Why Capital Punishment is wrong

I've never felt good about the death penalty. For one, I believe that it's hypocritical for a government to kill someone to prove that killing is bad. But there are three main reasons I'd like to expound upon to further detail the argument against the death penalty.

First, people often have a change of heart on death row. The most notable example of this is Stanley "Tookie" Williams, an early leader of the Crips gang, convicted in 1979 in California of the murders of four people during a motel robbery. He was sentenced to death. After fourteen years on death row, all the time maintaining his innocence, Williams began anti-gang activism. He wrote several children's books advocating that the reader stay away from gangs and violence. In 1997, he wrote an apology on his website for his role in the Crips. In 2004, he brokered a peace agreement between two of the country's most violent gangs, the Bloods and the Crips, the latter of which he helped found. Despite his efforts against gangs as well as his maintained innocence, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency the day before his scheduled execution. Williams was executed by lethal injection 13 December 2005. During his execution, the staff had difficulty inserting the needles and the execution took an abnormally long 20 minutes. Though he provided no official final words to the warden, his final words as tape-recorded by his supporters were "Teach them how to avoid our destructive footsteps. Teach them to strive for higher education. Teach them to promote peace and teach them to focus on rebuilding the neighborhoods that you, others, and I helped to destroy." This man, who clearly had a change of heart and ought to have been released from prison was instead barbarically executed by the State of California.

My second argument is based on the lack of certainty in today's judicial system. Given that we can never possibly be 100% certain of a convicted person's guilt, we should not impose an irreversible punishment such as death. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1973, 139 people have been released from death row in the United States after new evidence was found proclaiming their innocence. These are 123 innocent lives that were almost taken away by a government that was incorrect in its assessment of guilt. Who knows if we've executed an innocent individual? The fact that that's even a possibility, that the state's conviction could possibly be incorrect, should take off the table all irreversible punishment. While time spent in incarceration can't possibly be given back, monetary compensation to the individual can be made. The state can take away someone's life, but they certainly don't have the power to give it back in case of an incorrect verdict.

Thirdly and finally, the death penalty simply costs more than life imprisonment. Multiple states' systems show this fact. In California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, the yearly difference between imprisoning an inmate on death row and imprisoning an inmate in a maximum-security prison is $90,000 per inmate per year. Using conservative estimates, the Commission on the Fair Adminstration of Justice it cites estimates that California spends $137 million per year on their death penalty system. The same study estimates that if California were to impose a maximum penalty of a life sentence is only $11.5 million per year. Why the big decrease? Appeals. Those sentenced to death (with the rare exception of crazies like Gary Gilmore) will inevitably appeal their conviction to the highest court allowed. The state will be forced to pay the cost of defending their conviction, a high price given that most death penalty appeals last upwards of ten years.

Clearly, as shown by the evidence above, the death penalty is not an appropriate means of punishment. Its finality and high cost clearly show the pragmatic reasoning behind opposition, but cases like Tookie Williams' make one consider if the death penalty is fair in all cases. This is an important issue; we should all be moved to action to support the elimination of the death penalty as a means of legal punishment in our society.

Comment below or e-mail me at jay@jayhutchinson.com. Leave me a voicemail at 801-513-1529. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.jayhutchinson.com.

Election Night 2009

I can't believe today is Election Day. It feels like it's been only six or so months since I was making calls for the Obama campaign from my computer here. While these elections obviously don't matter nearly as much as those of last year, there are a few key races I'd like to talk about.

Question 1 (Maine)
"Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?"

My endorsement: No

This proposition, given the level of support for the No side from Mainers, is likely to fail. Maine is a fairly liberal state, and passage of this Question would take away same-sex couples' right to marry there. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com gives Question 1 about a 28% chance of passing.

Referendum 71 (Washington)
"This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage. Should this bill be Approved or Rejected?"

My endorsement: Approve

This proposition would give Domestic Partnerships in Washington the same level of recognition legally as marriage. Given Washington's liberal attitude, this Referendum is likely to be approved. Silver gives Referendum 71 a 90% chance of being approved.

