Report Notes Impact Of Student Behavior

By Darcia Harris Bowman

Washington

The threat of lawsuits and the behavior of small numbers of persistent troublemakers are interfering with classroom learning and driving teachers from the profession, a new report says.

Nearly eight in 10 teachers say that students are quick to remind them that they have rights or that their parents can sue, according to the report, based on a national random survey of 725 middle and high school teachers and 600 parents of children in those grades.

Forty-nine percent of the teachers surveyed said they had been accused of unfairly disciplining a child, and 55 percent agreed that when districts back down from assertive parents, that inevitably...