Another Bad Teacher story - sit on the floor!

Both Joanne Jacobs posted and Kimberly Swygert posted today about a teacher who forced a student to take a test while sitting on the floor. News on the event here and here. The teacher didn't like the shirt the 17-year-old high schools student was wearing. The dress issue wasn't gang related. It wasn't a t-shirt with something offensive. The student was wearing a Denver Bronco jersey. The teacher, John Kelly, also had the other students in the class throw crumpled up paper at the student, because he was a "stinking Denver fan." The teacher said it was all a joke and he was trying to teach the student.

With google news I am sure I could find a news article every day, maybe several of them, about stupid things teachers are doing. And in some ways this is not unexpected. There are over two million teachers in the public schools. When you have a large number of people, almost always there will be a few who do stupid things. The problem I have with the public schools on this issue is so often the teachers have their hands slightly slapped, or don't have any discipline.

Last week we had the teacher who gave his high school freshman an assignment to research internet porn. He may be told not to do it again. There might be some note on his personal record. But after having read dozens of articles like this before, I expect the teacher is probably still teaching right now, and will be teaching for the next five or ten years.

It is hard to expect students to perform at a higher level when we don't demand the teachers perform at a higher level. Right now the public school system asks politely. Then it wrings its hands when there is a problem. But the teacher normally stays on as a teacher. As John Stossel reported in the very worse cases the teacher is kept on, but not allowed to teach. In bad cases the teachers should be fired, there should be consequences.