No Child Left Ungroped....The Failure Of The Conservative Right

All this talk about family values from the conservatives and yet our
children remain prey for the perverts among us.

TMT


AP: Sexual misconduct plagues US schools By MARTHA IRVINE and ROBERT
TANNER, AP National Writers

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.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end
with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many
abusers have several victims.

And no one - not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal
governments - has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out
of classrooms.

Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters
sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of
Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of
sex offenses by educators - the very definition of breach of trust.

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.

Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more
than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators
who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes
related to their 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.

Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of
highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of
the extent of educator abuse.

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.

"From my own experience - this could get me in trouble - I think every
single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At
least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30
years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't
matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."

One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million
students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject
to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between
kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment
that's sexual in nature.

Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
wonders why there isn't more outrage.

"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that
they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims
accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she
sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from
Lindsey - and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally
revoked.

As an 8-year-old elementary-school student, Bramow told how Lindsey
forced her hand on what she called his "pee-pee."

"How did you know it was his pee-pee?" an interviewer at St. Luke's
Child Protection Center in Cedar Rapids asked Jennah in a videotape,
taken in 1995.

"'Cause I felt something?" said Jennah, then a fidgety girl with long,
dark hair.

"How did it feel?" the investigator asked.

"Bumpy," Jennah replied. She drew a picture that showed how Lindsey
made her touch him on the zipper area of his pants.

Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview. "It never
occurs to you people that some people don't want their past opened
back up," he said when an AP reporter approached him at his home
outside Cedar Rapids and asked questions.

That past, according to evidence presented in the Bramow's civil case,
included accusations from students and parents along with reprimands
from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately
ignored until 1995, when accusations from Bramow and two other girls
forced his early retirement. Even then, he kept his teaching license
until the Bramows took the case public and filed a complaint with the
state.

Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday
educators - teachers, school psychologists, principals and
superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for
excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While
some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual
misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from
their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography.

They include:

· Joseph E. Hayes, a former principal in East St. Louis, Ill. DNA
evidence in a civil case determined that he impregnated a 14-year-old
student. Never charged criminally, his license was suspended in 2003.
He has ignored an order to surrender it permanently.

· Donald M. Landrum, a high school teacher in Polk County, N.C. His
bosses warned him not to meet with female students behind closed
doors. They put a glass window in his office door, but Landrum papered
over it. Police later found pornography and condoms in his office and
alleged that he was about to have sex with a female student. His
license was revoked in 2005.

· Rebecca A. Boicelli, a former teacher in Redwood City, Calif. She
conceived a child with a 16-year-old former student then went on
maternity leave in 2004 while police investigated. She was hired to
teach in a nearby school district; board members said police hadn't
told them about the investigation.

The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers
in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many
are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have
one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.

Two of the nation's major teachers unions, the American Federation of
Teachers and the National Education Association, each denounced sex
abuse while emphasizing that educators' rights also must be taken into
account.

"Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and
teachers must be protected from false accusations," said NEA President
Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-
paragraph statement.

Kathy Buzad of the AFT said that "if there's one incident of sexual
misconduct between a teacher and a student that's one too many."

The United States has grown more sympathetic to victims of sex abuse
over recent decades, particularly when it comes to young people. Laws
that protect children from abusers bear the names of young victims.
Police have made pursuing Internet predators a priority. People
convicted of abuse typically face tough sentences and registry as sex
offenders.

Even so, sexually abusive teachers continue to take advantage, and
there are several reasons why.

For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse
with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet
relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.

"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians
saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his
teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a
professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who
has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal
with sexual misconduct.

"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled
into the school district - 'and now that they're gone, everything's
OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."

The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but,
overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and
fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers
look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-
the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state
capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or
any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital
profession.

That only enables rogue teachers, and puts kids who aren't likely to
be believed in a tough spot.

In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate
behavior were dismissed. One girl in Mansfield, Ohio, complained about
a sexual assault by teacher Donald Coots and got expelled. It was only
when a second girl, years later, brought a similar complaint against
the same teacher that he was punished.

And that second girl also was ostracized by the school community and
ultimately left town.

Unless there's a videotape of a teacher involved with a child,
everyone wants to believe the authority figure, says Wayne Promisel, a
retired Virginia detective who has investigated many sex abuse cases.

He and others who track the problem reiterated one point repeatedly
during the AP investigation: Very few abusers get caught.

They point to several academic studies estimating that only about one
in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone
who can do something about it.

Teachers, administrators and even parents frequently don't, or won't,
recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.

"They can't see what's in front of their face. Not unlike a kid in an
alcoholic family, who'll say 'My family is great,'" says McGrath, the
California lawyer and investigator who now trains entire school
systems how to recognize what she calls the unmistakable "red flags"
of misconduct.

In Hamburg, Pa., in 2002, those "red flags" should have been clear. A
student skipped classes every day to spend time with one teacher. He
gave her gifts and rides in his car. She sat on his lap. The bond ran
so deep that the student got chastised repeatedly - even suspended
once for being late and absent so often. But there were no questions
for the teacher.

Heather Kline was 12, a girl with a broad smile and blond hair pulled
back tight. Teacher Troy Mansfield had cultivated her since she was in
his third-grade class.

"Kids, like, idolized me because they thought I was, like, cool
because he paid more attention to me," says Kline, now 18, sitting at
her mother's kitchen table, sorting through a file of old poems and
cards from Mansfield. "I was just like really comfortable. I could
tell him anything."

He never pushed her, just raised the stakes, bit by bit - a comment
about how good she looked, a gift, a hug.

