The Atlanta Journal Constitution – Maureen Downey
“In this age of smart phones, we are treated to a never-ending stream of murky videos showing allegedly errant teachers. With the national appetite for titillating news, we are also served up daily accounts of silly decisions by schools, such as the teacher at a private preschool last week who sent a note home reprimanding a mother for packing Oreos in her daughter’s lunch. I don’t share many of those stories here on the blog as they have no policy implications for any other school, teacher or student. Most accounts of these teachers-done-something-crazy incidents are one-sided. Because of school privacy rules, we only get the outraged parent’s view, which can be summed up as, “My child did nothing wrong. She/he is the victim. The school is at fault.” Sometimes, the school is at fault, but there’s no way to make an accurate assessment based on a six-second video or the lone account of a student or parent. We need more facts, including what led to the altercation. Parents who tell TV reporters their child was not a threat weren’t in the school and can’t tell us what the teacher or other students felt.”(more)