New York's 23rd Congressional District Special Election
Bill Owens (D)
Doug Hoffman (Conservative Party of New York)
State Sen. Diedre Scozzafava (R)

Former Rep. John McHugh (R-NY23) was appointed and confirmed as Secretary of the Army, necessitating this special election. The original two main candidates were Owens and Scozzafava; both are fairly liberal for their respective parties. As such, the Conservative Party of New York nominated Hoffman, an accountant from Lake Placid. After endorsements from right-wing politicians and organizations such as Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fred Thompson, and Club for Growth, as well as attacks on Scozzafava's conservatism, Hoffman rose in the polls. On Friday, Scozzafava dropped from the race, encouraging her supporters to vote for someone else. On Saturday, she endorsed Owens. Latest polling predicts a moderate to large victory for Hoffman. Silver, who originally called the race a tossup between Hoffman and Owens, now gives Owens a 20% chance of winning tonight.

California's 10th Congressional District
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D)
David Harmer (R)

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA10) was nominated and confirmed as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. The general election candidates are California's Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and businessman David Harmer. This district is quite liberal (D+11) and as such Silver gives Garamendi a 94% chance of victory.

Virginia Gubernatorial
Attorney General Bob McDonnell (R)
State Sen. Creigh Deeds (D)

With Virginia's unique one term at a time rule, barring any incumbent Governor from running for reelection, McDonnell faces Deeds for the Governor's seat to replace outgoing Gov. Tim Kaine. The two faced off in the election for Attorney General four years ago with McDonnell winning by the slimmest of margins, 323 votes. Polling from the beginning has been in McDonnell's favor. As such, Silver gives Deeds just a 2% chance in tonight's election.

New Jersey Gubernatorial
Gov. John Corzine (D)
Christopher Christie (R)
Chris Daggett (Independent)

Unpopular Governor Jon Corzine is up against the moderate former US Attorney Chris Christie tonight. Polling has been mixed and it appears that this race is a near-tossup. Daggett may be the wild card, as he's been polling as high as 20%; he'll likely receive around 10% of the vote. Silver gives the slight edge to Christie; he gives Corzine a 42% chance of victory.

Comment below or e-mail me at jay@jayhutchinson.com. Leave me a voicemail at 801-513-1529. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.jayhutchinson.com.

WHO are you calling biased?

Yesterday I posted the following YouTube video on Facebook:



Below are the exact comments on this post.

Trevor Lee: this is so stupid. Have you even read the republican plan. This guy is a joke

Jay Hutchinson: have you?

Trevor Lee: yes I have

Trevor Lee: the Democrats won't even look at it

Trevor Lee: which means it's not really about health care but about what they want

Jay Hutchinson: okay then, what do they really want?

Trevor Lee: they are trying to reform the insurance companies not the actual health care itself like the liberals want. Our health I believe is the best in the world and that is why everyone comes here to get it. But it's because of the insurance companies that alot of people can't afford it.

Trevor Lee: They want the power of the government expanded. It's just another huge part of this country they would have control over

Yen Nguyen: Where'd you read/get the plan? I haven't read it yet and wanna read it :)

Delaney Burks: of course you do yen
lol. ive read it ... and its long and boring with some ideas that make me wonder when the next coup wll be.. but its an okay plan.

Trevor Lee: When you control the Health Care you control the people--Adolf Hitler 1939

Yen Nguyen: okay... where can I read it though? Trevor, so are you saying that every person that supports the Democratic health care plan have intentions comparable to those of Hitler?

Jay Hutchinson: According to this ( http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_world_health_ranks.html) 2000 Press Release from the World Health Organization (WHO), the nations with "the most responsive health systems are the United States,...Denmark, Germany,...Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden". So in terms of "responsiveness", we're among the elite.

