[lee martell]

This is going to continue until #1. Teachers refuse to join unions or school districts that perpetuate this vicious behavior, #2. Until private and charter schools who do see the damage begin to attract a lion’s share of good teacher’s.
#3. Until parents and students themselves bring this subject to the public forum. That will include parents of the good students suing or exposing the harassers. Their child is being cheated of a public education due to lazy, low wattage truants. If we even have Truant Officers anymore, maybe they will need to be named, shamed and dragged into the courtroom before a certain class of people begin taking school more seriously again. The 47% of the population aka; the blissfully ignorant dummies will need to be told by someone like Oprah, or a currently popular bimbo like Beyonce or their peers that lying about your teacher is no longer cool. In fact, you and your pals may get sued for slander, and put into an alternative school.

[EinNYC]

Lee, I don't know about other cities, but in NYC joining the union is mandatory for employment. The union is doing extremely little to alleviate this problem except for collecting dues from our pockets. As for refusing to join school districts that "perpetuate this vicious behavior", teachers go where there are jobs. They can't be too picky about districts. Private schools don't pay anywhere near what public schools do, AND they don't have the benefits and pension that public schools do. Even your "good students" are kids, and kids tend to go along with what their friends and other kids are doing. Being kids, they do not connect consequences with actions. It would take an absolutely exceptional kid to put up their hand and say "No more!" They might privately think these videos and the whole attitude are wrong, but are intimidated by other students to keep quiet.

It's not only the "low-wattage" kids doing this either. It's any kid who is lazy, spoiled, and doesn't want to work at the level the teacher demands in the classroom, and/or who doesn't want to wean themselves from poor and unproductive classroom behavior, such as using cell phones during a lesson. They resent any use of the word "No" or the phrase "You can't do that." It's also kids who just personally don't like the teacher. So, in addition to hours of writing lessons and grading papers, now the teacher has to be Mr. or Ms. Popularity and emulate Cedric the Entertainer to boot. Believe me when I say that plenty of the aforementioned students are NOT from "a certain class", shamefully. They use their brains to foment vicious mischief when they could be using them to get top grades. I have heard recently that education program enrollment in colleges is down 50%. Why am I not surprised?