And How Will It Affect the Home-Schooled?

If you were to move to England, not only would you have to learn a new language and figure out how to drive on the wrong side of the road, but if your kid is too disruptive in school, you might have to pay a fine or even go to jail.

So says new legislation proposed by Britain's Labor Labour party. Apparently, the schools are as out of hand as in the movie Lean on Me.

A few things to consider. First, no kid is going to tell his parent that someone is disrupting his learning, because he'll be afraid that the offender will find out who ratted him out.

Second, you're going to see a scenario where ever bad grade is blamed on some kid causing distractions, which will lead back to my first point:

MOM: Why did you get an F in Math?
KID: Uh...there were, uh, like, disruptions.
MOM: By who? Who disrupted the class?
KID: Some kid.
MOM: What kid? What's his name?
KID (afraid to get anyone in trouble, considering the bad grades were due to stupidity, not distractions): Uh...I don't know his name.
MOM: You don't know the name of your own classmate?
KID: He...uh...wasn't in my class. He ran into class and, like, disrupted us, then ran out. I didn't know his name.
MOM: He runs into your class every single day?
KID: Uh...I have to go to the bathroom?

My favorite part is this: "Parents will be encouraged to make representations first to the school and then to an impartial ombudsman."

I can only imagine how that meeting would go:

ME: Yes. So, when you say Jackson was making [air-quotes] "farting noises" during the lesson on the War of Independence, I contend that he was exhaling and the sound was refracted by his hands accidentally. Also, consider that he might have been trying to make the sound of a drum, which I understand was used during the Revolutionary War along with a fife of some sort, a sound which, while arguably but not definitively disruptive, was an attempt to add some aural flavor to the discussion. Note, too, that Jackson might have really been farting. Is there a law against that? I'm about to fart right now...will you punish me, too? Isn't this why we fought for independence against the British, after all?

Read more...