Joyce Cohen and Hal Holbrook just encouraged me to share this with the Twain Forum:

 In a column appearing   today on Jay Matthews's blog in the Washington Post,  Matthews urges people to email protests to L.A. schools spokeswoman Ellen Morgan, at [log in to unmask], with a copy to Matthews at [log in to unmask]

Jay Matthews blog post follows along with links to other articles about Rafe Esquith's removal from his classroom.

>  I consider Rafe Esquith of the Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in Los Angeles to be the best classroom teacher in the country. So when I learned that he has been barred from teaching since March for telling a joke about nudity in Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” I wondered if the education world had finally, inalterably, gone crazy.
>     I have written many columns about Esquith. There are several chapters about him in my book “Work Hard. Be Nice.” He teaches fifth graders from mostly Hispanic and Korean families in a low-income part of the city. No where else have I seen such depth or imagination in a public school classroom. 
>      Every year his students produce and perform a Shakespeare play. His students love him. Their parents love him. Teachers from around the country visit room 56 to see him and his kids in action. He has won many awards. He has published four very good books, and is a superstar in China where teaching is taken much more seriously than we do here. 
>       Yet the Los Angeles Unified School District is still investigating him for what they apparently consider possibly inappropriate words in his classroom, even though the accusations have already been found without merit by the California Commission on Teacher Credentials. His attorney says he is just one of hundreds of teachers who have been send off to a district administrative office, known widely as the teacher jail, without any formal charges, to wait for results of investigations that often have no merit and are very hard to understand.
>       Esquith told me in March there was trouble. Like many other fans of the annual Hobart Shakespeareans dramatic production, I reached a notice then that this year’s performance had been canceled. When I emailed him, he told me it was a serious situation and he could not tell me more. He asked me to hold off writing anything until he could speak freely. 
>      The Los Angeles Times published an account today (Friday) of his removal from class, which apparently was first reported by KCBS television. I have spoken to Ben Meiselas, an attorney from Mark Geragos’ firm which is representing Esquith. He has given details not in the L.A. Times account, including the fact that the incident started with a joke and that the teacher who reported it to the school’s principal now says even she wants Esquith back in the classroom.
>      According to Meiselas, Esquith was rehearsing his students for this year’s play and reading from a section of Huckleberry Fink about the duke and the king, merry actors who provide some of the book’s comedy. They were practicing Shakespeare, not Twain, but Esquith thought the passage was relevant. In one performance, Esquith read, “the king came prancing out on all fours, naked. He was painted in rings and stripes all over in all sorts of colors and looked as splendid as a rainbow.”
>      Meiselas said Esquith said if the school district couldn’t provide enough support for the annual play, he guessed the class would have to similarly perform naked.
>       Esquith was joking. He does that a lot, as anyone who knows him has long been aware of. But a teacher who was in the room reported this to the principal and the principal reported it in turn to the district. From there on, Meiselas said, the district has been handling the matter “as basically a sex crime,” even though no one in authority has said that it is, and the teacher who made the first report has said the investigation should end. 
>        Esquith’s lawyers have told the district to publicly apologize and let him return to work or be sued. Meiselas said district officials pulled some of Esquith’s students out of class and questioned them intensely about what Esquith had said and anything he might have done to them, without first seeking the permission of their parents. Meiselas said the students were extremely upset, as were the parents. 
>       Esquith was send to the teacher’s jail for two months, and then allowed to await the end of the investigation at home. The district has indicated there may be no conclusion until August.
>      The questions being asked and the letters Esquith has received indicate the district is now intent on killing off some of the programs and trips that make his classroom so good. A district official wrote to tell him his students’ annual summer trip to Oregon for the Shakespearean Theatrical Festival must be cancelled. He was told to report his students’ contact addresses so their parents can be informed that “the trip is not authorized or sponsored by the District.”
>       This is the way they treat one of the most famous and conscientious teachers in the country, who has worked 12 hour days for several decades, usually keeping his classroom open during summer,  holidays and on some weekends. Hundreds of former students come to visit. Many of them he advises on how to get into the best high schools and how to prepare for college. 
>       There are no suggestions that he has harmed any children. But as all of the great teachers I have written about over the years have told me, if you work hard and show administrators how much better our schools could be if they took their responsibilities seriously, you are going to become a target for abuse. 
>       If you have something to say about this, please send your thoughts to L.A. schools spokeswoman Ellen Morgan, at [log in to unmask], with a copy to me. I have witnessed many outrages by school administrators, but this may be the worst yet.


http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-esquith-investigation-20150617-story.html
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2015/06/renowned_teacher_rafe_esquith_removed_from_classroom_in_la.html
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/06/18/award-winning-teacher-removed-from-classroom-gives-lausd-an-ultimatum/