Looks like the FCAT is getting ready to become the "F-word"-CAT:
Students say they hear a lot of profanity on television, and a high school easing its penalties for swearing now says television is where they should look for model language. Boca Raton Community High School students used to be suspended from school for cursing. But school administrators found that last year, some of their best students were getting suspended, sullying otherwise clean records.This year, Principal Geoff McKee said students caught swearing would get a less severe penalty...Students have been told to model their choice of words on television newscasts. The newscasters improvise without using profanity, McKee said.
"It's the only place where they work to have language that's acceptable to all," McKee said.
Simply amazing that McKee doesn't suggest students model their language habits on their home life. This makes one of several assumptions, all of them ugly: (1) that parents cuss so much nowadays that children are forced to turn to TV to learn proper English, (2) that children don't listen to their parents at all, but will listen to TV, or (3) that children are home so little but glued to the TV so much that newscasters are their best role models.
Posted by kswygert at September 29, 2005 02:56 PM