She was sure she was in love.

By winter of seventh grade, he was sneaking her off in his car for an
hour of sex, dropping in on her weekly baby-sitting duties, e-mailing
about what clothes she should wear, about his sexual fantasies, about
marriage and children.

Mansfield finally got caught by the girl's mother, and his own words
convicted him. At his criminal trial in 2004, Heather read his e-mails
and instant messages aloud, from declarations of true love to explicit
references to past sex. He's serving up to 31 years in state prison.

The growing use of e-mails and text messages is leaving a trail that
investigators and prosecutors can use to prove an intimate
relationship when other evidence is hard to find.

Even then, many in the community find it difficult to accept that a
predator is in their midst. When these cases break, defendants often
portray the students as seducers or false accusers. However, every
investigator questioned said that is largely a misconception.

"I've been involved in several hundred investigations," says Martin
Bates, an assistant superintendent in a Salt Lake City school
district. "I think I've seen that just a couple of times ... where a
teacher is being pursued by a student."

Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can
mean future abuse for another student and another school district.

"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having
the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says
Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the
educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth
University.

It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames - "passing the
trash" or the "mobile molester."

Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual
misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher
licenses. But there's no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy
to ignore.

School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators
do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up
against a popular teacher. They also don't want to get sued by
teachers or victims, and they don't want to face a challenge from a
strong union.

In the Iowa case, Lindsey agreed to leave without fighting when his
bosses kept the reason for his departure confidential. The decades'
worth of allegations against him would have stayed secret, if not for
Bramow.

Across the country, such deals and lack of information-sharing allow
abusive teachers to jump state lines, even when one school does put a
stop to the abuse.

While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating
problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were
hesitant to share details of cases with the AP - Alabama and
Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave
the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending
teachers' cases secret.

Meanwhile, the reasons given for punishing hundreds of educators,
including many in California, were so vague there was no way to tell
why they'd been punished, until further investigation by AP reporters
revealed it was sexual misconduct.

And in Hawaii, no educators were disciplined by the state in the five
years the AP examined, even though some teachers there were serving
sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically
remained teachers, even behind bars.

Elsewhere, there have been fitful steps toward catching errant
teachers that may be having some effect. The AP found the number of
state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a
high of 649 in 2005.

More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting
and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and
a lack of coordination among districts and states.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and
sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge
financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to
act.

And the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education
and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for
any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies.

The uncoordinated system that's developed means some teachers still
fall through the cracks. Aaron M. Brevik is a case in point.

Brevik was a teacher at an elementary school in Warren, Mich., until
he was accused of using a camera hidden in a gym bag to secretly film
boys in locker rooms and showers. He also faced charges that he
recorded himself molesting a boy while the child slept.

Found guilty of criminal sexual conduct, Brevik is now serving a five-
to 20-year prison sentence and lost his Michigan license in 2005.

What Michigan officials apparently didn't know when they hired him was
that Brevik's teaching license in Minnesota had been permanently
suspended in 2001 after he allegedly invited two male minors to stay
with him in a hotel room. He was principal of an elementary school in
southeastern Minnesota at the time.

"I tell you what, they never go away. They just blend a little
better," says Steve Janosko, a prosecutor in Ocean County, N.J., who
handled the case of a former high school teacher and football coach,
Nicholas J. Arminio.

Arminio surrendered his New Jersey teaching license in 1994 after two
female students separately accused him of inappropriate touching. The
state of Maryland didn't know that when he applied for teaching
credentials and took a job at a high school in Baltimore County. He
eventually resigned and lost that license, too.

Even so, until this month, he was coaching football at another
Baltimore County high school in a job that does not require a teaching
license. After the AP started asking questions, he was fired.

Victims also face consequences when teachers are punished.

In Pennsylvania, after news of teacher Troy Mansfield's arrest hit,
girls called Kline, his 12-year-old victim, a "***" to her face. A
teacher called her a "vixen." Friends stopped talking to her. Kids no
longer sat with her at lunch.

Her abuser, meanwhile, had been a popular teacher and football coach.

So, between rumors that she was pregnant or doing drugs and her own
panic attacks and depression, Kline bounced between schools. At 16,
she ran away to Nashville.

"I didn't have my childhood," says Kline, who's back home now, working
at a grocery cash register and hoping to get her GED so she can go to
nursing school. "He had me so matured at so young.

"I remember going from little baby dolls to just being an adult."

The courts dealt her a final insult. A federal judge dismissed her
civil suit against the school, saying administrators had no obligation
to protect her from a predatory teacher since officials were unaware
of the abuse, despite what the court called widespread
"unsubstantiated rumors" in the school. The family is appealing.

In Iowa, the state Supreme Court made the opposite ruling in the
Bramow case, deciding she and her parents could sue the Cedar Rapids
schools for failing to stop Lindsey.

Bramow, now a young mother who waits tables for a living, won a
$20,000 judgment. But Lindsey was never criminally charged due to what
the former county prosecutor deemed insufficient evidence.

Arthur Sensor, the former superintendent in Oelwein, Iowa, who vividly
recalls pressuring Lindsey to quit on Feb. 18, 1964, regrets that he
didn't do more to stop him back then.

Now, he says, he'd call the police.

"He promised me he wouldn't do it again - that he had learned. And he
was a young man, a beginning teacher, had a young wife, a young
child," Sensor, now 86 years old, said during testimony at the
Bramows' civil trial.

"I wanted to believe him, and I did."

___

John Parsons, special projects manager for the AP's News Research
Center, contributed to this story.

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