Sexual misconduct plagues U.S. schools, AP reports
This is a blockbuster story that is being, unsurprisingly, underreported. Notice these sentences in particular (emphasis added):
The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct. [...]
The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America’s Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.
So: in the years between 1950 and 2002, about 4,400 Catholic clergy were accused of sexual abuse. Now, in less than one tenth the time, over half that many public school teachers were punished for sexual abuse — the number merely accused being, presumably, larger. The “obvious comparisons” invited by the AP study are breathtakingly, scandalously unfavorable to teachers. I wonder if, given the muckraking sensationalism of the months-long clergy abuse scandal, we are in for a proportional spotlight on the nation’s public school system.
Somehow I doubt it.
