Here’s a sampling of the coverage related to Newton School Superintendent David Fleishman’ plagiarizing Gov. Deval Patrick in a commencement speech.
- The original Lions Roar article
- The TAB’s story (with comments from School Committee Chair Matt Hills)
- The Globe’s page one story (with video)
Hilarious – in its final print edition, which is the one for the archives, the Globe ended up going with the headline “Newton superintendent fined for use of Patrick’s words.”
This, after using the headline “Newton superintendent in plagiarism flap” for most of the day.
And the article itself uses the words “failure to credit Governor Deval Patrick.”
The article’s only uses of the word plagiarism are in reference to the Mansfield superintendent, the disciplinary policy described in the Newton South student handbook, and Superintendent Fleishman “declining to say whether the similarities between the passages constituted plagiarism.”
I’d love to know the chain of events that led the Globe to essentially retract its use of the word “plagiarism,” especially in the headline of the final edition story. I can only posit that Superintendent Fleishman leads a very charmed life indeed.
“He declined to say whether the similarities between the passages constituted plagiarism…”
THIS is precisely the problem. He has no moral authority to preside over a school system that punishes CHILDREN for the same offense.
Academic integrity is fundamental to our children’s learning. He hasn’t even fully acknowledged his own mistake. It is unfair for our CHILDREN to face harsher consequence than an adult, an educational professional at that.
This is ultimately about our children’s education. Education that isn’t just the academics, but learning about life. What message are we sending our children if they face harsher consequences than our superintendent, with absolutely no justification for the difference in treatment?
Are these Newton values?
Once again I am confused; this time because of irregularities in the media coverage of DF’s statement. There appears to be two different versions offered by the TAB and V14.
The TAB version looks to be written by a teenage high school student, whose primary language is not English. I do not possess the editing skills of an English teacher, yet I see 5 errors in DF’s statement. I would say that these mistakes would preclude him from receiving a high grade, if this was a high school writing assignment. The V14 version of DF’s statement has 4 of the 5 mistakes corrected.
If the V14 version is the true version, then someone at the TAB should be fired, or at least fined a week’s pay for a poor performance. I am also not a lawyer, yet I would say DF has the basis for a deformation lawsuit against the TAB given the sensitivity of the topic, which necessitated he write the statement. If the TAB version is the correct one, then DF has friends at V14, who cleaned up his statement to make it look as if he applied time and effort to write it.
And since there are two posted versions, I would suspect there is a third version in which DF actually apologizes rather than just offer an explanation for what he should have done. It is no surprised that the SC is protecting DF. After all they have a track record of behaving like his big brother protecting him from bullies such as me.
The typos in the TAB’s version of David’s statement belonged to the TAB, and I have corrected them.
Emily, thank you for clearing up the confusion. I doubt I am the only one who noticed the errors in your printed version. Given the topic involved here, the writing skills and ethics of our superintendent, I think the TAB owes DF a public apology at least on your website and not just a correction and explanation on V14.
Here’s a nice piece from Network World.
…and “Supergate” was the subject of a Washington Post blog entry yesterday afternoon.
One of the comments in the blog piece mentioned by Michael reminds us the Deval’s words were stolen before — by Pres. Obama (then Senator). Maybe Deval missed his calling? http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8570.html
Emily, you latest article about this issue, the one titled: “Chairman says Newton School Committee met three times to discuss plagiarism allegations” has a significant error. Here is the opening paragraph:
“A day after the Newton School Committee fined Superintendent David Fleishman just more than $5,000 for borrowing material from a speech given by Gov. Deval Patrick, residents are asking whether the committee should have been more open in their response to the allegations of plagiarism.”
If the SC fined DF $5,000 for “borrowing material” he would have a legitimate beef with the SC. He was fined for “using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own, (or) by not crediting the original author” as defined by dictionary.reference.com.
We are allowed (even encouraged by teachers) to borrow other’s material and thoughts as long as we give due credit to the source. Call me a nitpicker. I consider the semantics surrounding this story critical since we are discussing the ethics of the top person in our educational system and his responsibility to be a positive role model for our 12,400+ students under his direction.
BTW, I tried to comment directly to this article on your website. Let me say, your technology is not user friendly like V14. After typing my comment there, I finally just deleted it, and offer my comment here. This could be a reason for why there are virtually no comments on your blog webpages as compared to V14.