[This means a link to politechbot.com would be verboten since (FWIW) the site includes banner ads. Not to mention other news sites. --Declan] ********* Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 12:20:47 -0400 From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnsonat_private> Organization: Real Measures Subject: New NYC Board of Ed. Web Publishing Policy - REALITYCHECK, please. (Forwarded from WWWEDU list) John Elfrank-Dana wrote: > > I hope everyone is having a good time at NECC. > > The new BOE policy for publishing web pages here in NYC is the > following. > 1. All schools (1100 of them) are supposed to submit their web sites > (even those of us who have been hosting independently for years), and > their teachers' sites to the Board of Ed. server. > 2. A district censor is supposed to review all the material of each site > and have it moved to the public viewing area, assuming it's in > compliance with the new acceptable use policy, which includes no links > to sites that have a commercial advertisement. The censors will move > the content along at "their earliest possible convenience." > 3. No chats or asynchronous bulletin boards allowed! > > Anyone who has ever web mastered an active school or class web site that > functions as a real communications hub for timely information and class > dialogue should be equally dismayed as me. > > The policy will go in force Sept. 1. They won't even tell us how much > disk space we will have. They also refuse to support FrontPage > extensions (many of us use them to create active pages and discussions > forums for our classes). One practical outcome of this policy: The > Board's AUP is in Adobe Acrobat, but I can't link for our visitors to > download the Acrobat Reader because Adobe has ads on its site!! 2. Our > e-books collection, which VATEA funded for thousands of dollars, won't > work because it requires a web server on location. 3. No discussion > boards for class discussions (protected or not). > > This policy was conceived by Board of Ed. lawyers and techs who are not > now nor have been educators. It's another slap in the face to teachers > as professionals. It's like the doctors under managed care who have > lost control of their practice. For teachers who use the Internet as an > instructional tool, this is very heavy-handed policy. > > Are other districts implementing similar policies? If so, how has it > been going? What organizations, if any, have an interest in this kind > of policy? What rights, if any, do teachers have to control the content > of their instruction? Is this an intrusion into teacher practice? > > Regards, > > John Elfrank-Dana > Web Master/ Social Studies Teacher > Murry Bergtraum High School > http://www.bergtraum.org/ushistory > johnat_private ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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