A First Amendment college course for high school principals, administrators

By Warren Watson

A college course in the First Amendment for high school principals and administrators was once again offered this summer thanks to a collaboration between Ball State’s Teachers College and J-Ideas program.

The one-of-a-kind course, “The Administrator and the First Amendment,” continued with a class of 12 Indiana principals and administrators.  The class was previously offered in fall 2005.

Joseph McKinney, the chairman of the Department of Educational Leadership at Teachers College, taught the course, which was offered online through Ball State’s Extended Education Program.

The goal of the course is to help administrators better understand and use the First Amendment in their respective schools. That, in turn, we hope will help high school students better prepare themselves as citizens.

You see, a 2005 national survey of 112,000 high school students, 308 principals and 7,889 teachers showed that America’s high schools are leaving the First Amendment behind. Schools, according to the survey conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut and commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, are doing a poor job in teaching the First Amendment, which is the core of our basic freedoms.

J-Ideas and other scholastic journalism advocacy groups have long worked to train teachers and students in the working of the First Amendment and media law. The 692 course is the first concerted effort to better prepare administrators.

The same Knight study showed that principals themselves need to brush up a bit on their knowledge of the Bill of Rights. Fifty percent of the 308 principals polled erroneously believe that the government has the right to restrict indecent material on the Internet. Three in 10 do not know that Americans have the legal right to deface the American flag as a means of political protest.

In addition, 40 percent polled in the Knight survey said they felt that the American educational system was not doing a good job in teaching students about basic freedoms. And 70 percent said that Americans in general do not appreciate the First Amendment the way they ought to.

McKinney said that a major thrust of the course is to address Supreme Court decisions that define the rights of student publications. “We want to explore those sensitive issues” of censorship, he said.

Among those is the 1988 Supreme Court ruling Hazelwood vs. Kuhlmeier, which allows student press censorship in limited circumstances, but is often misunderstood by administrators who feels it gives them blanket control over the content of student media.

The Knight study of principal attitudes showed that many administrators feel that students should not be trusted to publish freely in their schools. Seventy-five percent polled said that students should not be allowed to report controversial issues without the prior approval of school authorities.

The Ball State course addressed that issue by focusing on the positive role that student media can play in a high school.

The initiative to bring this course to administrators is part of a national reform effort that J-Ideas is undertaking to fortify the Bill of Rights in our schools. If successful, we hope the Teachers College course will become a regular part of the Ball State curriculum. We’re also hoping other colleges of education will replicate the effort.

We feel the course is coming at the right time. Student media is endangered. One-in-5 high schools nationwide has no form of student media at all. Forty percent of those schools disbanded student media in the last five years.

Teachers and students can’t reverse that trend overnight. They need a little help from their principal.

(Watson is director of J-Ideas and assisted in course development and instruction for “The Administrator and the First Amendment. He is co-teaching the course with McKinney. Information from the Star Press of Muncie, Ind., was used in this report.)