A year full of school sex raps (NYC public schools set new abuse record)

(New York) DAILY NEWS ^ | January 5, 2007 | ERIN EINHORN

[Mrs. Don-o]

City teachers, principals and other school workers were accused of more crimes by school investigators in 2006 than in any recent year, a new report shows. Of the 259 allegations that special schools investigator Richard Condon leveled at school employees last year, he turned a record-high 101 cases over to federal or state prosecutors for possible criminal probes. That's up 68% from 2005, when only 60 cases were referred to prosectors and higher than any year since Condon's office started keeping track in 2002.

Among alleged wrongdoers was a middle school math teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student he was supposed to be tutoring; an elementary school teacher who allegedly groped a 10 year-old; a trusted Department of Education secretary who invented a fake child to dupe taxpayers out of $116,000 worth of special-education tutoring, and a Brooklyn principal accused of stealing more than $10,000 from her school.

Condon credited the city's 311 phone system, greater vigilance by school auditors and publicity about consequences for school employees who fail to report wrongdoing for the record 2,552 complaints his office received last year. Of those, Condon pursued 638 cases and found enough evidence to make an accusation in 259 cases.

Cases included 86 school employees - including as many as 56 teachers - accused of sexual misconduct ranging from rape to relationships with students to sexual harassment.

Condon recommended 121 firings last year, most of which are still pending due to union procedures. Only 41 of those firings have taken effect.

[trisham]

bookmark

[GSlob]

Not nearly drastic enough. One needs to go medieval on them and start setting the perps in a tree stump [a stump was split with a wedge, the perp was forced to sit on it with his appendages in the slot, and then the splitting wedge was pulled out on him amidst general rejoicing and celebrations]. A few tree stumps done in public - and the morals and practices would improve beyond belief and wildest imagination.

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the "other" articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. If you want on/off this list, please freepmail me. The main Homeschool Ping List by DaveLoneRanger handles the homeschool-specific articles.

Thanks for the pings to Mrs. Don-o and mcvey.

[sitetest]

Dear Mrs. Don-o,

Works for me.

On a per capita basis, the abuse cited here is probably two or three orders of magnitude greater than that which afflicted the Church.


sitetest

[Coleus]

they had a guidance counselor who was a member of nambla and they still did nothing to him.

[Nihil Obstat]

incredible

[Mrs. Don-o]

For some reason --- and I really don't understand way ---much child abuse comes to light only years or decades after the offense, when the now-adult victim seeks redress.

It might be that the child victim is either deeply confused or deeply frightened, or tells his story in some uncertain terms and is not believed; or it might be that the adult realizes that his ongoing emotional problems stem from his early experience of abuse; or it might be the publicity of widescale prosecutions (and multi-million-dollar settlements) that causes people to, at last, remember past offenses.

An ugly business altogether.

Let those who know more about it, chime in here.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"On a per capita basis, the abuse cited here is probably two or three orders of magnitude greater than that which afflicted the Church."

Hmm. From what I remember from high school math, an order of magnitude in base ten usually means an exponential change in a power of ten. Like, "one order of magnitude" means 10 times as much; "two orders of mangitude" means 10 superscript 2, or 100 times as much.

Do you think the abuse in the public schools is 100 times as much as in Catholic institutions? Or more?

I think Shakeshaft's estimates are along those lines, but it's hard to grasp the magnitude.

[sitetest]

Dear Mrs. Don-o,

Yes, I believe that the abuse rampant in public schools generally is about 100 times what it was in the Catholic Church. Perhaps more.

But unlike the Catholic Church, which is a private entity, public schools are an arm of the government, and thus enjoy significant legal immunities not granted to others.


sitetest

[traviskicks]

"Condon recommended 121 firings last year, most of which are still pending due to union procedures. Only 41 of those firings have taken effect."

From this story:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_15_06_JS.html

One New York teacher decided that one of his 16-year-old students was hot. So he sat down at a computer and sent a sexual e-mail to Cutee101.

"He admits this," said Klein. "We had the e-mail."

"You can't fire him?"

"It's almost impossible."

It's almost impossible because of the rules in the New York schools' 200-page contract with their teachers. There are so many rules that principals rarely even try to jump through all the hoops to fire a bad teacher. It took six years of expensive litigation before the teacher who wrote Cutee101 was fired. During those six years, he received more than $300,000 in salary.

"Up, down, around, we've paid him," said the chancellor. "He hasn't taught, but we've had to pay him, because that is what is required under the contract."

Hundreds of teachers the city calls incompetent, racist, or dangerous have been paid millions.

And what do they do while they get paid? They sit in rubber rooms.

They're not really made of rubber, of course. They are big, empty rooms where they store the teachers they are afraid to let near the kids. The teachers go there and sit, hang around, read magazines, and waste time. The city pays $20 million a year to house teachers in rubber rooms.

A new union contract is supposed to make it easier to fire teachers for sexual infractions, but the Byzantine rules for other offenses remain. Insane as most are, some teachers told me they support the firing rules. "You prove I'm a bad teacher!" said one. "And if you can't prove it, don't try it!"

The restrictions on firing teachers are defended as a means of protecting teachers from favoritism. But if schools and principals had to compete, good teachers would be protected by competition itself: If a principal's job depends on having good people working for him, he won't sacrifice it to give a favored incompetent a job he can't do.

Taking six years to fire a teacher doesn't do anyone any good -- except bad teachers. So why do it? The short answer is unions. The long answer is next week's column.

[RavenATB]

"Trying to wean out the predators in the public school teachers is going to be harder because of union hiring and firing rules and because of PC politicians trying to score points with lib voters by being "tolerant"."

While I agree in general, I have to take exception to your conclusion of the reason for this. The reason we're seeing so much of this sort of thing with so little outrage from parents and/or action on the part of politicians is that as a society we simply don't care about our children like we once did.

Oh, I'm not pointing the finger at any individual. I love my kids (which is why we've never had them in a public school), and I'm sure you love your kids. But as a general rule, we as a society place political correctness above the best interests and safety of our kids. It's more important for most adults to feel that they are "tolerant" then to protect their kids.

If we see a direct threat, like a proven criminal in our schools, then it's easy to get our attention and action. But, when we see someone/someone who should arise our suspicions because they fit into a category of someone who might be far more likely to victimize our children, most parents can't bring themselves to take action.

It's a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless, that our nation's children are largely unloved.

[RavenATB]

correction: someone/something

[RavenATB]

"Yes, I believe that the abuse rampant in public schools generally is about 100 times what it was in the Catholic Church. Perhaps more."

I agree...especially if you include the child/child abuse. Bottom line is that public schools are not a safe place to be putting children. They're hotbeds of liberal brainwashing, they're friendly to the worst influences, they invite children to question their parents' authority and intentions, they preach unproven theories as gospel, and they're some of the most violent and drug-infested places a child will ever experience.

[RavenATB]

bump