Tuesday, June 10, 2008

False Allegations Against Teachers to be Punished in Dallas

Dallas public schools will allow punishment for students who falsely accuse teachers of wrongdoing (Hat tip: Jeff):

Dallas public school trustees approved changes to the district's Student Code of Conduct on Thursday that will allow schools to punish students who make false allegations of wrongdoing against teachers.

Teacher representatives had lobbied for the change because the district must investigate all student allegations, which often results in placing the accused faculty member on paid administrative leave.

Teachers said the removal of faculty members during the investigations leaves colleagues suspicious and the reputations of the accused tarnished.

Under the old rules, if the accusations proved false, the teachers were returned to campus but students faced no consequences. Now, making a false allegation is on par with fighting and drug use. These acts can result in detention, removal from extracurricular activities or in-school suspension.


Okay, none of these punishments sound like much, but it's a start. When kids know they can get away with false allegations with no repercussions, they will do it more often. Hopefully, this ruling will lessen the likelihood of students making false allegations for they can be quite serious. I guess time will tell.

20 Comments:

Blogger Peregrine John said...

Abigail Williams should have been hanged. Let the punishment fit the falsified crime.

12:00 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger Ken Gross said...

I favor the loss of GPA score and a line on the final school report that they made a false allegation.

This is a character defect issue, and if it is addressed with a truly significant consequence then it may save the student (and some of their peers) some grief in life later.

2:01 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger DvntWriter said...

I agree, the punishments for false accusations needs to be more stringent.

I personally favor public acknowledgment and apology for actions, as well as further punishments such as detention, community service (perhaps in the service of the teacher wrongfully accused), or severe docking of citizenship grade (in UT schools we have class credit as well as citizenship credit. Both effect your GPA), etc.

The worst punishment for a junior/high schooler is public humiliation. No kid wants to stand in front of his friends and school peers and say "I screwed up by trying to screw over someone else."

2:09 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger Serket said...

This is a good start and I agree with you that it is only a small improvement.

2:18 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger BobH said...

dvntwriter:

I disagree that "public humiliation" is adequate. As for docking the GPA, that only matters if the kid cares what his/her GPA is. I'd like to see the accuser do jail time or at least several hundred hours of community service if the accusation could result in jail time for the accused. I'd also like to see the accuser's name be made public. Maybe China isn't the best country to emulate, but I've heard that the punishment for false accusation there is the same as the punishment for the crime being accused of.

People respond to incentives.

4:04 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger Marbel said...

That is a good start, though I agree it's not enough. I like the ideas about a line item on the transcript, and some public humiliation - standing next to the person they accused and apologizing. Maybe to the family, too. I suppose some people would think that's too harsh for the child's "poor choices."

4:10 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger DvntWriter said...

BobH:

True, GPA docking only matters to those who actually care about their grades. However, the idea was that multiple "small" punishments add up to being larger ones.

I think jail time would be hard to apply, but hundred of hours of community service (and I particularly like the idea of it being in the service of the teacher they accused) would certainly be a start.

As for public humiliation not being enough - I think it is. A kid would rather suffer in silence than "loose face" with friends or in the eyes of their peers. A public apology to the teacher and school, note on their transcript, etc. as well as local newspapers covering the incident...

These add up to an incentive NOT to falsely accuse someone I think.

4:47 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger John Doiron said...

A bigger problem is that there are so many parents who don't care what their kids do, and are even willing to sue to bring a test up a grade. When I was a kid (I'm 42 now), the punishment from the parents was worse than anything the school might think up, and many parents supported the discipline meted out in school.

7:18 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger SGT Ted said...

The possible punishments are appropriate, but I would make it a permanent part of the students record. A written, public apology to the student body would be appropriate as well. Add expelling to the possible punishments.

The police have their own options in charging someone with making a false statement to the police.

7:22 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger gs said...

I agree with the proposition that a false allegation should be treated as severely as the alleged offense--when the allegation is thoroughly debunked. If there is not enough evidence to validate or disprove an allegation definitively, a tricky situation can arise.

7:36 PM, June 10, 2008  
Blogger Musings from the Smartest Man in the World said...

Make the punishment fit the crime. If a child claims rape, it might not matter if the teacher is cleared. There's still that stigma attached to the teacher. Punishment is supposed to be a deterent.

11:03 AM, June 11, 2008  
Blogger Cara said...

As a former teacher, I am having difficulty sympathizing with the teachers' complaints about this or any other reactionary trend that they have brought upon themselves with their incredibly irresponsible and unprofessional attitudes. I am not referring to the problem of real sexual misconduct by some teachers. My lack of sympathy is about their general and extreme lack of professional integrity and the many different types of abuse and neglect of their students' well being. Children cannot even count on the adults to keep them safe, and many futures are being destroyed by the poor quality of teaching. The teachers' reaction to being confronted with their own extreme integrity problems has been resistance and scapegoating of their students for all the problems. The students are not offered constructive options to solve their problems, and the ones who try are often shut down. The parents are shut down as well. The students have no power to improve the situation, and they are latching on to any weapon they can find to retaliate against the
adults for not meeting their needs. After this trend is shut down, they will latch on to something else.

