Teacher Smackdown

Many newspapers across the country are covering the Associated Press’s investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. school teachers. I have never seen such an extensive amount of articles on this one subject as the AP has asked writers to do stories with local angles. The stories are shocking and you see how victimized these kids are even if the teacher was blond, young and hot.

Also, the major findings by the AP will floor you:

1. A total of 2,570 educators nationwide were punished for sexual misconduct from 2001-2005. This number represents about 25 percent of all educator misconduct cases during that time period.

2. The total number of times an action was taken against a teacher’s license for sexual misconduct was 2,625 (more than 50 teachers lost licenses in more than one state). Licenses were revoked in 1,636 of the cases. They were surrendered in 440 cases, suspended in 376 cases, and denied in 108 cases. Other punishments were handed out in the remainder of the cases.

3. Students were clearly identified as victims in at least 1,467 of the sexual misconduct cases. The victim was a young person, a category including students, unidentified youths, family members and neighbors, in at least 1,801 of the cases.

4. Educators made physical contact in 72 percent of the cases in which the victims were youths. The remainder were cases that did not involve physical contact, including verbal sexual harassment and other offenses.

5. There were criminal convictions in at least 1,390, or 53 percent, of the cases. ONLY 53%! That is far too low.

6. Nearly nine out of 10 of the educators punished for sexual misconduct were male. So much for all the hoopla about the epidemic of female teachers having sex with their teenage (mostly) male students.

7. At least 446 of the cases that the AP investigated involved educators who had multiple victims. This means they were probably repeat offenders over a long period of time or at various schools.

The Salt Lake Tribune is running a series of articles based on and from the AP study:
- Utah teachers charged with sex crimes
- Utah ranks 16th in the nation for teachers losing licenses for sexual misconduct- Legal loopholes keep some teacher misconduct records secret (AP story out of Sacramento, California)
- Count of educator sexual misconduct took months of reporting (AP)
- ‘I don’t trust anybody now’: A family and a community crushed by a teacher’s sexual abuse (AP story out of Berwyn, Illinois)
- When a predator strikes, society views male and female abuse victims differently (AP)
- Patchwork laws, inattention have allowed teacher sexual misconduct to flourish (AP)
- Abuse accusations don’t keep teachers from classrooms (AP story out of Phoenix, Arizona)

Other news sources are running AP stories with local angles:
- How one student became a Pennsylvania teacher’s prey (AP story out of Hamburg, Pennsylvania)
- N.H. teacher screening system lets some abusers slip through (AP story out of Concord, New Hampshire)
- Records: Seduction, manipulation by teachers lead to affairs (AP sotry out of Albany, NY)
- Complicated emotions for NJ man who says he had sex with teacher (AP story out of Hammoton, New Jersey)
- Teacher sexual misconduct occurring in schools (AP story out of Louisville, Kentucky)
- Texas 2nd in teacher sexual-misconduct sanctions (AP story out of Houston, Texas)
- 60 educators disciplined, more than a third for sexual misconduct (AP story out of Boston, Massachusetts)
- Records: Seduction, manipulation by teachers lead to affairs (AP story out of Albany, New York)

I’m sure that many more local stories will appear over the weekend. I will do another posting of all the other stories I can find at the end of the week.

Associated Press, sexual misconduct in US schools, teachers abusing students, sexual abuse of children