In an effort to please the parents protesting its employee’s decision to fail their children, the Piper, Kansas School Board contested her decision. The school board’s choice to side with the parents was due to their rural setting, the declining integrity of youth, and their eagerness to make a compromise.
A rural environment usually has three societal characteristics that bias the decision of members of authority: everyone knows everyone else, most people are somehow related, and personal relationships influence political decisions. Piper, Kansas is in fact rural, and when deciding whether or not to support a teacher who had made a just decision these societal characteristics became an important factor. It is very possible that some students who failed were related to the Piper School Board members creating a bias. Even if they were not related, a personal relationship between the board members and the students’ parents probably exists. Because of the rural settings, what should have happened: the Piper School Board backing up their teacher was not the outcome.
The unbelievable amount of plagiarizing going on in Piper Kansas is something else that needs looking at. Not just looked at by the media but by the school board who, instead of helping them pass the class and challenge the teacher, should be preventing cheating. The declining integrity of the youth makes it difficult not to blame them and the adults in their life for letting it slide. How are they supposed to reap the consequences for their actions if the school board doesn’t support any consequence? The school board can not reinforce consequences if they do not have support from the parents, which in this case they did not.
The biggest reason the school board didn’t approve of the consequences was because of the parents. From observation school boards tend to back down when parents (their source of income) ruffle a few feathers. Because the teacher’s decision were unfavorable by the parents it made the board look bad for backing her up. By making the teacher lighten up on the students the parents are happy and the board is no longer frowned upon. This puts the parents before the student’s learning and shows that the parents can control the board with a bit of persistency. The board’s inability to sweep this under the rug led them to enforce what the parents wanted.
The fact that the Piper Kansas School Board did not respect and support their employees is disheartening. The students who should have failed the assignment for plagiarizing were just taught that if their parents argue with the board they do not get in as much trouble. The school board’s rural environment contributed to the huge fuss of the teacher and brushed off the declining integrity of the youth.
Gender:
Points: 1617
Reviews: 28