Education Law

The Fine Line of Teacher Regulation (Because They Do Dumb Things)

I think probably the thing I post most about on this blog is teachers doing dumb things. These stories are just always going to catch headlines. For instance, just this week we have: 

Teachers at a mental health facility building a "fight club" where students were allowed to fight one another while teachers watched.

Two (2!) middle aged teachers at the same school having sex with a 13 year old student (without each other's knowledge --- just wacky). 

To compensate for that, states regulate teachers through various means. But, that can go too far and become impractical. For instance, Iowa doesn't know what to do about their driver's ed. teachers that get into accidents. They have a policy in place that those teachers should be suspended, but they don't have the bureaucracy in place to actually enforce that. In my mind, that is too much state involvement. No doubt that teachers of driver's ed. should be good drivers, but do we really need state oversight on this? Do we really need someone at the state combing through driving records and determining what is and what is not worthy of suspending driver's ed. teachers? Probably not as this can be taken care of at the local level (if at all).

So, it's a fine line on teacher regulation and one that is going to continue to generate lots of stories into the future.

H/T Scott McLeod

Full post as published by Edjurist on March 11, 2009 (boomark / email).