In the UK anyway (and I doubt the US is different these days) Teachers have NO flexibility on the classroom. Children are not at school to learn, they are at school to pass exams.

This is why you now have lots of highly qualified useless graduates.

This teacher was out of line, I had teachers who would go off topic but never to extent that the lesson suffered. A 20min off topic discussion is a big chunk out of a lesson, I can see why the kids would complain about this guy even if his ramblings weren't political.

I'd like to know the performance of his classes against other teachers in the same department.
If his grades are poor, he's a bad teacher with no excuse for off topic discussions and he should move out.

If his grades are good then his classes haven't suffered for these talks then he is probably a good geography teacher and he should be warned about politicising but he should continue to teach.

I haven't time to listen to the MP3 but I wonder if the kids were joining in with this 'rant'. Was it a lecture from his or was it a class discussion. If it was the latter I'd have a lot more sympathy.

Mind you, most teachers are ignorant arseholes who live in their own little world and look down their noses at far too many people. Most of them are thick as sh1t too.