failure of american high schools

Grounded teen killed family before going to prom

Saturday, July 22, 2006; Posted: 8:38 a.m. EDT (12:38 GMT)


Jeffrey Pelley enters the courthouse to hear the jury's verdict.
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Indiana
Crime, Law and Justice
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Manage Alerts | What Is This? SOUTH BEND, Indiana (AP) -- A jury convicted a man Friday of killing his father, stepmother and two stepsisters 17 years ago inside their church parsonage home so he could attend some high school prom events.

The St. Joseph County jury found Jeffrey Pelley, now 34, guilty on four counts of murder after deliberating more than 25 hours since Wednesday. Pelley faces up to 260 years in prison when he is sentenced September 15.

Prosecutors accused Pelley, a high school senior at the time, of using a shotgun to kill his father, the Rev. Robert Pelley; stepmother, Dawn; and stepsisters, Janel, 8, and Jolene, 6, in April 1989 at their home next to the Olive Branch Church of the United Brethren in Lakeville, about 10 miles south of South Bend.

Investigators said Pelley was angry because his father had grounded him for stealing and would allow him to attend only the prom dance, causing him to miss a prom dinner, a bowling alley party and an outing the next day at an amusement park outside Chicago.

Pelley was not charged in the deaths until August 2002, when authorities reinterpreted evidence. Pelley was living in Dade City, Florida, when he was arrested.

Prosecutors alleged Pelley shot his family members on the evening of the prom, disposed of the shotgun and shells, took a shower, put his clothes in the washer and left for the prom.

Pelley's defense attorneys argued there wasn't enough time for him to have done all that and still make it to the LaVille High School prom.

They also said no one could commit such a gruesome attack and still act "normal" during the prom events, as his friends testified during the trial.

The defense also questioned the decision by investigators not to look for fingerprints at the crime scene.

Police officers testified during the trial that they didn't think they would find any usable prints and they thought it would be a waste of time because Pelley was their main suspect.

The shotgun used in the killings was never found.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reser

 

behavioral problems

i have talked and read about some peoples high school experience ...

It seems there are many students dropping out of high school because the schools dont give a proper learning environment due to student safety issues and other distractions....

if you get a kazillion kids into a building ; they all will set up their own little social networks that compete with one another and not just act as one on learning the topics and graduating for a job....


look at the columbine example......

you can blame the school all you want ...but its also the kids with the many dysfunctional backgrounds they represent ......



i was checking out a site called www.wannalearn.com



i thought it had interesting topics that would be good for high schools like self-esteem, social skills, and other behavioral self -help ...

learning is not just based on the intellectual aptitude of an individual but also the emotional fullfilment in their character that brings the driving force or will to learn .....


many kids dropp out and later have low self-esteem and never want to try .....which becomes an ugly pimple thats waiting to burst out in their later years in life .....


the problem is distractions from learning their courseworks and esteem .....

in the teen years , people begin to assess their emotional - and intellectual identities .... choose their role models....try to discover their needs..... its a very stressful.....

they may come different backgrounds..... and they will all have some dysfunction....

what are the solutions to stop distractions...?


create online high-schools connected with regular high schools so there would be less contact with the students and more concentration of the course work .....


otherwise getting a bunch of kids with different problems is like getting a few mental patinets out for lunch....

any feedback on the the concept of an online highschool with podcasts that would save alot of commute time ....

 

Very thoughtful comment, AGS. I agree with you. Kids have to be taught skills to help them develop their emotional intelligence, not just their ability to memorize some silly battle or some mathematical formulae. To me it is as important if not more that kids learn to master their emotions, the pressure from other kids, to cope woth failure and success, and with those other persons who are different, or how to accept yourself if you are the one who is different, etc ... And definitely, that relation you mentioned between self steem and success in schools (and certainly in life in general) does exist IMO.

BTW, I don't think it is exclusively a failure of American schools. Over here we have similar cases. The diference is, perhaps, that kids over here don't have access to firearms.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Very interesting.

 

In other words, there was no physical evidence, the cops didn't think they needed any evidence because they already decided who was guilty, and 12 stupid people agreed. No doubt, since the prosecutor would have had no case in a situation like this, he simply whipped up the jury by demonizing the defendant. Hmm.

 

And this you call evidence of the failure of American high schools? Have you ever thought of doing an academic study and counting the total number of high school students who do kill their families and then compare that to the total number of people who actually somehow manage to make it through high school without killing their families? I'd bet that the percentage of high school students who do kill their families is much, much smaller than the percentage who don't. And, by the way, what is the connection between this man being convicted of killing his family and the failure of American high schools? Should high schools have a mandatory course called Thou Shalt Not Kill Thy Family? Hmm.

 

Re: Re: failure of american high schools

no , i didnt write any comparison on the article and my subject on failure of high schools.....


it is very unfortunate for the tradgic loss of his family and how the media report the news .....


from the above person who had written a comment , i definitely agree social behavior should be part of humanities curriculum in high schools ....

it would be good for students to have creative writing or speeches on their attitudes, beliefs , securities, flaws ....

etc ....

 

Re: Re: Re: failure of american high schools

1. But you did post an article about a man convicted of killing his family while in high school and you did title it "the failure of American high schools."

2. Agreed.

3. Why? Schools exist to impart knowledge of academic subjects. Knowledge of right and wrong should come from the family.

4. Maybe. But then maybe not.

 

I'm thinking more "maybe not". If High School is still the place it was when I was there some 20+ years ago, and I suspect that for the most part it is; then exposing ones attitudes, beliefs, securities (do we mean insecurities) and flaws is the last thing that will quell social problems in schools.

