Associated Press series on teacher sex abuse

Hidden Violations

Before being swamped by the Associated Press series on teacher sex abuse (click the related stories links for other episodes in the series), Scott Reeder of Small Newspaper Group had his own devastating series on teacher misconduct.

Although parents will find the numbers alarming, I think they are relatively small considering the incredible number of people working in public education. I suspect there are far fewer criminals working in our public schools than in most other professions. The real outrage lies in the cursory investigations, cover-ups, and failures to punish and decertify admitted offenders that often accompany these cases.

The fear of false accusations would be less of a problem if educators had confidence that the system would conduct a fair and thorough investigation and uncover the truth. Too often, both administration and union are more concerned with their own reputations and liability than with the facts of the case.

It would be unfortunate if these series left the impression that sexual predators are running rampant through our nation's schools. That is clearly not the case. But parents need assurance that the few existing predators are not being shuffled off to another district in the name of legal and public relations expediency. Posted by Mike Antonucci on Monday, October 22, 2007 at 07:39 | Permalink