So tell me one example where a kid in a school bus got verbally abused once for 10 minutes in a school bus which caused similar public outrage or sympathy.

The women was hired as bus monitor for $15,000 a year to prevent bullying.

Red, I went to high school in the UK then university in the US. Unlike in the UK, where your university BA is 3 years of work DIRECTLY RELATED to your degree, the US degree is 4 years and most of it is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to your degree subject.

For my degree in Political Science, I was only required to have 40 hours of classes related to Poli Sci, and 100 hours of other subjects (French, Chemistry, Biology, Women's Studies blah blah blah). While, sure, I enjoyed a lot of the classes I took, would my Poli Sci degree from the US give me a chance in hell of competing against anyone in Europe with a similar Poli Sci degree? No way!! They'd be miles ahead of any American in the subject.

Where US education DOES get good is at the Masters degree level and above. and, at that level, Americans can compete with most other nationalities. A US BA is, for the most part, not much better than a UK or German high school degree as half of America has one anyway.

America is also now the bottom of the bottom when it comes to Science and Math in several studies. The top? The Chinese.

Hell, even here in Thailand where Thai kids are the laziest of the lazy (Thais hate studying), the American math teacher at my old school used to go on and on about how even the slowest in his Thai math class were THREE YEARS ahead of his old American students - and he had 20 years teaching experience in the US. (Thais do, however, suck at English :)\\

Hedwards, sorry, I'll have to respectively disagree with almost everything you're saying :)

As what you say is not born out by just about any study. America has been the bottom of the heap in education for years and, especially in science and math, is now behind just about every developed country and a fair few undeveloped ones too. (See article below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/education/10educ.html

The above post is interesting ... from working in, and quickly departing from, the U.S. Public Education system, I can see how, from a secondary level, we are evolving into a more Euro-based classroom.
"Race to the Top," as the eponymous program suggests, is the American solution to compete globally in Mathematics/Sciences/Technologies alone; reclaiming the "top" tier honors of invention I suppose.
Globally, we're neglecting the humanities for a multitude of objectives that have very little to do with restoring what matters most about being a person.
I tip my hat off to teachers today because I certainly couldn't cut it; too many compromises from my experience.
In response to Karen Klein, well, I guess I'm somewhat sympathetic; although, I taught High School at age 23 and looked like I was 16 and never had any issue. Before that I worked with children that had intellectual disabilities and/or behavioral problems, and I can understand what it's like to be cursed at, hit, spit on, etc.
I guess all I mean by that personal anecdote is that it takes a special person to work with children. To think that this is an isolated event, or that more extreme things don't happen on a daily basis in our public schools, is sheer lunacy.

Well, the kids all got 1 year suspensions from both school and bus transportation:

Linky

Psh ... that's a ridiculous punishment. I hope they are sent to an alternative school at least in the meantime.

Of course. The school district is required by law to provide them with an education, but they will not be allowed at a regular school, instead they will go to the district's "Reengagement Center", an alternative school for troubled students. They also have to complete 50 hours of community service working with the elderly and can re-apply to the regular school after 30 weeks. Provided they have completed their community service and have had good reports from the alternative school, they can return to to the regular school at that time.

I don't know how old she is but my guess is over 60, having much reduced work is desirable at such an age and I doubt bus monitor pays all that well (probably part time and no benefits). The US is still pretty resource rich, I consider it a travesty that anyone her age has to work at all and that anyone really has to work for "their daily bread" much more than 15 hours a week (of course some passionate people will continue to do things they consider "fun" that will nonetheless have useful results).

Extra punishment : 1 German suplex every single day, by Zangief Kid.