Following Darleen’s post from yesterday:
The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader’s breast during recess. “I guess it was just lust of the flesh,” he told his boss.
That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn’t end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.
When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 – 40 years after that first little girl came forward – it wasn’t a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.
Lindsey’s case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation’s children.
Students in America’s schools are groped. They’re raped. They’re pursued, seduced and think they’re in love.
An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.
There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators – nearly three for every school day – speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.
Gee. Maybe the priests ought to have been unionized. They’ve attracted the scrutinizers, and that’s good. It’s just that the internet has made the scrutinizers themselves not exempt, and they find it uncomfortable. Right, Franklin?
The rest of the story is built around that.
Di i miss something? Was Franklin hitting on the flag-football team or something?
It may be hateful to speak it, but looking back so fondly at high school, it does seem that all those uncomfortable stereotypes applied. Consider this my “Watson” post, though I come by it honestly enough, through direct observation. Maleness in a 70’s high school teacher was, in fact, a warning sign of some use to the wary. (Though likewise the gym-teacheriness of a few females.)
Shenanigans and legal troubles did not become public until after my graduation, but they were observed and swept underneath the rug during my day.
70’s high school teacher does sound kind of pervy.
It was all those tube tops.
The New Priesthood…
Hmmmm. It’s interesting that public schoolteachers aren’t generally seen as notorious pedophiles, isn’t it? Because, obviously the vast majority of them are not, but……
Not that I want to deny the serious effects that sexual molestation can have but:
3’000’000 teachers.
2570 credentials revoked in 5 years = 514 per year.
514 teachers = 0.0171333% of the teaching population.
Can anyone tell me how this is a “plague”?
and
“but the screaming over this policy is straightforward opposition to direct measures to keep girls from giving birth when they’re in middle school”
“the fact that right wingers have been allowed to wave the “family values†banner for so long despite this rather unseemly hostility to minor children”
So let me get this straight; “family values” are a form of hostility to children; but sexualising them before they are ready and presumably making them MORE attractive to the teachers who feel the urge is not.
Does anyone else feel like they’re living in a cuckoo clock?
I would be willing to bet that parents of children who are molested suddenly find those “family values” start to look really GOOD.
0.0171333% … Can anyone tell me how this is a “plagueâ€Â?
Yes, I wonder how this stacks up to the percentage in other professions?
How can this be wrong? they even have their own ‘how-to’ website and the ACLU says that’s just fine…
Hmmmm….while 97.5% of Catholic priests aren’t charged with being sexual predators, MSM brands the whole religion as being shepharded by “priest pedophiles”; obviously the vast majority of them are not, but…
[…] say the least) between teachers and students in the schools (also picked up with some skepticism by Protein Wisdom). The consensus seems to be that it’s an intractable problem, and an old one, and that given […]
Am I the only one who is terrified of the thought of 1% of the *entire population* of the US being made up of…. public school teachers.
Doing some rough figures in my head it seems a little high but not by that much. Imagine if all those people did something useful for a living rather than teaching sex-ed, surrender to bullying, and conformity.
Greg
I wondered about that 3’000’000 too…
Does anyone have accurate numbers – since AP obviously couldn’t be bothered to find the number or fact check before print.
Maybe 300,000?
They claim there are 3,000,000 homeless too.
Coincidence…?