They can't be fired/fined/reprimanded, or is there no will to do it?
As I understand it, it's exceptionally hard to fire teachers within the American school system -- it takes evidence of sexual misconduct or something similarly precipitous, and it's expensive, time-consuming, and legally hazardous. Even those charges aren't a sure bet. A teacher of mine in high school was suspended on sexual harassment charges -- well-founded ones from what I heard, although I have no direct knowledge -- leading to a lengthy punitive process that involved, among other things, investigators taking students out of their classes and interrogating them about the allegations. He was back in his classroom before the year was out.
Needless to say, ordinary incompetence won't do it. I don't think implicit racism would either, as long as it stayed implicit -- wearing a KKK hood into the classroom would probably be beyond the pale. Probably.
I understand that it next to impossible to fire teachers, unless you hit on extreme hot button issues.
Sex with students is number 1. But I'd expect the long knives to come out for racism/sexism/homophobia as well, at least in some jurisdictions. Likely not in others. That's why I was asking about what region of the country we're talking about.
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