There is already sufficient visual evidence of a students "flaws" in the eyes of his peers without adding more fuel to fire taunting and teasing campaigns.

If we really want to solve a big chunk of the social behavior problem in public schools then we need rethink the idea that bigger is better and that diversity is always good.

Big is unmanageable and forced diversity is simply too contrived to be valid in any environment.

Just my thoughts though...

 

Ok stop blaming schools for bad parenting. My parents taught THEY were responsible for my education moral and otherwise and the schools were their to assist them in this. Sure I went to public and military run base schools (last the best around) they pushed me if disabled to be my best. But in the background was my parents that taught me, took me to Church and Temple (my mother was Jewish) and taught me right from wrong. They also saw to it I had every educational advantage extra they could give me. So stop blaming the schools when its not THEIR job to teach morals and values that should be imparted by family.

 

I, too, was thinking more "maybe not." Could you imagine the controversy that would be caused if a high school English teacher announced one day, "All right, class, I want you to take out your paper and pens and write me an essay on 'why I'd like to kill my parents'. " ? Hmm.

 

Amen to that, brother! You are a rare dose of common sense in the modern world, Thomas.

 

AGS, I'm pretty sure most modern high schools also teach capitalization and punctuation. Just a pet peeve, but sentences begin with a capitalized letter, "I", "I'm" etc. are capitalized, and all sentences don't end with "......"

As for your original statement? As JLV stated, you do raise some very thoughtful points. I tend to weigh in more with the "Parents as the primary responsible agent for the child’s success" crowd, but I won't dismiss your arguments outright. It’s refreshing to see someone passionate about a controversial issue and willing to address it, and you did put a lot of thought into it. Bravo on that front.

However, it adds tremendously to your credibility when it isn’t expressed in the same way that most high school students use to text over the cell phone.

 

Another problem is channeling all students towards college. Now I'm sure some students are best served going to a college track but some are best served with solid VOCATIONAL education. I'm a firm believer that a rigorous program of vocational skills geared to making a student an intelligent and adaptable worker. I'm not talking here a trade specifically but the skills in math, science, hands-on technology applications and use of language written and verbal to be trained in many areas. There is no reason a trade education leading to a post secondary trade school or apprenticeship program can't be a good one. In fact many employers locally can't seem to get the kind of workers they need especially in the higher technology areas.

And in some cases like a building trade those jobs will not be exported abroad, and many pay very well.

 

Emotional intelligence should be developed as much as possible in schools. That has nothing to do with morals, and although parents can help, it is also up to the high school teachers to educate the students civically.

If you're a high school student who is different from the rest, crippled, ugly, stutterer, fat, etc,.... your life can be absolutely miserable, a living hell, for not knowing how to deal with those who humilliate you. THis has terrible psychologicla consequences in teenagers. They should learn in schools how to deal with alienation and isolation in a mature way. Thus some of those incidents we unfortunately watch in the news, like Columbine HS, perhaps, could be prevented from happening. Parallely, those who denigrate the different ones should be taught to accept and celebrate diversity.

This is as important as to be taught math or English, IMHO.

 

Each year of my 1st 3 years of the 4-year secondary curriculum (from a third-world educational system) always include the “Youth Development Training (YDT)” subject. As the name suggests, the subject taught us the basic social/life skills. That is in addition to math, science, English, social studies, and vocational education subjects (handicrafts, carpentry, electricity and agriculture). The YDT was a continuation of the “Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC)” subject (taken each year) in the 6-year Elementary curriculum.

And I still remember that for the entire 6 years in elementary as the class starts each morning we were made to sing hymns, including the American-taught song “No Man is an Island, No Man stands alone…”, and other similar meaningful hymns. And after singing the song our teacher moves around to inspect the hygiene of each pupil in the classroom. Part of this daily routine (before the start of the class) was attending the “Flag Ceremony” where we sing our National Anthem, and recite (in unison with the entire school population) the “Pledge of Allegiance” (a pledge of loyalty to God, country, and our freedom [individual and as a sovereign country])

My point being, that if our 3rd world educational system (which just borrowed its practices from the American system) prepares the pupils to be what they ought to be, American high school system couldn’t possibly be what is being pointed out in this thread.

Just a thought…

 

Well, I still say that it is up to the parents to teach the kids good morals ... and if they don't want to, they're incompetent parents who never should have had kids anyways.

 

Felipe, I am also a foreigner, and I am fascinated to read how gracefully and tastefully you use the English language. To me at least, it looks as if it was your mother tongue. It is such a pleasure to read your messages, not only for the content, that it is always rational, reflexive, and well thought out, but also for your magnificent command of the English language.

 

What happens, Ted, is that morals are not universal, and what you and I may think it is good and virtuous, others may abhor it; and the other way around. Students should be taught ethics in schools.

 

I wish I could remember which theologian said something like: give me a child for his first five (or seven) years and I will mold it for life. The entire point was that it is those first five or six or seven years that are the formative years. Whoever has the child for those years fundamentally shapes that person's ethics; after that, you might get some rote memorization or even theorizing about operative levels of morality or situational ethics, but true chatacter formation comes in the early years, before the child is of school age. Therefore, it is the parents' responsibility to teach their kids morals and ethics. I'm tired of parents shirking their responsibility. Besides, in a multi-cultural society, how on earth would teachers know who's ethics or morals we should teach? Especially with the American notions of separation of church and state and keeping God out of the schools.