REAL CLEAR EDUCATION: How to Fix the Problem of Rogue Teachers

When I began to teach high school English, one of the texts that I had to assign my freshmen classes was the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier. The story is set in the American South during the Depression and recounts a time when an adolescent girl overhears her father’s struggles at finding a job and eventually takes out her frustration on an old woman’s marigolds.