I was amused by this headline in today’s paper: “School struggle with meaning of law: Administrators say moment of silence rule is still unclear.”

I know there’s a lot of controversy over this law, and frankly I don’t think it’s the state government’s responsibility to mandate a moment of silence (shouldn’t they be working on other things, like overriding Blagojevich’s veto on education funding?), but hearing school administrators profess their confusion over what “a moment of silence” means makes me fear for public education.

Really? They’re “struggling” with the meaning of the law? They’re not quite sure what constitutes a “moment”? Here’s what the law (called “The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act”) says:

In each public school classroom the teacher in charge shall may observe a brief period of silence with the participation of all the pupils therein assembled at the opening of every school day. This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.

The act itself isn’t new; what’s new is that they changed the word “may” to “shall” as noted above, making it mandatory. Incidentally, the legislature had to override the governor’s veto to pass it. There didn’t seem to be any confusion about the act when it was optional, but now that it’s mandatory administrators are suddenly befuddled. Maybe they should look up the words in a dictionary, or even online with one of those computers they put in classrooms nowadays.

But here’s my favorite line from the paper:

“At least as it stands now, it’s not costing us any money,” [Don Beard, superintendent of Tremont Community Unit School District 702] said.

Yeah, that’s a good point. This legislation isn’t costing any school any money. Unlike another recent piece of legislation that will cost District 150 taxpayers millions of dollars. Sorry if I’m not more sympathetic with the plight of schools having to muddle through the “trouble” of being quiet for ten seconds a day.