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Children aren’t the only ones victimized by bullies. A survey of teachers in the United Kingdom found that one in four has been targeted by students, parents and colleagues. The worst offenders were among senior staff. The survey, conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, found that bullying of teachers took the form of verbal insults and derogatory comments. Of the 900 staff surveyed, 50 per cent reported being bullied by senior staff members, 25 per cent said they had been targeted by students and 23 per cent said parents were the culprits.
A solution to education underfunding
Nathan Bootz, superintendent of Ithaca Public Schools, in Michigan, in a letter to the editor of the Morning Sun (May 12, 2011), asked Governor Rick Snyder to turn the state’s schools into prisons. Following is an excerpt from Bootz’s letter: "Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children. This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future? Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future ... by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison."
