(Lead image from the Washington Post, August 11, 2023.)
A high-school math teacher was, by all accounts, a very good teacher, but his social skills were affected by a streak of anger. During one class a student misbehaved. The teacher reacted far out of proportion to the offense; he pushed the student against a wall. That day the teacher was fired. No cover up, no reassignment. (This story is very anecdotal and may be quite different from what really happened.)
Scandalous behavior is nothing new to MCPS. We witnessed the $9.7 million award following a hazing culture at Damascus High School. The perpetrators were not school district employees, but those covering up the matter were. Joel Beidleman, currently under investigation for serious sexual misconduct, is a long-time MCPS employee. These two incidents prove that MCPS can keep neither employees nor students safe from predators (should Mr. Beidleman be so convicted). That should be no surprise. MCPS is a very large organization with a lot of employees. No matter what the percentage of predators in the general population, MCPS is employing and protecting some of them.
Council Member Luedkte and others have demanded that the investigation into Beidleman be conducted by a state or county inspector general independent of MCPS. We’ve written previously about MoCo’s inspector general and her insistence on collecting revenue from the bag tax when neither she nor anyone else has done any research to determine if it is indeed reducing litter. Does that disqualify her from conducting an investigation as serious as Beidleman’s? Probably not, but there is no denying that an “investigation” is too little and too late.
This is where school choice provides a very important escape route for employees before they become victims.
True, there is no denying the history of predatory or abusive behavior in private schools. Secular or parochial, these institutions hire human beings, and for whatever reason a small percentage of us can cause a whole lot of pain.
So why should school choice and school vouchers provide any relief for teachers and students? Why should teachers support school choice?
Because school choice isn’t only about choice for students and parents; it also makes choice available for teachers. If a work environment is hostile or abusive, a teacher in a private school can seek employment in another school. The more private schools there are, the more competition there will be for excellent teachers, and hence incentive for those schools to guarantee a safe working environment.
That isn’t the case with a corporate, monopolistic school district and its equally corporate, monopolistic teachers’ union. An MCPS teacher in an abusive work environment has nowhere else to go. She is trapped working for the same employer, and the predator may, as in Beidleman’s alleged case, acquire ever more authority over her.
We have a school system that is alienating all its stakeholders: parents, students, teachers, and taxpayers. Outside the world of monopolies, it would have been shut down far before Beidleman showed up uninvited at a party demanding sexual favors. If we really cared about the teachers’ and the students’ physical well being, we would implement school choice.
