‘Teacher Bashing’ Rhetoric Begets Hatred and Violence

The term “bashing” has apparently become so publicly acceptable that a community leader addressing the San Diego city school board recently threatened that parents might resort to “teacher bashing” if improvements are not made in the education of black students.

The dictionary says to bash is to strike violently, and certainly that is what happens in the increasingly frequent incidents of “gay bashing.”

But perhaps Jacqueline Jackson, the director of education for the Urban League of San Diego, misspoke when she addressed the school board. Perhaps she meant to threaten only verbal “bashing.”

That’s of little solace to the thousands of teachers in San Diego County. Such rhetoric is likely to encourage violence and hatred rather than solutions to some very real educational problems facing many black students.

As it is, violence against city school employees is on the rise. There were 26 cases of battery during the last school year, contrasted with 16 the year before. In one case, a woman punched an elementary school principal in the jaw.

While teachers undoubtedly share some of the blame for student problems, as well as the credit for their successes, good teaching alone cannot offset the effects of poverty, drug abuse and lack of parental involvement, which are very real problems.

That will require cooperation between the community and the schools, which was one of the purposes of the “Blueprint for Action,” prepared by a coalition of black organizations.

But no educational reform is likely in an atmosphere of hostility.

Rather, such rhetoric as “teacher bashing”--and the physical threat it implies--is likely to drive the best teachers from the classroom and make future recruiting for schools in black communities more difficult.

Further, it undercuts the positive recommendations in the “Blueprint for Action” and, perhaps most frightening, could send a message to students that violence is an acceptable agent of change.