Bring em out, bring em out!
While being nosy on Pharyngula I came across this comment and...well, the unsweetened tea flew out my nose.
Dallas school accused of staging fights
The Dallas school system was rocked by allegations Thursday that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare-knuckle brawls inside a steel cage.
The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators.
"More than anything, I'm in shock and disbelief — shocked that this could ever occur and shocked that it would be condoned by a professional administrator," said Jerome Garza, a member of the Dallas school board.
Okay. First off...I'm not even going to front today--letting students just duke it in a semi-controlled environment? Not that bad of an idea. My high school was prone to so many gang fights and random outbreaks that we actually did unofficially propose something like that. Sometimes it just gets THAT serious. In our case, the plan was to offer to let the students fight in hopes that they'll chicken out--because in all but the most serious cases, yeah, if there was no crowd or no administrators nearby the fight would eventually just disintegrate.
NOW
THIS STORY
First off...a steel cage? What in the Vince MacMahon hell? Where did they even GET a steel cage? And why was it necessary? I'm going to need to know ALL of that, in that order.
Secondly, uh, something about this school was apparently already shady as hell so I'm really questioning their true motives behind the little steel cage set up--I'm still really needing to know where they got a steel goddamn cage and who approved this.
The allegations came to light during a grade-fixing investigation that eventually cost the high school its 2005 and 2006 state basketball titles. School officials were suspected of altering students' grades so that they could remain eligible to play for South Oak Cliff, a perennial basketball powerhouse in one of the poorer sections of the city.
Hmm...fixing grades for sports? And now we're holding steel fight cages (which apparently served as entertainment for the teachers too, wow) I want to follow this damn money trail because it is wild.
When you see me in the streets shawty you don't know me...
Lastly, okay, no parent in their right mind is going to say "steel cage fights for disruptive students? Cosign!" (or at least I don't think) but hiding this shit from the parents for so long is just all out wrong.
...wait, is there anything about this that's RIGHT? This school gets two thumbs down and a vehement BOO'ing for stupid ass antics and endangering students (yeah it took a while to bring that little fact up didn't it).
