Even with my experience with how public education works, this Contra Costa County Times story amazed me.

Allison Moore says she and her 15-year-old daughter complained for months about the chaotic environment in a Clayton Valley High School math class.

"The students weren't behaving," Moore said of the third period Introduction to Algebra class. "The teacher couldn't control the students. They were making a ruckus everyday, making it difficult to learn."

The ninth-grade students threw things around the room. Shortly after Christmas, students told the Times, someone exploded Play-Doh in the microwave, resulting in a smoke-filled classroom that teacher Michael Huang refused to air out. In other classes Huang taught, they said, students lit trash can fires and smoked cigarettes or even marijuana. Moore said she told administrators about the problems in February, but added little seemed to change.

Her daughter and classmates, who have asked to remain anonymous for fear of campus retaliation, said Huang tried coaxing students by offering extra credit if they would raise their hands and say "thank you." His Taiwanese accent was difficult to understand and he often sat at his computer instead of teaching, they said.

Huang also yelled at them and ridiculed them in front of the class, they said.

By May 15, with less than a month left in the school year, the classroom atmosphere had not improved, Moore said. That morning, when students flicked the lights on and off and began a paper ball fight with no intervention by their teacher, Moore's daughter caught the chaos on video with her cell phone.

A friend of Moore's anonymously sent the video to Dick Nicoll, interim superintendent of the Mt. Diablo school district. The following week, the school suspended Moore's daughter for two days after she admitted she had taped the class without permission, a violation of the state Education Code.

Educators sometimes complain that the problem with schools is students that simply don't want to learn. Here is a class with at least some students who obviously want to learn and who have tried to inform their school of the incredibly challenging learning environment in their math classroom. After months of their complaints going unheard, the student finally shoots video documenting the complete lack of classroom management. When a friend forwards the video to the Superintendent, the official response is not to take action to resolve the problems in the classroom, but instead to punish the whistle-blower with a suspension.

This school has wasted an entire year of educational opportunity in math for these students. They will never get that time back. Yet, from the article it doesn't sound like any of the adults involved have any consequences. Sure, the teacher won't be there next year, but he had already resigned. Where are the consequences for the principal who ignored nearly a full school year's worth of complaints about the classroom? Wouldn't it have made sense for the principal to stop by at least once? Is there any doubt that they would have witnessed the chaos these students describe?

What was the principal's excuse? Budget cuts and rowdy students with a "mob mentality."

Swanson said budget cuts may adversely affect the school's ability to control rowdy students, who sometimes develop a mob mentality, as they test teachers' limits. "They're cheating themselves and each other," Swanson said, "and that's really what the crime is."

No, Principal Swanson. The crime is the complete lack of regard that you had for the learning environment in your school. The interim Superintendent should step in and overturn the suspension, make the principal and Student Services Director apologize to every student (and their parents) in that classroom who genuinely wanted to learn. There is no excuse.