James Varney: There's a Culture of Sexual Predation in the Nation's Schools, and the Political Class Is Covering It Up

The left has been making movies about their heroism in taking on the Catholic Church.

But when it comes to their own?

Forced silence.

Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom: The Huge American Sex-Abuse Scandal That Educators Scandalously Suppress

By James Varney, RealClearInvestigations
July 10, 2024

Every day millions of parents put their children under the care of public school teachers, administrators, and support staff. Their trust, however, is frequently broken by predators in authority in what appears to be the largest ongoing sexual abuse scandal in our nation's history.

Given the roughly 50 million students in U.S. K-12 schools each year, the number of students who have been victims of sexual misconduct by school employees is probably in the millions each decade, according to multiple studies. Such numbers would far exceed the high-profile abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America.

For a variety of reasons, ranging from embarrassment to eagerness to avoid liability, elected or appointed officials, along with unions or lobbying groups representing school employees, have fought to keep the truth hidden from the public.

"In any given year they have failed to report thousands of these situations, and instead they've papered them over, acted like it's not an issue," former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told RealClearInvestigations. Stunned by a 2018 Chicago Tribune investigation that found 523 incident reports of sexual misconduct by employees of the city's schools during the past decade, DeVos during the Trump administration launched the process of including specific questions about such cases in the Department's Civil Rights Data Collection, a process it undertakes every two years. Previously, the Office for Civil Rights asked only general questions about sexual misconduct incidents, without a breakdown of alleged perpetrators.

The Biden administration initially sought to remove those questions, saying it wanted to avoid data duplication, but it backtracked after fierce criticism it was doing so as a sop to teachers unions. Consequently, the question will be included on future questionnaires, but, as of today, the Department of Education "has no data," a spokesperson told RCI.

So they were forced to stop trying to remove the question, because it sure makes it look like the Biden Administration is covering up for pedophiles.

So now the question is supposedly asked -- but no one in the Biden Administration actually collects or collates the answers.

The answers, if they're given at all, are disappeared.

These days, from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, even a cursory review of local news reporting brings disquieting revelations of teachers accused of or arrested for alleged sexual relations with a student. In just the past month:

In California, multiple students filed a lawsuit against a male music teacher who had taught at three different schools in the San Jose area. The teacher is already serving prison time for previous convictions in sexual misconduct cases with students.

In New Jersey, a female middle school teacher was arrested for an alleged ongoing sexual relationship with a student.

In Texas, a male teacher was arrested for allegedly having a sexual affair with a 12-year-old student.

In Illinois, a female substitute teacher faces charges of "grooming and predatory criminal sexual assault" for an alleged relationship with a sixth-grader.

In Washington, the arrest of a male high school teacher on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor represented a repeat nightmare for a school district that previously had a psychologist convicted on the same charges.

Just last weekend, a 36-year-old New Jersey teacher was arrested on multiple assault charges involving a sexual relationship with a teenage student.

...

[E]xperts who track the problem don't take the problem lightly. Pointing to research from Hofstra University that found roughly 1 in 10 students in K-12 schools have suffered "some form of sexual misconduct by an educator," Terri Miller, head of the advocacy group SESAME (Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation), said the number of victims is staggering.

"The rate of educator sexual misconduct is 10 times higher in one year's time than in five decades of abuse by clergy," Miller said, noting that in 2021 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reported it had received nearly 4,300 sexual abuse allegations. "Another striking contrast is we are not mandated to send our children to church; we are mandated to send them to school."

The extent of the problem may shock many Americans. The topic has long been shrouded by a curtain held by various actors in the drama: schools reluctant to go public with embarrassing and possibly criminal activity, unions fighting for members' privacy and sometimes state laws that protect it, and a government reluctant to ask hard questions that would gather reliable data.

But the cases and tactics often used to cover them up have become common enough to earn an ugly nickname: "passing the trash."

Oh, you mean that when the parents of children at a school get outraged that a teacher is a pedophile, they don't fire him, but merely move him to another school jurisdiction where the parents aren't aware of his proclivities?

I remember the Catholic Church did this -- and the leftwing Regime thought that was an unspeakable cover-up then.

But now?

Silence.

"DOE does not and never has tracked sexual misconduct committed by adults against students," said Billie-Jo Grant, a professor at California Poly State University who is one of the nation's top researchers on the topic.

"DOE has never aggressively worked to stop teachers' unions and administrators from passing the trash," she told RCI. "DOE does not hold accountable the many enablers who have created a pool of mobile molesters in our schools nationwide. Your questions should include why? Why? Why?"

Read the whole thing.

National "Education" Association pyrsyn and Marxist preacher: "We have to win all the things!!!"

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:00 PM

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