Agreed. In most jurisdictions, an incompetent teacher can be fired quite easily. The hurdles have been created to prevent capricious firings. It just takes documentation, which many administrators are too lazy or too busy to do. My state has an "orderly termination" law, as do most states. These laws are not intended to make firing difficult. They are intended to require justification for firing. In most states, a teacher's job (as opposed to that of a principal or custodian) is a property right, which cannot be taken without due process. As a district technology director, I'm in every classroom in the district far more often than principals. I'm quite aware of the quality (or lack) of every teacher's teaching. Since I have both a teaching certificate with multiple endorsements, as well as an administrative license, I think I'm reasonably qualified to pass judgment.

In some states, the unions may be hindering education. In my state the union is weak, and the number of administrators per teacher and per student is about the lowest in the nation.

Education is the single most expensive endeavor state and local governments undertake. We pay taxes our entire adult lives to support the cost of education.

I've worked in education for nearly 22 years. Most teachers I know put in much more than the minimum amount of time specified by contract. Most teachers spend their summers attending training, institutes, conferences, or college classes to refresh their content-area knowledge or to gain endorsements in additional subjects. My wife is also a teacher. Last year she worked on a reading endorsement. This year, she is taking classes for an ESL endorsement. I personally have way over 300 semester credits beyond my bachelor's degree, all paid at my own expense. At the age of 58, I still take classes.

Lesson plans I develop on the clock arguably belong to my employer. Lesson plans I develop off the clock are my own. If I develop them on my own time using school-owned resources (computer, paper etc.) it is a bit cloudier. In the past, I have asserted copyright to plans and exams I have developed on my own time and on my own computer. This occurred when a principal though he could demand that I turn plans, study materials and exams over to him so that students could recover credit in the summer. I maintained that having a secretary pull materials out of a filing cabinet, and then grade my exams was a perversion of the education process. I won the argument.

Most secondary teachers have a single preparation period each day. That is not sufficient time to develop decent usable plans for teaching five or six classes per day. Any GOOD teacher will inevitably be working on lesson plans on his/her own time. While I hope that teachers are willing to freely share those plans with others, plans developed on my own time are not the property of the school, even if creating those plans is an expectation of the job. Unless it says it in the contract, it isn't going to happen.

BTW, my contract is for 260 days per year. I am overtime exempt. I work an average of 15 hours per day, six days a week. I hope none of you are jealous of my job.

I hope you are correct. Unlike the vast majority of posters, I actually LIVE in Utah, in a rural area, and while my personal politics are nearly 180 degrees different from those of the ultra-conservatives who control our legislature, I agree in principal with this law. Causing the needless death of another person should be punished if the cause is volitional; texting while driving meets that condition. My wife is a driver education instructor in a Utah public high school. She stresses the dangers of texting while driving. Taking your eyes away from the road for 5 or 6 seconds of texting means traveling a distance of several hundred feet. Around here, the roads are cluttered with deer and other animals at dusk; they pop onto the road quite suddenly. Between here and the next town are 50-60 miles of forest highway, with deer, elk, moose as well as cattle on grazing allotments. I drive the 39 miles to one of our schools often, and usually return after dark. The speed limit is 55, but at night I usually slow to 40 due the number of animals present on the road. It does not hurt that there is little cell signal available on this stretch. Teenagers and young adults nearly all have a feeling of immortality and invincibility; they do not think the consequences of poor judgment will apply to themselves.

Actually, it's not liberty, it is property. Access to the internet could be construed to be a property right.