However, digging deeper into that same study, as seen here ( http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/annex01_en.pdf), it is shown that despite our being ranked first in "responsiveness", we are also first in "Health expenditure per capita in international dollars", 72nd in "Performance -- On level of health", and 37th in "Performance -- Overall health system performance". This is in contrast to Canada, at 10th on the expenditure per capita, 35th in level of health, and 30th in Overall health system performance. Norway, another noted nation with universal health care is 16th, 18th, and 11th in those categories. In summary, we're paying more for a worse system.

Trevor Lee: not at all, but when the democrats won't even look at the republican's plan. Which is to better health care. YOu know it's not about saving lives for them. It's about control

Jay Hutchinson: The whole point of health care reform is to save lives... Suggesting that either side may have ulterior motives makes you no better than someone who believes that the government was behind 9/11.

Trevor Lee: Who says it's a worst system besides you and Michael Moore, and it may be expensive, but that is because it is the best. You pay what you get for

Pablo Tanner: “Everything to make a better health system is available, but we haven't put it together.” - William McGuire, CEO United Health Group

Jay Hutchinson: It's not the best system according to the World Health Organization. I think that's pretty definitive... unless you want to accuse a global organization of deliberate bias.

Yen Nguyen: A better health care system includes reforming insurance companies and their policies. If you can't pay the high deductibles or let alone even have any coverage, there's no point to improve health care(focused on saving lives), since you couldn't get it anyways unless you have the $$$.

Trevor Lee: And you wanna talk about cost. Actually with the raise in taxes that we all will be paying for this nationalized health care, it will cost us all alot more http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2114.cfm

Pablo Tanner: “To my knowledge, every member of management in this company believes that at the time we collectively followed appropriate practices for those option grants which affected all of our employees.” - William McGuire, CEO United Health Group (after a stock options scandal was revealed. He later resigned with a golden parachute of over $1 billion...that would have equated to a $.20 dividend for stockholders)

These are the people the Republican plan is designed to protect.

Trevor Lee: yes I do think that W.H.O. is very Bias

Trevor Lee: Amen Yen!!!!

Jay Hutchinson: And you want to talk about bias? The stated mission of the organization whose website you've posted is "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."

Citation: http://www.heritage.org/about/

Jay Hutchinson: You honestly think that a global organization is biased just because its findings don't support your uneducated opinion? Really?

Trevor Lee: that's right, but [Heritage's] statistics are right, can't argue with that

Trevor Lee: if you don't like less government, freedoms traditional values, strong national defense, hey there are always other countries that already offer what you value

Pablo Tanner: That's the global warming argument.
If it could affect my bottom line (or in this case the bottom line of those who contribute to my campaign bottom line) it's not true and must be evil.

Trevor Lee: uneducated opinions, did you read the article I just linked you too, how uneducated are you? : )

Pablo Tanner: Oh Trevor, you have dropped the Hitler bomb and the "if you don't like it leave it" bomb on the same thread?
Overkill award!
Are you channeling Faux News?

Trevor Lee: WHat??????? Pablo????? hahahaha

Jay Hutchinson: Have you taken AP Statistics? It's rather eye-opening learning about ways a biased organization can collect inherently confounded data simply by asking the right question or choosing the right sample.

Trevor Lee: hahaha funny Pablo : p

Yen Nguyen: Now now Jay. Don't go saying that people are uneducated. We're all having an intellectual argument here.

Pablo Tanner: Trevor,
You are a-DOR-able. You will make a great Utah Republican when you are old enough to vote. I'm glad to know that your vote will be swirling in this red state eddy of 5 electoral votes so your impact will be minimal nationally.

Pablo Tanner: Oh, and get back to me when United Health Care refuses payment on your claim. Or when you actually have to pay for a doctor out of pocket.
Orrin Hatch will never worry about health care so he will never worry about yours.

