Tikkabik

Let me say at the outset that Indiana is a state that I'd never move to -- Bonnie and I have already heard from plenty of families who home-school their kids because of all the crap they've been put through by the public school system there.

But this story blows my mind and infuriates me. In short, the parents of a kindergartner who complained all year that his teacher was being mean to him stuck a tape recorder in his pants and were shocked to hear her berate him in front of the class, calling him ignorant and self-absorbed.

A five-year-old. A kid whose parents had tried to get a behavior plan put together, but whose teacher told them that she didn't have the time (to do something that is indisputably part of her job, by the way).

Long story short, the administration suspended the teacher, and the parents are trying to figure out what to do next -- put the kid in another school, and whether to sue the living shit the district into the bronze age (which is precisely what I'd do in their shoes, given the choice).

But here's where it turns weird. The Associated Press reports that the Indiana State Teachers Union has filed a grievance against the district, claiming that it violated the terms of the teacher's contract by suspending her, as it doesn't treating her with "respect and human dignity."

Apparently the teacher's union holds school administrators to a different standard than it expects teachers to show to students.

Listen, I'm not against teachers or their unions, but when I see stuff like this, it makes me sick.