The Associated Press reported that one teacher in 10,000 to 100,000 abuses children. (Fuzzy numbers…estimates because the problem is so underreported.)
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AP: Teacher Sex Abuse Cases Reveal Patterns
CNN: Sexual misconduct plagues U.S. schools, AP reports
AP: Sex Abuse Laws Can Fail School Kids
Google Search "Associated Press Teachers Sexual Abuse of Students"
A flood of these news stories are surfacing, much to the chagrin of honest, ethical, caring and law abiding teachers.
Teachers know that these crimes happen, maybe even in their own school district.
What are the reasons that teachers remain stoic in the face of this "bad press?" What are the reasons that these criminals, who cast a pall on the teaching profession, seems to slither with impunity, unimpeded across our school districts' landscape?
Want Failsafe Schools? Pay the Price!
Logic dictates that even one case of a trusted adult (teacher, priest, rabbi, minister, imam, counselor, therapist, physician, nurse) abusing or molesting a child is "one too many."
Therefore, all such folks should be:
- Screened
- Prosecuted, and if guilty, jailed
- Registered and Tracked, if they are ever paroled
- Banned from any further contact with children
In addition, school district administrators that "hire, harbor, shelter, cover up these crimes or otherwise allow these criminals to "roam at large" should be:
- Fired
- Prosecuted and if guilty, jailed
- Barred from future school district employment
- Banished from contact with children or child-service organizations
But, none of this will happen.
Our public will wail, then the "outcry" will smolder and the embers will cool. The ashes will soil our schools, but "nothing long-term, definitive, solid or substantial" will be done.
The Reason: Solutions would be too expensive!
Sure, the vocal outcry proclaims unequivocal support for ensuring that no "Perverted Perpetrator (PervPerp) is hired; or, is allowed to remain employed in our school systems.
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To really protect our children, we'll need to screen employees of all private, parochial and charter schools.
If we can vet Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, we can screen teachers! The technology and procedures for investigation exist. This process will only take time, people and money. Lots of money!
If we really mean business when we profess our desire to protect our children, we can build the national database, create an identification (ID) system, integrate biometric scanning and install video surveillance system in our schools.
We can also build maximum punishment into the legal and justice systems, and stiffen punishment for PervPerps.
We will need to harden our schools to make them impenetrable, impervious and impermeable to the "Scums and Scummetes" that would betray our children.
Of course, this would cost too much since we would be tracking down devious criminals, wolves with chalk dust on their fingers, who blend in…and are often great teachers
Sidebar
PervPerps often put a lot of work into becoming well-liked, proficient teachers. This helps them disguise their predilections, and brings them closer to the children that they prey upon.
Other Suggestions:
- Create a national reporting hotline, similar to the state Child Abuse Hotlines. This needs to be national in scope because these PervPerps prowl across state lines
- Remove the "Statute of Limitations" from the crime of teacher (and trusted adult) sexual abuse
- Make "covering up the crime" by failure to report every incident to authorities a felony. Try associated school administrators in a court of law as accomplices…as "Accessories After the Fact"
- Make scho0l district administrators "Personally, Jointly and Severally" Liable for Financial Suites brought by victims
- Make lawyers that shield PervPerps from justice jointly liable for the crimes of their criminal clients
If we were serious about protecting our children, we could:
- Build more prisons
- Make room in existing prisons by expelling petty drug users (unless they were caught selling drugs to children)
- Build in an upgrade path for the punishment for a second "PervPerp offense" to death row
- Build a teacher licensure system
Understanding the Status Quo
Although understanding how school district officials (or any normal person) could sanction continued PervPerp employment in our schools, little will be done.
"The AP found attempts to stop particular offenders, it also found a firm resistance towards identifying and preventing abuse. Fellow teachers often ignore the abuse or believe they cannot help. School administrators cut backdoor deals to sidestep lawsuits or bad press. In state governments and Congress, lawmakers are loath to impose harsher punishments or any national policy in fear of harming the teaching profession.
Source:
Teacher Sexual Abuse Of Students Increasing
Neddermeyer, Dorothy M. PhD
How could stiffer penalties harm the teaching profession? What would a national policy do to corrupt the teaching profession?
Instead, what will happen is…
- PervPerps will continue to work in our school systems
- Principals and superintendents will continue to fail to report sexual abuse crimes to the police
- Superintendents will fail to alert other school districts (in state and out of state) about the depredations and dalliances of the PervPerps
- Teachers will remain silent about their suspicions about colleagues for fear of being retaliated against (by district administrators)
- Closet deals that rid one school district of the blight of a PervPerp employee will let that criminal skate, slide and slither into another district
School administrators will "Look the other way," make deals, and claim "ignorance of the facts" as the PervPerp skinks off sneakily into the sewer.
"Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.
'From my own experience -- this could get me in trouble -- I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one,' says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating misconduct in schools. 'It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban.'"
Source:
Sexual misconduct plagues U.S. schools, AP reports
If a lawyer can "get in trouble" for whistle blowing, so can teachers.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames -- "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."
Source:
Sexual misconduct plagues U.S. schools, AP reports
So, why the conspiracy of silence?
Sidebar
Classroom Toolkit explored this conspiracy of silence in a previous newsletter article, Telling it Like it Is in Education: The Muffled, Muzzled, Muted Sounds of Silenced Teachers
The Real Solution: Convicting the Innocent to Oust the Guilty
There is only one real solution for ousting the PervPerp Criminals from our school districts. Honest, caring and innocent teachers have to speak out.
Hard-working, dependable, caring teachers have to be willing to loose their jobs to report instances of child abuse when they suspect that their colleagues are abusing children.
The paradox is that only by decent, innocent teachers being willing to take the retribution from district administrators for "Whistle Blowing" will the the dark deeds of dirty PervPreps come to light soon enough to protect current and soon-to-be-future victims.
If you know about an incident where abuse has happened, report it to campus officials, counselors, the district superintendent. But, also use the Child Abuse Hotline and the Newspapers.
Sure, you might become an unemployed, unable to get another teaching job "hero," but you will be a hero (unsung, under appreciated, maybe broke and homeless); but a hero that you can respect in your own conscience.
"Buckle up" your courage.
The chances are only 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000 that one of your colleagues are one of these "lowest of the low" student sexual abusers.
But if you encounter one, do your duty.
Report! Report! Report!