Trevor Lee: hahaha funny Pablo

And there it is. Now, just to clarify, when I said 'uneducated', it wasn't meant as an insult, but rather an inherent trait. Unless Trevor, a high school senior, works part time as a health care statistician, he can have no say personally as to the quality of our health care system. I would never say that our health care system isn't the best just because I feel that way. That's intellectually irresponsible. I used statistics to back it up. These were statistics from an unbiased source. The World Health Organization has no reason to be biased. It's a global organization that fairly assesses the state of the world's health. Trevor's one argument not based on opinion, scare tactics, or Hitler comparisons was based on an article from the conservative Heritage Foundation. What we all need to understand is that when formulating an argument to justify one's opinion, one must back up assertions with factual, unbiased sources. That's the way it works. Using sources like the Heritage Foundation, FOX News, or MSNBC is not appropriate. Using sources like the World Health Organization, the Congressional Budget Office, the United Nations, or the CIA World Factbook is responsible and more compelling.

Comment below or e-mail me at jay@jayhutchinson.com. Leave me a voicemail at 801-513-1529. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.jayhutchinson.com.

Olympic Copenhagen

Biggest news of the day, barring some huge event occurring within the next twenty minutes, was the International Olympic Committee's vote to award the 2016 Summer Olympics to the city of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I blogged about this previously on 7 July 2009 in which I expressed my opinion that awarding the games to Rio would be the best decision, but that I thought it rather unlikely. Sure enough, though, Rio pulled it out, and by a decidedly large margin as well. This is how the vote went down this morning in Copenhagen:

City (Country)	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3
Rio de Janeiro (BRA)	26	46	66
Madrid (ESP)	28	29	32
Tokyo (JAP)	22	20	--
Chicago (USA)	18	--	--

Congrats to Rio de Janeiro, the first South American city host the Games. However, on the side of Rio's celebration is a political story here in the United States. President Barack Obama visited Copenhagen to lobby for the Games to be held in his adulthood home of Chicago. He sat as a member of the small panel asked questions by the members of the IOC about their city's bid. It was speculated that Obama's presence would improve Chicago's chances given his high popularity worldwide. The President's failure to win the games for Chicago has drawn him criticism from conservatives throughout the country for having "wasted his time". The video on the linked page shows members of Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing tea-bagger group erupting in applause when told that Chicago lost on the first vote. They are morons. What everyone in America fails to understand is that it is quite normal for a head of state of a nations of a candidate city to attend the vote. No President of the United States has ever gone, but it is most certainly a positive thing for a head of state to attend. President Lula da Silva of Brazil was in attendance when his city won the bid. In fact, Lula actually encouraged Obama to make the trip. So why is this being blown up as "the worst day of his presidency"? It seems to me that all the Republicans aim to do is find something, anything to take such a cheap shot at President Obama, something as stupid as the city for which he spoke to the IOC losing its bid to host the Olympics. Pitiful.

Comment below or e-mail me at jay@jayhutchinson.com. Leave me a voicemail at 801-513-1529. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.jayhutchinson.com.

Single-Payer Health Care

Since school started, I haven't really been able to post anything. In Debate, we were assigned to write a resolution for Student Congress about an issue facing America today. I wrote mine in suppity of a single-payer health care system. The following is the conent of that resolution. Let me know what you think!

Resolution A
A Resolution in Support of a Single-Payer Health Care System
 
Whereas, it is estimated that thirty (30) million Americans are without health insurance and,
Whereas, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the “only wealth, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage” and,
Whereas, it is estimated that Canada’s single-payer health care system has forty-three (43) percent lower administrative costs compared to those of the United States’ private insurance companies and,
Whereas, the United States already provides substantial social services to its citizens and,
Whereas, primary, preventive health care for all will keep the public as a whole healthier by slowing the spread of communicable diseases and,
Whereas, the Federal Government already provides Medicaid and Medicare health insurance to the impoverished and elderly with a great degree of success and,
Whereas, four industrialized nations with a single-payer system, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Taiwan have, on average, a life expectancy of seventy-nine and ninety-six one hundredths (79.96) years as opposed to the United States’ life expectancy of seventy-eight and eleven one hundredths (78.11) years and,
Whereas, fifty-nine (59) percent of physicians in the United States support a single-payer health care system according to a recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine; therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED, by the Student Congress here assembled, that the United States adopt a single-payer, universal health care system.
I so move.

