Just fine, thank you.
But some teachers seem determined to disturb the sleep of people who do research they dislike. When Heritage’s Jason Richwine co-authored a study on teacher pay, he received a message from his child’s second grade teacher asking him, “How do you sleep at night?”
Note that the teacher did not ask him to describe the source of the data analyzed or defend the interpretation of results. The teacher was just engaged in bullying, a practice that schools say they are trying to discourage. And part of the bullying is the not so subtle reminder that the teacher has Richwine’s children all day. Parents are (at least partially) compelled to send their children to the care of adults who may threaten you if you say things they dislike.
Imagine a doctor similarly bullying a patient who advocated for reductions in Medicare reimbursement rates. I imagine the doctor could face disciplinary action from licensing authorities for unethical conduct. If teachers want to be treated as professionals, then they have to abide by professional norms of behavior, including separating one’s personal feelings from one’s job.
Most teachers do behave professionally, but these outbursts are not as rare as they should be. Unfortunately, the teacher unions and their advocates, like Diane Ravitch and Valerie Strauss, encourage strident views and confrontational tactics that make unprofessional behavior far more likely.
Long run, it’s a bad strategy for teachers to get their way in policy disputes by threatening and intimidating parents. It takes a couple hundred ads about teachers buying school supplies with their own funds to counter one such incident.
