{"id":5338,"date":"2011-10-04T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=5338"},"modified":"2011-10-03T15:22:34","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T20:22:34","slug":"schools-one-size-fits-all-rules-are-just-excuse-not-to-use-judgement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=5338","title":{"rendered":"Schools’ one-size-fits-all rules are just excuse not to use judgement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In their mad rush to fight “gang activity,” school officials in a little town just west of Omaha, Neb., have banned a 12-year-old girl from wearing a necklace<\/a> resembling a rosary — because they’ve been told that gangs in distant states might be using them as symbols.<\/p>\n

She really looks like a hardcore ganger to me, even if she says she doesn’t understand what a gang is. So is the school saying that it believes this girl is trying to promote gangs — with the various things she wears to promote her faith?<\/p>\n

“I’m wearing a cross necklace, a cross T-shirt and a cross bracelet,” she said. “I’m thinking of how Jesus died on the cross and how he gave up all his sins for us.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The school superintendent says it’s a safety issue, but it seems that the real issue is school administrators who aren’t smart enough or brave enough to figure out when there’s an actual problem requiring a solution and when there’s nothing wrong.<\/p>\n

Omaha Catholic Archdiocese Chancellor Rev. Joseph Taphorn was being far too rational to be a government school administrator when he commented:<\/p>\n

“One ought to be able to figure out whether she’s trying to promote a gang,” Taphorn said. “If she’s not, why would she be punished for her right of religious freedom and religious expression?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One-size-fits-all policies are silly and they lead to absurdities such as this. It’s yet another reason why one-size-fits-all government is bad, because the parents of this little girl don’t have a realistic alternative to switching to another education provider — since they’re already being forced to pay for this one run by people with no ability to exercise judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In their mad rush to fight “gang activity,” school officials in a little town just west of Omaha, Neb., have banned a 12-year-old girl from wearing a necklace resembling a rosary — because they’ve been told that gangs in distant states might be using them as symbols. She really looks like a hardcore ganger to Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-1o6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5338"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5348,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5338\/revisions\/5348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}