Forget Glee Club and Football – This High School Has a Death Panel!

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Kimberly Paxton
Activist Post

Critics of the public school system will be pleased to know that St. Joseph-Ogden High School in Illinois is preparing kids for the future by teaching them practical skills.

That’s right – 15 and 16 year olds just had an assignment on how to distribute limited medical resources amongst a small sampling of the population. They got to pick who deserves to live and who deserves to die.

The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis. 

“Unless they receive this procedure, they will die,” the lesson states. 

But there’s a problem. The local hospital only has enough machines to support six patients. 

“That means four people are not going to live,” the assignment states. “You must decide from the information below which six will survive.” 

According to the worksheet I received, the student opted to spare the doctor, lawyer, housewife, teacher, cop and Lutheran minister. 

The others weren’t so lucky. 

Among those unceremoniously dispatched to the hereafter were an ex-convict, a prostitute, college student and a disabled person. (source)

At least these students will leave high school job-ready. They’ll be all set to serve on the much-speculated Obamacare Death Panels.

The principal of St. Joseph-Ogden , Brian Brooks, says this perspective is all a big misunderstanding.

The assignment you are referring to is not a “Death Panel” assignment. The assignment is one in the sociology unit of our Introduction To Social Studies class. The purpose of the assignment is to educate students about social values and how people in our society unfortunately create biases based off of professions, race, gender, etc. The teacher’s goal is to educate students in the fact that these social value biases exist, and that hopefully students will see things from a different perspective after the activity is completed. The teacher’s purpose in the element of the assignment you are referring to is to get students emotionally involved to participate in the classroom discussion, and to open their minds to the fact that they themselves have their own social biases. The assignment has nothing to do with a “Death Panel.” 

We encourage parents to contact their son/daughter’s teachers if they have any concerns about an assignment in the classroom. That line of communication typically clears up any potential misunderstanding. (source)

Kimberly Paxton is a staff writer for the Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. She is based out of upstate New York.