Leave a comment below or e-mail me at jay@jayhutchinson.com. Leave me a voicemail at 801-513-1529. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.jayhutchinson.com.

Let's keep it civil

In debate class today, the teacher, Ms. Hyer, put a cardboard cutout of the President at the front of the classroom leaning against the whiteboard. As I sat at my desk reading the assigned materials, I looked up briefly and noticed that someone had drawn red "devil horns" on the whiteboard where one would expect to see such horns on a cartoon depiction of the devil in relation to the cardboard cutout This bothered me, but there was really no harm. Maybe a minute later, I looked up once again and saw a sophomore boy putting a cap on a black marker, walking away laughing. He'd drawn a mustache, obviously meant to look like that of Adolf Hitler, on the President's upper lip. Ms. Hyer was at her desk in the back of the room grading papers and did not notice the defacement of her cardboard cutout. I immediately went back and pointed it out; she took immediate action by putting the cardboard cutout in her back room.

Now, the first thing I'd like to point out is the irony in this action. As my AP US History teacher, Mrs. Dau, pointed out to me, Hitler would "turn over in his grave" if he knew he were being compared to a black man.

On a second and more serious note, this sort of action is completely unacceptable if conservatives want to gain a more positive public image. Adolf Hitler is one of the worst people ever to live. He organized and directed one of the largest genocides in the history of mankind. Comparing him to the President is not acceptable and is an insult to the American people that duly elected him as their head of state. Now, I certainly don't feel that such defacement itself ought to be illegal, as supporting such a provision would be akin to supporting a constitutional amendment making it unlawful to deface an American flag, but the fact that he would have the nerve to actually deface another's property, even if he dislikes the depicted figure, is appalling. He should be be fined the cost of the cardboard cutout.

The sad thing is that such disrespect is not uncommon. Just last night, during the President's address to a joint session of Congress, Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC02) shouted "You Lie!" after President Obama stated that his health care plan contains no provision giving illegal immigrants health insurance. This lack of civility is especially unacceptable from such an elected official. Furthermore, I have been told by more than one person of their personal hope that President Obama be assassinated. Absolutely inappropriate. This isn't to say that all conservatives are this way. I have a number of good friends who are vehemently opposed to the President. We are respectful of one another's political views and tend to not discuss them. When we do discuss them, the discussion remains civil and (usually) fact-based. This is how everyone should be. That's not to say that you can't be uncivil and mean-spirited in policy arguments. But I'll neither listen to nor befriend you.

Leave a comment below or e-mail me at jay@jayhutchinson.com. Leave me a voicemail at 801-513-1529. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.jayhutchinson.com.

Irresponsible Action by the Davis School District

As a junior in high school, I still fall under the public school system. As many of you know, President Barack Obama plans to make a speech to all American students K-12 on Tuesday 8 Sept at 12:00pm EDT. In response, the Davis School District sent the following letter home to parents today, Thursday 3 Sept:



It reads the following:

Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009

Dear Parents,

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to deliver a back-to-school message on Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 10 a.m. The message will be directed at students specifically on the importance of education. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Pres. Obama will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning. Duncan has asked schools throughout the nation to watch the speech together. It is being broadcast live on the White House website, www.whitehouse.gov. It will also be shown on CSPAN.

Davis School District supports providing students with the opportunity to view the President's address. As a courtesy, we want to provide you with the option to opt out of having your child participate, if you choose. Please return this signed letter to the school by Tuesday morning if you do not want your student to view the address. Alternative activities will be provided for those students.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

__ No, I do not want my student ______________________________ to view the national address by Pres. Barack Obama.

Signed______________________________________ Date_____________

This is blatantly partisan and I was upset upon receipt of this letter in fourth period today. In response, I sent the following letter to my elected school board member, Walt Bain:

Dear Mr. Bain:

