[ClearCase_guy]

Free Republic seems divided on this issue. Some see the teacher as a bully, some see the teacher as a tough instructor who doesn't like it when students don't work.

For me, it comes down to school choice. Would you want your child to go to a school with teachers like this? Some would. Some wouldn't.

With tax-payer funded government schools, many people feel they have little say in the matter -- but they should. School choice would diminish the number of students who get exposed to teachers who "do it wrong" -- and would thereby help define what it means to "do it wrong".

[Kirkwood]

When I was in elementary school we had a bully teacher. She picked on one kid on a daily basis. She called him disgusting names instead of using his real name and beat him nearly daily with a ruler or a pointer. This was in a time and place when teachers could freely use corporal and mental punishment without any repercussions. The following year, the teacher was replaced with a very sweet, gentle woman that we all loved. The kid moved to another school district and we never heard what happened to him, but we were all witnesses to the mental and physical abuse. I think we all had mental abuse from this because I hated going to school at that time because of the fear of being beaten. That constant bullying had a negative effect on everyone in the class and we were powerless to stop it. This was about 50 years ago and I still clearly remember seeing the teacher torture that kid with a ruler trying to draw blood from his hands or break his fingers. One time she broke a pointer against his back by whipping him. She terrorized all of us by singling out the weakest.

[az_gila]

The school is not a regular publik skool.

It is a charter school that requires an application for entrance. If the parents don't like it, they can just transfer their kids.

The parent's guide is here -

http://desertspringsacademyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/2012-13parenthandbook.doc

[wintertime]

If our Founding Fathers could see how we treat children in Prussian-model schools ( private, government, or charter) they would be horrified. Nearly all of our human ancestors would be appalled!

When our Founding Fathers advocated education for our nation's children, they likely had their own educations in mind: homeschooling, private tutoring, a very few years of one room schooling organized by local parents, Sunday schools, dame schools, apprenticeships, and private home-based academies to prepare the brightest ( who could afford it) for entrance into college as very **young** teens. And...All of it was likely faith based. I wonder if the word “secular” even existed in 18th century and, if it did, “secular education” would have struck our Founding Fathers as an oxymoron.

If government had never interfered with the free market in education I wonder what varied opportunities would now be available today to our nation's children, and , if by now, the free market would have weeded out the worst practices and rewarded the most effective.