From CANOE.
Excerpt:
An Edmonton high school teacher suspended for giving zeros was officially given the axe Friday in a letter from the Edmonton Public School Board.
[…]The Ross Sheppard physics teacher — suspended last spring after he gave a student a zero for not handing in an assignment — now plans to seek legal council and file an appeal.
[…]Despite the months of uncertainty and scrutiny over his controversial teaching decisions, Dorval says he doesn’t regret his actions.
“I keep saying I will never regret it,” he said. “If students don’t do the work, they don’t deserve the mark and I stand by that.”
It’s important for children to learn when they are young and the stakes are low that there are consequences for choices. Punishing teachers who try to teach this to children early does no favors to the children. The world is a tough place, and it’s better to learn that when it’s relatively easy.
The public school board made a mistake by firing this teacher. It says a lot that teachers can do almost anything wrong and not be fired, but that they can be fired for doing the right thing. That’s another reason why the public school monopoly needs to be broken up.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
As a public school teacher, I couldn’t agree more. I find one of the most frustrating trends in education is the tendency to decide policy based on emotions instead of logic.
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I wanted to be an English teacher – that was my first choice for a career. But then I saw how unions can make you strike and how they teachers have no power to make children learn, and parents don’t want to partner with the teachers to make the kids learn but instead attack the good teachers who want the kids to learn, and I said “not for me”.
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Fired or suspended? Both bad, of course. But there is a difference.
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“An Edmonton high school teacher suspended for giving zeros was officially given the axe Friday in a letter from the Edmonton Public School Board.”
Given the axe means fired. He was suspended first, then fired.
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So, teachers can’t give bad grades when students don’t do the work. It’s socialism in education. Everyone gets a “good grade” even if they don’t work for it. And, of course, that teaches students to be lazy. With policies like that, we shouldn’t be surprised at declining test scores and high school graduates that can’t read. If you encourage laziness by removing the consequences, fewer and fewer students will actually make the effort to learn.
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“That’s another reason why the public school monopoly needs to be broken up.”
Excellent point! It is time for school vouchers (or some tax-break equivalent). This would produce some much needed competition in education, and that competition will do what competition always does – create incentive for improvement.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to require parents who wish to provide their kids a better education than is available in public schools to fund *both* a public school system (which they do not use) and also fund a private school (or fund the costs of home school) for their children.
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What in the world is going on? If an assignment isn’t done, it’s a zero. Period.
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