My name is Jay Hutchinson and I am a junior at Davis High School in Kaysville. I live in Fruit Heights, and you represent my precinct. I write on not only my behalf, but on the behalf of my mother, who has seven children besides myself in the Davis School District, as well. We are appalled to receive this letter allowing parents to opt their children out of President Obama's address to students next Tuesday. To compare this action by the District to its policy on the showing of films in classrooms, 4I-201-7.1 states the following: "For all movies, videos, and clips thereof carrying a...PG...[or]...PG-13...rating,...parents shall receive written notification of the proposed showing at least five (5) school days prior to the movie or video's showing." Furthermore, 7.3.1 of the same section reads the following: "Parents who do not object within the five (5) school day notice period shall be deemed to grant consent for their child's viewing of a movie or video." In essence, you are treating President Obama's address to the nation's students as you would a PG or PG-13 movie with the small exception of there being only a two day notice period as opposed to five. This is completely ridiculous. There is no reason to suspect that anything contained in the address would be comparable to objectionable content found in films rated PG and PG-13. In addition, we doubt the District would have taken such action two years ago had the Republican President Bush chosen to make such a speech to the nation's students. Therefore we must come to the conclusion that this nonpartisan entity has appallingly taken an action based solely on partisanship and disapproval of the current President. This is disappointing and we hope that such improper action never be taken again in this District. A prompt response is requested.

Sincerely,
Jay Hutchinson
jay@jayhutchinson.com

It's true! The Davis School District is treating this address in a very similar manner to how they would a film rated PG or PG-13. Its full policy on videos and movies can be found at http://www.davis.k12.ut.us/policy/manual/Policy/4I-201%20Movies%20and%20Videos.pdf. If you live in the Davis School District or any school district taking similar action, I urge you to e-mail your elected school board official to complain about this irresponsibility propagated by this supposedly nonpartisan entity.

Update (8:50 pm)

Superintendant Bryan Bowles, to whom I sent a carbon copy of the e-mail addressed to Mr. Bain, responded 58 minutes after I sent the first message. This was his reply:

Jay --- The Davis School District is not taking a position one way or another. We have families who believe strongly that all children should hear the speech, and we have families who believe strongly that no children should hear the speech. We strongly support your right to make the best decision for your family.

I received this White House web site yesterday; it may be useful to you: www.whitehouse.gov/mediaresources. It talks about the President's intent for the speech. This decision, unfortunately, puts our schools in a no-win situation between those who strongly want the speech to be heard and those who strongly do not want the speech to be heard, and it paints us as the bad guys when we should be the advocates for all families and children. We are not the bad guys here.

We cannot choose not to have the speech broadcast at school. We can, however, offer parents the option to have their children in another room in the school engaged in another activity other than the President's speech. The opt-out is a great solution that gives parents the option to have their children listen to the speech or not listen to the speech. This speech is nothing like a video; indeed, no notification needs to be given at all. We don't notify parents of every guest speaker in every classroom; however, this speech is a highly controversial event with parents polarized on both sides of the issue. I have had no less than 30 email in support of viewing the speech and another 30 strongly opposed to any child hearing the speech. Ours is a neutral position that allows individuals to participate in this historic occasion or to opt-out by moving to a location in which the speech is not being played.

I repeat: We fully support the right for each family to makes choices for their children. It is unfortunate that a situation beyond our control puts us in a no-win situation in which we are attacked. Had the President chosen to deliver his speech at night on television like his State of the Union addresses, we would not even be in this equation. By no fault of our teachers, administrators, or school board members, we have to field the controversy when we should be advocates for children and families.

You should always write your elected officials when you are concerned about a situation, and you should expect a thoughtful response from them. You have obviously spent some time thinking about the situation, how would you have handled this situation? If you found out Wednesday morning that the President of the United States would deliver a speech to all school children the following Tuesday morning, and families called (non-stop yesterday and today) both strongly opposed to the speech and strongly in favor of the speech. What compromise position would you have taken? What balance would you strike --- especially when you didn't create the controversy?

