated in the high schools.  In part we can blame inadequare instruction - teachers like the one in Ferris Bueler's Day Off   - but that's the easy way out. 

More appropriately, the blame could be laid at the feet of the Texas School Board, who's pronouncements on text books determins the saleability of texts (read boring).

And howe about parants who expect schools to both "baby sit" their kids and give them A's no matter what they have learned, yet can't spend an hour looking at their homework?

I could go on. 

Most kids (not all) REALLY want to learn, and I know that many of my students are embarrased by how little they know.  But that is only the tip of the iceburg.  What they REALLY need to know is how to learn, and HOW TO THINK CRITICALLY AND CREATIVELY. 

The problem is that critical and creative thinking are enathma to the powers that be (good God, the emporer has no cloths!).  Yet our progress as a nation is dependant on critical, imaginitive, creative people.

The right wing agenda is to stifle critisizm, imagination, and creativity in the name of conformity, and therin lies the contradiction. 

Do we want free thinking, creative, imaginative citizens, or do we want drones?  Publick schools had been under pressuree, since their inception, to "produce" drones.

First, I totally agree with  you that a big part of the neofascist attack on our deomocratic rebublic is aimed at the public schools, no question.  They are hot beds of secular humanism, ty\eaching things like tolarance, eivolution, and the rights of man.

I have to question you assertion regarding home schooling though.  Its been a while, so I'm not up on the stats, but all my kids were home schooled for at least part of their education, and I would pit their intellectual development against any kid in the country.  They recieved, as you might expect, a secular humanist education.  Why?  Fact is that our public schools ARE screwing up (and I try to teach them college level history, and they don't know s..t, so tyhere is little to work with).


The difference is you are actually a teacher and you could actually teach.  Contrary to what the Right believes, it takes more to educate a child than a bible, a primer, and a ruler.  Not everybody can teach.  If you wave your arms in front of an orchestra, it doesn't mean you are a conductor.
One of the peculiar outcomes of the Right's "culture wars" is that I'm the one defending public education. Yes, the public schools are "screwing up," but the difference is I want to see public education reformed, the Right wants to see it destroyed.
Let's take American history for instance.  Contrary to rightwing assertions, the public schools generally teach a very nationalistic and iconographic version of American history and civics.  This is changing in some places.  Some public schools attempt to give a more objective view of the cause-and-effect relationships between the American power structure and the American people, as well as the cause-and-effect relationship between American foreign policy and world events. 
There may be a handful of radical teachers who are teaching an anti-American American history, and shame on them.  History shouldn't be "pro-" or "anti-" so much as a comprehensive view on what happened. 
The Right, however, demands American history be rabidly jingoistic, and brooks no criticism of America's imperial history or the American corporate power structure.  I suppose it would be fine with the Right if a teacher wants to trash the New Deal and the Great Society.
The Right carps endlessly about American student deficiencies in academic competitiveness, but has only one answer: blame it on the teacher unions and the liberal agenda.  They won't admit that the toxic popular consumerist culture that values amusement above all else is a product of the free market capitalism of the giant corporations whose profits they see as the light of the world!

The difference is you are actually a teacher and you could actually teach.  Contrary to what the Right believes, it takes more to educate a child than a bible, a primer, and a ruler.  Not everybody can teach.  If you wave your arms in front of an orchestra, it doesn't mean you are a conductor.
One of the peculiar outcomes of the Right's "culture wars" is that I'm the one defending public education. Yes, the public schools are "screwing up," but the difference is I want to see public education reformed, the Right wants to see it destroyed.
Let's take American history for instance.  Contrary to rightwing assertions, the public schools generally teach a very nationalistic and iconographic version of American history and civics.  This is changing in some places.  Some public schools attempt to give a more objective view of the cause-and-effect relationships between the American power structure and the American people, as well as the cause-and-effect relationship between American foreign policy and world events. 
There may be a handful of radical teachers who are teaching an anti-American American history, and shame on them.  History shouldn't be "pro-" or "anti-" so much as a comprehensive view on what happened. 
The Right, however, demands American history be rabidly jingoistic, and brooks no criticism of America's imperial history or the American corporate power structure.  I suppose it would be fine with the Right if a teacher wants to trash the New Deal and the Great Society.
The Right carps endlessly about American student deficiencies in academic competitiveness, but has only one answer: blame it on the teacher unions and the liberal agenda.  They won't admit that the toxic popular consumerist culture that values amusement above all else is a product of the free market capitalism of the giant corporations whose profits they see as the light of the world!



You are totally right, Max. I'm sure many people believe that the study of History is nothing more than names, dates, and events. But it truly is cause-and-effect. That is why many people think history is boring. If I just had to memorized names, dates, and events, I would think it was pretty boring too.

Have you ever read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen? There is one really good one that he mentions: Lincoln was born in a log cabin that he helped his father built.  ::)



Cat

When I first read this (about a week ago, over at Fark.com), I was seriously disturbed, especially as a student on the newspaper staff at school. I mean, even without the journalist perspective, the fact that nearly 1/5 said unpopular opinions should not be allowed to be voiced...that's horrifying.

I suggested this idea in brainstorming and we're covering this story in our school newspaper as well. We'll be doing a similar poll at the school (except it'll only be 100-200 students). I'll post the results here once it's all wrapped up.

Have you ever read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen? There is one really good one that he mentions: Lincoln was born in a log cabin that he helped his father built.  ::)

Cat


I have read bits of it. There's a copy somewhere around here, it belongs to my aunt (a history teacher). Some of the stuff is pretty eye-opening, especially the parts dealing with Columbus and Thanksgiving.

I have read bits of it. There's a copy somewhere around here, it belongs to my aunt (a history teacher). Some of the stuff is pretty eye-opening, especially the parts dealing with Columbus and Thanksgiving.


Lots of lies about US history.  Henry Kissinger, in his first book A World Restored wrote that "history is the memory of states", according to Howard Zinn.  And therein lies the problem.  The right wants  that to be the case, but history is about the struggles of everyday people to improve their lives, sometimes to the detriment of other everyday people, unfortunately.

The study of history should be the attempt to resolve questions, not to pontificate answers.  The principle question, of course, is WHY?  Others include "what if?".  Not what you get from the Texas School Board approved texts.

Lots of lies about US history.  Henry Kissinger, in his first book A World Restored wrote that "history is the memory of states", according to Howard Zinn.  And therein lies the problem.  The right wants  that to be the case, but history is about the struggles of everyday people to improve their lives, sometimes to the detriment of other everyday people, unfortunately.

The study of history should be the attempt to resolve questions, not to pontificate answers.  The principle question, of course, is WHY?  Others include "what if?".  Not what you get from the Texas School Board approved texts.



According to the "infamous" Dr. P. (a colleague of Carlos who is no longer with us  :\'() the question is "So what?"


Cat

According to the "infamous" Dr. P. (a colleague of Carlos who is no longer with us  :\'() the question is "So what?"


Cat


Pennsylvania is boardered on the north by New York, on the east by New Jersey, Delaware, and a little bit of Maryland, on the south by West Virginia, and on the west by Ohio.  My high school senior civics teacher use to say that when one of us stated a "fact" without explaining its significance, ie its place in the cause and effect chain as we saw it.  "Why", "so what" and "what's the relationship" (cause or effect) are the critical questions.  Those are the questions history books should

ASK

but not answer.  Why did the US experience the industrial revolution?  Why did we have a civil war?  What caused the great depression?  Mybe, in my retirement, I'll write a text book that uses this approach.