Washington Post editorial accuses Jane Cunningham, Missouri politicians, of being guilty of technophobia

In an editorial today, the Washington Post criticized Missouri's Facebook Law, which is scheduled to go into effect Aug. 28:

The most recent practitioner of educational technophobia is Missouri, which last month adopted legislation intended to ban direct communication between teachers and students via Facebook.

The law is so broad it could effectively also bar student-teacher contact via Gmail or other non-school e-mail services. “No teacher shall establish, maintain, or use a nonwork-related Internet site which allows exclusive access with a current or former student,” the law reads.

The rationale for this legislation is to stop potential sexual predators. But as Tony Rothert of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri told us, Missouri suffers from no epidemic of abuse by teachers, much less abuse via social media. Mr. Rothert, the group’s legal director, told CBS News that the state is essentially “taking a bazooka to a fly here.”

The editorial ends with this thought:

New media do provide new avenues for sexual predators and school bullies, and schools are right to be concerned. But the answer is not to impose wholesale restrictions on teachers’ communication with students. In a media universe where young people are often most engaged and motivated online, these laws only handicap learning and innovation.