I am including a sample of an email from an individual who is opposed to the President's speech. I am including it so that you can see how those who are on that side of the spectrum feel. This is only one email at random: I am extremely upset about the attempted indoctrination of my children scheduled for September 8th. My feelings would be the same coming from a democrat or a republican president. This is simply out of line. Period. It is quite obvious that this plan has been in the works for quite sometime. The agenda is also obvious considering the fact that it was kept so hush, hush. I called two schools today and both pretended to be ignorant about it. Funny thing is that my daughter brought home an "Opt out" paper. This scandal was obviously known about. I don't appreciate being lied to. And I don't appreciate principals being conveniently unavailable to answer questions. The paper my daughter brought home explained that there would be alternate activities provided. My response is...don't bother. I will provide my own alternate activity. My children will not be attending at all that day or any other day that contains anything similar or related to this kind of non-sense. Likewise, I will not allow them to be penalized in any way for not attending. If that ends up being the case or if this sort of activity continues you may consider my children withdrawn from public education and we will be happy to home school them.
Additionally, I am a business man. I have thousands of contacts in my email address book. I assure you that every one of those contacts will receive the suggestion from me that there optional activity be to keep their kids home from school all together. Your attendance, or the lack thereof, will tell your pocketbook that this kind of agenda will not be tolerated.

I am interested in your solutions.

Bryan.

I responded thusly:

Dear Superintendant Bowles:

I can see your predicament. However, I feel that this situation could have been handled more effectively without any notification. As reasonable people, we understand that the purpose of this address is not to "indoctrinate" anyone. It is simply a message of encouragement to students from the leader of our nation. In reading the message from that concerned parent, I would suppose that his view on this address is rather radical and unique. In light of that, the volume of paper used to print these opt-out letters, one of which I have sitting directly in front of me, is rather large and could have been used for more worthy causes. If a parent really believes that his or her student is going to be "indoctrinated" during this speech, he or she should contact the school and request that his or her student be kept out of the activity. If there were a parent who wasn't aware of the address until his or her student came home that day, their child's summary of the address would likely relieve all fears. I'm not sure how many schools sent out opt-out letters (I know that Viewmont High simply called each parent as they would notify that parent of an absence), but the three schools to which my siblings and I go, Davis High, Fairfield Jr. High, and Morgan Elementary, all sent out opt-out letters. That's a decent amount of paper just right there, paper that could've been saved by allowing parents to take the initiative if they really didn't want their child to view this uplifting and motivation address. Essentially, I argue that since this address is naturally good-hearted and positive, it shouldn't be the school district's job to tell parents that this is happening. As you said, you don't notify parents of every guest speaker. Parents worried enough to e-mail you objecting to this address, I believe, should be told by e-mail of an alternative. But no effort should be made to notify each and every parent.

I very much appreciate such a prompt response.

Sincerely,
Jay Hutchinson

Update (9:00 pm)

That was pretty quick...

Superintendant Bowles sent me his response no less than twelve minutes after I sent mine. Here's the text:

Thank you, Jay, for your thoughtful response. Actually, the letter I sent you was fairly typical of a stack that I have. In all cases, I feel strongly that parents must be informed of what is happening out of the ordinary at school. I may be wrong, but it is how I approach public education. I really believe that parents have a right to have input. Further, parents think I am sneaky and untrustworthy if I don't make full disclosure of situations. I believe in communication. I may go overboard sometimes, but I would rather err on the side of too much instead of the side of not enough. I'm not sure I felt that same way before I was a parent myself, but I now have a son at the university, one in Australia on an LDS mission, a daughter in high school, a daughter in junior high school, and a daughter in elementary school. As a parent, I want information.

You are obviously bright and thoughtful --- a junior with an impressive 3.793 grade point average and five AP courses. It will be a pleasure to watch your many life's successes.

Bryan.

I appreciate these kind words from the Superintendant. While I still hold to my opinion concerning this issue, I resolve my criticism Superintendant's action as nothing more than a conflict of ideology.

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