no teacher ratings allowed

In France, that is:

Following the example of successful U.S. sites, French entrepreneurs created Note2be.com in January that encouraged students to grade teachers and discuss their ability.

Unions, backed by the education ministry, immediately took the site to court, saying the personal comments represented a breach of privacy and an "incitement to public disorder."

The judges backed their case and said the Web site could no longer identify any teachers by name and told the site's owners they faced a $1,517 (1,000 euro) fine for every infraction.

Ridiculous. This--hopefully--would never occur in the United States, which still has a token affection for the First Amendment.

I'm not worried about ratings, anyway. I get consistently high marks for fashion.


[via Katherine Mangu-Ward]