False accusations of any type of serious misconduct are very painful for the indiviuals who have to go through it. I am not against addressing the reactionary trends, but it will not do any good unless the teachers address their own serious credibility problems. Punishing the students will not teach the students the difference between right and wrong because the teachers are so unethical themselves in so many ways. Those who are not participating directly are covering up for others or turning a blind eye to it. The only thing the are teaching is that people with more power get to abuse and punish people with no power. The students will learn that this particular behavior will no longer be tolerated, but they are just learning the tricks of the power trade. When they grow up and have power, many of them will misuse power as they were taught by adults. Not all of them, of course. Some will feel such a strong sense of injustice that they will resolve not to abuse people with less power. The unethical adults will not have a repuation to worry about. They will go down in history as FAILURES.

Punishing the false accuser does not restore one's reputation. Being exonerated is what restores one's reputation. For teachers, that isn't much. They trashed their own professional reputation a long time ago all by themselves with no help from their students. Excessive concern about one's reputation when one has done nothing to take care of it would be laughable if it were not so tragic for their students.

10:59 PM, June 11, 2008  
Blogger abhaille said...

I work with a teacher who has gone to the wire over student rights. He's had issues as a whistleblower because he called other staff down for abuse to our children.

He's been accused of inappropriate behavior. His hysterical accuser recanted. There were witnesses that said his accuser was hysterical.

Why has he been removed again? He's been removed pending further investigation of a previously resolved matter?

How insane is that?

1:32 AM, June 12, 2008  
Blogger Mike said...

Bobh has a great point. If the penalty for perjury and general bearing false witness is very stringent in terms of criminal punishment people will be more responsible. It makes sense to give them even the identical punishment because that is what they were trying to do to an innocent person. If you accuse an innocent person of murder, and they get executed for it, then that makes you a murderer with your murder weapon the legal system. The same principle should apply to students and faulty who make false accusations that can damage or destroy a good person's name.

12:06 PM, June 12, 2008  
Blogger cinderkeys said...

Cara: I don't have kids and don't know anyone of high school age. What, specifically, has the current generation of teachers been doing to damage its own credibility?

1:46 PM, June 13, 2008  
Blogger Cara said...

Abhaille,

Your friend's situation may be an example of the exact problem that I was talking about. Corrupt school officials encouraging the trend of false accusations by exploiting these situations to try to get rid of ethical teachers who have made complaints about the unethical and unprofessional practices in their school. Now they want to shift the blame to the students. I see this punishment policy as a diversionary tactic to get everyone off their backs about all of the other problems that they want to keep covering up. This new policy will not stop the unethical practices of the teachers and administrators. They will abuse this policy, just as they abuse every other policy.

The decision to support or trash a colleague is NOT based on the validity of the accusations. It is based ENTIRELY on the teacher's pre-existing status within the group. I hope that your friend makes it through this situation successfully. I support and respect teachers who do take a stand for more ethical and professional behavior from their colleagues. I don't see this particular hardship as any worse than any of the other hardships these teachers face. He has already demonstrated that he is willing to take a lot of risk to defend his professional integrity. If he wants to change things, he will have a long, hard road ahead of him. It is up to him to decide how much fight he has in him.

I hope he keeps on fighting.

12:30 PM, June 14, 2008  
Blogger Cara said...

Cinderkeys,

Thank you for taking an interest. I wish I could give you the specifics, but it would take a book. I could never do it justice in a comment. The No Child Left Behind Act has put the information out there to the public about the fact that our schools are in CRISIS. The majority of our teachers are incompetent. They use all kinds of unethical practices to cover it up. There are some teachers who do a decent job in their own classrooms, but it is definitely not a majority. They know what their colleagues are doing, but they do not speak up about it. They don't mind letting their more ethical colleagues get picked off one by one by unethical administrators, while they stand back and watch it happen. They do not hold the group up to any professional standards at all. Everyone does what they want to do. The only standard is don't commit a serious crime, like assaulting students. Even then, they sometimes get away with it.

NCLB gave the teachers the PERFECT opportunity to speak up in large numbers and gain public support, and THEY BLEW IT! If enough teachers in one district stood up together, they could not fire everyone. They decided to keep covering up and blame their students for every problem. IMO, professionals do not do that. Professionals take responsibility for doing a better job.

Again, thank you for taking an interest in the problem. If you are interested in following the specifics of the CRISIS that our schools are in, you may want to check out Alexander Russo's blog, This Week in Education. He is the go-to guy in the edusphere.

12:48 PM, June 14, 2008  
Blogger Unknown said...

The only realistic deterrent in curbing false accusations by students is to make their parents financially responsible. The money would go to cover the teacher's pay, while they wait for the investigation to come to a conclusion, to pay for substitute teachers who has to cover the classes, and to pay for medical costs brought about by such accusations. Teachers often suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after a false accusation leads them to find their name in the paper, their faces on television, and their story on the internet. Many parent’s could care less what their student’s GPA is, or whether they miss out on a school trip, but believe me they will care deeply about pulling cash out of their wallets to pay fines that are accrued by their children as a result of lying about a public school employee.

5:25 PM, June 17, 2008  
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