Lincolnite

I don’t really care about the guy’s firing; I hadn’t even heard of him before this happened.  However, one thing is certain: if this guy had mentioned the Bible, God, or Jesus in his class there wouldn’t be a single person questioning his firing. There also wouldn’t be anyone attempting to defend a teacher’s right to academic freedom, and there certainly wouldn’t be any interest in his Google cache.

<em>However, one thing is certain: if this guy had mentioned the Bible, God, or Jesus in his class there wouldn

No, I wouldn’t.  I don’t care what happens in public schools.  Their degradation is so rapid and severe that there really isn’t anything anyone can do to save them.

So much anger and frustration…what has the world done to you, sir?  :-\

I’m neither angry nor frustrated. Like I said, I don’t care what happens in public schools.  Therefore, I have nothing to be frustrated or angry about. You’ve been reading too many of Neal’s posts about me.

Too bad ol’ Dave doesn’t care what’s happening in the schools.  The kids you don’t care about are the ones who will be deciding your future one day.  We need to take care of educating our kids about past failures; that’s how we don’t make the same mistakes in the present/future.  At least that’s what we hope will happen.

No one from a public school is going to decide my future, because I didn’t go to public schools growing up.  If you’re referring to politicians and others who establish policy as those who are going to ‘decide my future’, that’s fine, but I disagree that they decide anyone’s future.  They may make decisions that improve or worsen one’s quality of life, but that’s far from determining one’s future.  That job is left up to the individual.  If you see it otherwise, then I’m sorry.

...but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ken Svoboda, Chris Beutler, Colleen Seng, and Danielle Nantkes went to public schools.

Soooooooo, are you saying that public schools provide a lesser education than do private schools? 
Hate to burst your “bubble”, but there are plenty of “screw-ups” coming out of non-public schools too.

I’m sure that many of the public figures that you agree with/support went to public schools; after all, > 95% of people in this country did or are doing so.

I’m sure that your non-public school experience was a very enjoyable one; however, given your lack of direct experience with respect to the public school experience, I have to wonder what rationale is behind your statements that public schools are degrading at a rapid and severe pace (especially in Nebraska, where, by most objective measures, are quite good overall) and that, even though you are a voter and a taxpayer, you are a completely disinterested observer.

First the LES rate hike blog, and now this one on Baker have strayed from the original topic into a discussion regarding DaveK. Perhaps you just set up a DaveK section where people can discuss his opinions, and then when I click on future topics I can read posts that actually pertain to the topic at hand.

I have no knowledge of the contents of Mr. Baker’s website, nor what did or did not happen to them. However, when you look at the post dates in the Google cached versions, they were almost all posted in 2003. The latest one I saw was posted in February of 2005.

I think implying that LPS “Stripped them of content” is a bit of a stretch. My money would support a theory that he simply stopped using this web site in 2005. It’s not a very sensational idea, but it is probably closer to the truth.

I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but ANY teacher who has unique ideas on teaching and can compel students to question what they are hearing and reading and then to think for themselves is a teacher worthy of keeping.  So many teachers are there for the paycheck only and it sounds like this Mr. Baker wanted to stimulate his students, to make them see different issues in different ways.  My kids have been out of high school for years so I don’t know this man from Adam, but the first time I heard he wanted to teach history backwards I found it to be a unique idea worth considering.  Everything that happens today is a direct result of something that happened in the past…..what a great way to look at consequences.  Not only a history lesson but also a life lesson.

@CP:

I didn’t mean to imply that LPS did anything sinister. I assume LPS eliminates the online content of all faculty as soon as they leave the district. That’s just good policy. As for the dates, I don’t think Google keeps cached versions of pages around for 2+ years, so I’m assuming that those pages were available on the LPS website until fairly recently. I could be wrong about that.

@Mrs. CU:

I had the pleasure of sitting in on a “backwards” history class for one semester at Lincoln High around 1999 or so back when I was in Teacher’s College. It was an interesting experience, and had I become a teacher, I would have been tempted to try it in my classroom.