Our school district has recently started its own blog, which you can find, along with the superintendent’s Twitter feed, here. The blog’s subtitle is “Child-Centered : Future-Focused.” In response, Merriam-Webster has removed these phrases from the dictionary and declared them officially meaningless.
No posts yet on those child-centered shortened recesses and ten-to-fifteen-minute lunches.
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3 comments:
I don't know why they would even bother to set something like this up. It's just going to serve as a bullhorn for them to constantly hammer the things they want to emphasize, and you can be certain they won't be addressing any real concerns from the community (as you hinted at in your post). And I'm also certain that they won't be allowing comments which are critical of the way they run things.
A blog like that one is a great way to present the illusion of concern, but most people won't fall for it, I think. It's only a matter of time until the superintendent realizes he could get the same amount of useful information across by not having a blog, and the blog will just fall by the wayside and gets abandoned.
And don't even get me started on the two-tweets per-week twitter feed they have going on in the sidebar there.
Stoz -- I don't object to the school district having a blog, but I agree that the question is whether it will be a meaningful source of information and discussion, or whether it will just be a public relations device. My guess is that it will end up providing some useful information about administrative and budget issues (though not without spin), but that we won't see any posts about the educational philosophies (or lack thereof) that drive the kids' everyday experience of school.
It's premature to accuse them of not allowing critical comments. Hmm, perhaps I will put that issue to the test . . .
LOL about the twitter feed.
Update -- Credit where credit is due: the district has allowed people (including me) to post critical comments.
The comments on the blog (like those on this blog) are "moderated," which potentially raises some interesting constitutional issues: given that the district is a public entity, on what basis can it choose not to post someone's comment? I assume that filtering out spam and obscenity would be fine, but that any attempt to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint would violate the First Amendment. The interesting question is how far the district would be permitted to go in policing "civility." Law review note, anyone?
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