Sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct is a major problem in public schools, according to a new investigative report by the Associated Press released last week.
The seven-month AP investigation of school districts in all 50 states found that sexual misconduct by teachers in public schools is “widespread,” with more than 2,500 reported cases in the five years from 2001-2005. Eighty percent of the victims of teacher misconduct were students and 90 percent of perpetrators were male.
The Associated Press also found that school districts have done little to address the problem. “The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse … In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior [made by students] were dismissed [by school administrators].”
Worse, the report found, problem teachers were allowed to leave schools quietly, their teaching licenses rarely were revoked, and there was only spotty reporting to law enforcement. The report also found that schools used loop holes to avoid implementing preventive measures, such as background checks, and measures that might have been helpful were applied inconsistently across districts and states.
The AP report is one of only a few that has attempted to quantify the extent of sexual misconduct in public schools. A 2004 U.S. Department of Education report requested by Congress and prepared by Dr. Charol S. Shakeshaft, former scholar at Hoftstra University and now chair of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, found that sexual misconduct by educators was a major problem in public schools.
According to the report, “Educator Sexual Misconduct,” as many as 4.5 million students, or almost 10 percent of public school children across the country, have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers during their school careers. Shakeshaft said the number of abuse cases-which range from unwanted sexual comments to rape – could be much higher.
“So we think the Catholic Church has a problem?” Dr. Shakeshaft asked Education Week in a March, 2004 interview.
Dr. Shakeshaft’s report was released the same year the John Jay College for Criminal Justice released its report documenting abuse of minors by clergy in the Catholic Church. That report found that 4,400 priests were accused of sexual abuse of a minor from 1950-2002. Subsequent data collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate in Georgetown found that Church abuse cases peaked in the 1980s and have declined significantly over the last two decades. According to a 2007 CARA report, there were 17 new cases of abuse in the Church last year in the United States.
The new Associated Press report appears to confirm earlier findings that the incidence of sexual abuse of minors by educators in public schools today is much greater than abuse reported in the Church at its peak two decades ago. A review of the data by Dr. Shakeshaft in 2004 led her to contend that the physical sexual abuse of students in public schools is more than 100 times more likely than abuse by priests.
Beyond quantifying the problem, Dr. Shakeshaft’s study also highlighted how cases were handled in some public schools. Citing a 1994 study of educator abuse in New York, all of the accused in the study had admitted to sexual abuse of a student, but none was reported to authorities and only one percent lost their license to teach. Despite having admitted abuse, only 35 percent received a negative consequence as a result. Nearly 39 percent left the school district, most with positive recommendations and without loss of retirement packages.
Similarly, the new AP report said, “Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that’s been apparent for years.”
Teresa M. Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said this week that the report on public schools affirms the reality that abuse is not confined to one institution or another, but is a societal problem that must be acknowledged before it can be addressed.
“If you don’t bring it to light, you can’t address the problem,” she said
The Church’s experience with the problem, she said, and the effective steps it already has taken to address it, should help others as they struggle to acknowledge and respond adequately.
“What the Church has been doing-with its emphasis on zero tolerance, openness and transparency, safe environment and preventive measures, such as codes of conduct and background checks-can be a great benefit to other organizations if they have the courage to admit they have this problem with their entities and address it as aggressively as the Church has, for the sake of our children.”