The Worst of the Worst

I was re-scanning my copy of Collective Bargaining in Education and came across this link to an article in the National Review. It gives a pretty lurid overview of what it's taken to fire some teachers who really, truly deserved it. For example:

Consider the case of Carolyn White. A fourth-grade teacher at the nationally acclaimed Watchung elementary school in suburban New Jersey, the 48-year-old teacher had logged 27 years in the classroom. She was kind to her students, but she would disappear from the classroom for long periods. Her homework assignments were confusing, and due dates changed at a whim. Her written comments to students were indecipherable. In May 1996, as her students were heading back to their classroom after gym, a 5-year-old girl asked to stop in the lavatory. The child emerged holding a lipstick case that she had picked up. She handed her find to a teacher's aide, who opened it and discovered five vials, two of them filled with cocaine.

Meanwhile, back in the classroom, Miss White had begun a frantic search. ''I lost something,'' she told her students in a panic. She ordered two boys to rifle through their classmates' backpacks. When her lipstick case didn't turn up, she began frisking the bewildered children. Eventually she was arrested and carted off to jail for drug possession. The district superintendent suspended her almost immediately. But she continued to receive her $56,000 salary throughout the months-long criminal hearings. It was part of her teachers-union contract.

There's more in the article.