Educrats vs. 'the children'

WHENEVER educrats are challenged about a controversial decision, they usually fall back on that good old standby that they're doing it "for the children." It's a trick to throw off parents, school board members or journalists from having the nerve to question their actions.

After all, why wouldn't any reasonable adult want what's best for "the children"?

Unfortunately, some recent

shenanigans at an Illinois high school have me convinced that educrats are penalizing their own students in an effort to make a personal political statement.

Last week, officials at Highland Park High near Chicago banned their girls basketball team from going to Arizona to play in a major tournament, citing their distaste for the state's new immigration law. Adding to the outrage is the hypocrisy that the school regularly sponsors student trips to China, a place whose laws, practices and government are synonymous with repression.

I must have been absent from school the day they discovered that Arizona's democratic laws and government are more out of step with their values and beliefs than the laws and government of the Chinese dictatorship. What kind of message is that?

However you feel about Arizona's new laws and the impact they may have on Hispanic citizens, this is a clear-cut case of adults using kids in order to satisfy their own political agenda.

The educrats of Highland Park aren't Jimmy Carter and the girls aren't the Olympic athletes that he pulled from the 1980 Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Instead, these school officials are part of a long line of people who routinely pop up in the news for trying to send some message to society through their dumbed-down approach to education and ridiculous school policies. They're akin to school officials who have banned dodgeball and tagging games. and hired recess coaches for kids.

A sure sign your school is infected by this species of educrat is that if school officials take a controversial stand that creates public backlash, they'll claim that the original reason was distorted by the media and they dream up new ones. Often, the new reasons are more ridiculous than the initial explanation.

In the case of Highland Park, Assistant Superintendent Suzan Hebson said they called off the trip to Arizona because Arizona's new law was far outside the "values and beliefs" of the school district. When this reason came under attack, she and the superintendent resorted to playing the "we're doing it for the children's safety" card.

Finally, Hebson sent an e-mail to the Pioneer Press that stated, "Since undocumented students may be participating on any of our extracurricular teams, we need to ensure that all of our students can travel safely, especially in the United States. District 113's decision regarding travel of its students in response to extracurricular activities is never 'political.' "

I interviewed WIND (560-AM) talk-show host Amy Jacobson, who broke this story. She made a great point that it's really the school board, not the educrats, that should be making decisions like this one. They are democratically elected and can be voted out if the people disagree with what they do. They also have public meetings that let citizens speak out when anything like this is done. It's educational "checks and balances."

If this happened before the decision, the public would also know that this is the first time in 26 years that the girls had qualified for this major tournament. The team set off on a series of bake sales and other fundraisers to get enough money to go to Arizona. Parents of these girls had no chance to make their opinions known before a couple of educrats took away an important sporting opportunity for their daughters.

WHAT ARE THE girls learning from this?

First, the painful lesson that these adults don't get one of my cardinal rules of education and parenting: Don't use kids to fight adult battles.

If they want to educate the girls about the alleged horrors of Arizona, give them and their parents the opportunity to freely vote to turn down the trip. It's a real-world civics lesson.

The Highland Park school board meets in the very near future. I wish it'd rescind this embarrassing decree and question the motives of the educrats who issued it, but from the agenda for the meeting, it doesn't look like it's up to the job.

Teacher-turned-talk-show host Dom Giordano is heard on WPHT/1210 AM. Contact him at askdomg@aol.com.