in Hettinger, North Dakota, U.S.A., with a wide assortment of objects from the homesteading days of the area (& a little beyond) to the near present, I did a few months volunteer work there a couple years ago, & have donated to the level of “sodbuster member” in the past
here one can find yesteryear cookware, dental instruments, hair dresser equipment, arrowheads, old fashioned children’s toys, a display about the Yellowstone Trail (Highway 12), Ford cars from the 1920s, portraits of many of the settlers of the area, political button pins from decades gone by, etc.

Would you want your child’s teacher wearing a political button while teaching in the classroom? Is it free speech, or pushing politics on children?

That’s the question being dealt with today inside a New York Federal courtroom. The United Federation of Teachers Union has sued the Department of Education to reverse a long standing policy banning political campaign buttons at school.

Lawyers for the United Federation of Teachers and it’s President Randi Weingarten (pictures at mic stand) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court last Friday, claiming that their teacher’s first amendment rights are being violated with the Deapartment of Education’s “no-button wearing policy”. The UFT and it’s teachers argue that they’ve been wearing these types of pins for over 25 years, and that there has never been a complaint from students or parents, and if anything, the buttons encourage discussions on current events, so what’s the problem now?

The buttons handed out by the UFT union reflect the UFT’s candidate of choice, Barack Obama, though teachers and DOE staff have been told by the union they can wear whatever kind of pins they want.

The board of education policy states that that all Department of Education staff are to maintain a neutral position at all times when it comes to political candidates while they are on duty or in contact with students, and that rule has been on the books for years.

We interviewed Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Here is a portion of the transcript from our interview.

“I don’t want the teachers on one side or the other of those issues what ever side she may be on. Our kids got enough on their plate , and we don’t need teachers to play a sort of political agitated role. Parents concerns are the same concerns I have, they don’t want their kids being politically influenced by teachers political views-they don’t want their kids uncomfortable.”

When I asked Chancellor Klein why the board has never enforced the rule before this election, he told us that he didn’t know that teachers had been wearing buttons in the past, but now that he knows what’s been going on, he wants it to stop.

This issue is not a new one for teachers and school boards – last week, employees at the University of Illinois reportedly received an email banning political pins on campus. In Santa Cruz, high school teachers were forced to remove their “Educators for Obama” buttons after some McCain supporting parents complained.

There was a hearing early this morning in court with both sides arguing their case. A decision could be made very soon on this. I’m wondering what you think about all this? Let us know.

As I noted in the Political Web, Barack Obama has successfully penetrated the web to increase support and funding for his campaign.  Back in 2004 blogs were influential, however social networks like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube were not.  Actually, Facebook and YouTube didn’t even exist back then.  With over 150 million combined monthly visitors these three sites are becoming a powerful political tool and Obama is doing a better job utilizing them.

However, what I find most interesting is that even with the massive influence of the web on this election none of the candidates are spending a lot of money online.  Since the campaign began in February 2007, $238 million has been spent on television ads but only $4 million online.  Why the huge disparity?

With the internet everyone has a voice, and a video camera.  If a candidate can inspire the people to do the advertising for him (it was him/her) then there is no reason to spend money online.  As any internet startup knows, viral marketing is the most beneficial and desired form of advertising money can’t buy.  Obama definitely has online viral marketing working to his advantage.  If the average person was able to influence television and broadcast videos for free I would imagine presidential candidates would only be spending money on political buttons.