Why I’m Unfriending Jane Cunningham
Jane Cunningham is the worst thing to happen to Missouri schools since KU pulled ahead in the Border Showdown.
The Republican State Senator made national news Monday when Senate Bill 54, which she sponsored, became law. The new law, popularly called “the Facebook law,” would bar many interactions between teachers and students on social networking sites. Specifically, teachers would not be allowed to “friend” students on the popular website. The law aims to protect students from predatory teachers online.
Obviously, any appropriate steps that can be taken to keep kids safe online and in the classroom is a good thing. Kids should go to school and be safe, period. But this new law eschews the appropriate and goes straight for the ridiculous.
This isn’t the first time I’ve taken issue with Cunningham’s educational policies. One of my first stories as a radio reporter at the Missouri capitol (Oh, how far we’ve come…) was about a bill, sponsored by Cunningham, protecting “intellectual diversity” on college campuses. They layman’s definition of the bill was that professors could not discredit a student for using his/her “personal beliefs” as an argument in class. This being Missouri, what that usually translated to was Christian conservative students now being allowed to use the Bible to argue their points in science class. And in my interview with Cunningham, she basically admitted outright that the purpose of her bill was to protect like-minded conservative students from the “liberal bias” of college professors and courses. The bill ultimately became law, and Cunningham won her first victory in bringing the culture war to the classroom.
Cunningham does it again with the Facebook bill. Instead of focusing on some of the damning issues with Missouri public schools (Last time I checked, St. Louis public schools still had lost accreditation), she takes on a niche social issue that plays politics with legislators’ votes. Of course nobody’s going to vote against child safety on the internet, lest they look pro-online predator! But in this Nancy Grace moment, Cunningham and Missouri legislators completely overlook the benefit of student/teacher interaction on social media sites. Sites like Facebook and Twitter offer a free platform for students to receive help with schoolwork and for teachers to create a one-on-one learning experience. With teacher salaries as abysmal as they are, the fact that these sites are free cannot be stated enough. And one-on-one learning is a growing classroom trend that actually improves student performance and achievement, while making teachers better at their jobs. On the technology side, Facebook already has an incredibly strong and diligent security team with a knack for recognizing and stopping predatory behavior on the site almost instantly. It seems incongruous then, with the conservative dogma of letting businesses regulate themselves, to have this law in place.
The Facebook bill is a misguided attempt at child safety that sacrifices a valuable resource for teachers. And the cynic in me believes Jane Cunningham knows that, but just does not care.
