[WS:] It is a populist-leftist trope, but it has not much to do with reality. AFAIK, most public schools try to be an alternative to prison, but they are failing that role despite their efforts, courtesy of the thoroughly fucked up nature of the US society, from top to bottom.
Joanna: "Leaving the issue of privacy to the side for a moment, whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?"
[WS:] This is just a court procedure. Courts are not the only way of discovering facts, are they?
Joanna: "What is the difference between cops invading schools and searching lockers and cops coming into the workplace and going through your desk?"
[WS:] The context, context is everything. If a teacher searches a student's locker and finds some illegal stuff there, the chances are the student will be spared "real life" consequences (i.e. jail) e.g. by imposing token penalties (e.g. in school suspension) or coding the student as 'emotionally disable" and holding "manifestation hearings."
In other words, most schools will try to save such students - often against their own will. They will try to defuse the potentially dangerous situation before it has a chance of doing some real damage.
Not so with the cops.
But to put it in an even broader context - it makes a lot of sense to call for more privacy and personal freedom in countries like China or North Korea where privacy and freedom are routinely invaded by authorities. But in the US - the calls for greater privacy and freedom are thinly veiled covers for criminal activity of either white or blue collar variety. So if I lived in China I would most likely call for more privacy and personal liberty, but in the US I repeat after you "Fuck that shit."
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."