Post-Dispatch editorial on Facebook Law: More communication needed with students, not less

Add the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to the list of newspapers who are belatedly editorializing against the Missouri Facebook Law.

That law, which was blocked by a Cole County Circuit Court judge Friday, would have prevented teachers and students from communicating through Facebook or other social networking sites.

The Post-Dispatch, another of the newspapers who never wrote anything about the Facebook provision of the Amy Hestir Davis Student Protection Act until it had already been signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, now sees plenty wrong with it:

The primary element of the new law requires more reporting by school districts, so that potential abusers in schools, few though they may be, are rooted out rather than hidden away.

But those elements aren't what folks are talking about. It's section 162.069, which requires Missouri school districts to develop a policy limiting contact between students and teachers on social media that cannot be monitored by somebody else. That means, most likely, that a teacher can have a Facebook page, but he can't receive direct messages from students unless either the school district or parents, or both, have access to those messages.

In short, the bill's wording prevents good teachers from using new technology to improve communication with their students because of the deviance of a few. It might even keep teachers who are parents from talking to their children using Facebook.
The primary element of the new law requires more reporting by school districts, so that potential abusers in schools, few though they may be, are rooted out rather than hidden away.

But those elements aren't what folks are talking about. It's section 162.069, which requires Missouri school districts to develop a policy limiting contact between students and teachers on social media that cannot be monitored by somebody else. That means, most likely, that a teacher can have a Facebook page, but he can't receive direct messages from students unless either the school district or parents, or both, have access to those messages.

In short, the bill's wording prevents good teachers from using new technology to improve communication with their students because of the deviance of a few. It might even keep teachers who are parents from talking to their children using Facebook.