Paying Kids to Read

The mayor of Noblejas, Spain thinks he's found a way to keep high schools students studying and not dropping out of school: bribery. Agustin Jimenez, the socialist official, suggests that the town pay students a euro - about $1.50 - for each hour they spend reading in the library, according to an Associated Press story:

The sweetener is part of a series of measures to be voted on by the Noblejas council in March. Others include funds for apartments in university towns for students from Noblejas, teachers to give private lessons to struggling students, and expert advice to parents on the virtues of keeping their children at school.

Supposedly, 31 percent of Spanish students leave school early, and they have some of the worst reading levels in the EU. The dropout rate in Noblejas is reportedly about 80 percent when you factor in kids who leave school at 15 or 16 after their obligatory time in classrooms is over.

Now, really, do Spanish McDonalds pay so little that a euro an hour seems generous?

High School Student Removed from School for Making a Map

This isn't strictly speaking about words, but it is about the growing atmosphere of censorship driven by fear. In Fort Bend county, Texas, a Clements High School senior has been removed from the public school and sent to an alternative education center and banned from graduation ceremonies for making a computer game map of the school, probably for use in a shoot-em-up software title. The boy shared the map with some friends. A couple of them mentioned it to their parents, who complained to school system administrators. Supposedly police searched his room, with permission of his parents, and confiscated a hammer as a dangerous weapon. From the frightening to the foolish, civilization marches on.

More on the "Violent" High School Student Near Chicago

You have heard about the high school student arrested basically for having written a violent essay. A Chicago Times column gets a bit more information out - such as the student's assignment was to write an essay, immediately setting to paper any thought and feeling without censorship.

Wonder if hearing all the stories about Virginia Tech could have had an influence? No, of course not - certainly the educational and law enforcement systems didn't get what they asked for. Oh, and the young man was supposed to enter the Marines in the fall as the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, but no longer. The Marines just dropped him.

Now for the great irony: at least one town in Connecticut has noticed a literacy gender gap, so Greenwich public school officials want to get boys to write more. After all the news, I'm sure they're lining up, anxious to get their mug shots taken.

Illinois Teen Arrested for Creative Writing Assignment

According to a Chicago Tribune news report, a straight-A high school senior was arrested Tuesday because a creative writing assignment that was supposed to express emotion was violent enough that the teacher was "alarmed and disturbed by the content," according to Cary, Ill. police chief Ron Delelio.

Talk about the power of words. Allegedly the essay referred to a "shooting," according to the Chicago Sun Times, but there were no specific threats directed at anyone:

The paper allegedly made a vague reference to a fictional school shooting in McHenry County but didn't specify a school or district, a law enforcement source said.

The first-year teacher called the head of the English department, who then called the police. According to the police chief:

In Lee's case, "We filed what we thought was the appropriate charge," Delelio said. "We need to be very vigilant today when we're dealing with school settings."

In the wake of Virginia Tech, I could understand someone being concerned about violent imagery in a student's essay. But calling the police and arresting the kid? I thought the idea of getting an early warning was to bring in professionals and see if there was a cause for alarm, not to find some pretext of a criminal charge. This is the sort of knee-jerk reaction that obviously leads to self-imposed censorship. What students, or parents, will allow an essay that could get a kid in trouble with the law because people want to react first and think ... never?