AP Study: Sexual Misconduct by Teachers a National Scandal

By: Martha Irviine and Robert Tanner, The Associated Press A young teacher in Iowa sheepishly admits that he fondled a fifth-grader's breast. But he doesn't lose his teaching license until one persistent victim and her family go public -- 40 years after the first accusation.

A middle-school teacher in Pennsylvania targets a young girl in his class and uses the guise of love to abuse her sexually.

A teacher in Michigan, who already had lost his license in another state, goes to prison after he films himself molesting a boy.

These are only a few examples 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 have been groped by teachers. Raped. Pursued, seduced and made to think they're in love.

A seven-month Associated Press investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, voluntarily surrendered or limited from 2001 through 2005 after 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. More than half of the educators who were punished by their states were also convicted of crimes related to the misconduct.

SOUTH FLORIDA CASES

South Florida has seen its share of teacher-abuse cases lately.

A North Miami Beach teacher, Edison Mu?oz, was arrested in June for allegedly showing an obscene photo to a 17-year-old student. A year earlier, Julio Carlos Polo, a teacher at John Ferguson Senior High in west Miami-Dade County, was arrested for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old student on school grounds.

In Broward County, Parkway Middle teacher Herbert Stanley Roach was arrested in January on charges that he had sex with a 14-year-old student several times in a classroom closet. Pompano Beach High band teacher Scott Davis was suspended six months later after school district investigators said he shared his MySpace page -- with references to sex and drugs -- with students.

A former Palm Beach County high school teacher, Andrew Foster -- who faces multiple felony charges, including unlawful sexual activity with a child and transmission of pornography by an electronic device -- was accused of trying to have sex with female students at a previous job in Indiana, The Palm Beach Post reported last month.

Most of America's three million public-school teachers stay well within the bounds of propriety as they work. Yet, the number of abusive educators speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Cases that are reported often end with no action taken. Cases that are investigated sometimes can't be proved -- and many abusers have multiple victims.

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

AP 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.

SCANT ATTENTION

Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that has 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,'' said Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating misconduct in schools. ``It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban.''

One victim 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,'' said Jennah Bramow, a 20-year-old single mother and waitress in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Many victims accept settlement deals and sign confidentiality agreements. But Bramow sued her city's schools for failing to protect her from accused teacher Gary C. Lindsey -- and won.

The trial revealed that Lindsey had been forced out of his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa, in 1964, after admitting that he had fondled a fifth-grader's breast.

''I guess it was just lust of the flesh,'' Lindsey told his superintendent. He moved on to schools in Illinois and eventually settled in Cedar Rapids.

Now 68, Lindsey 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 asked him questions at his home outside Cedar Rapids.

That past, according to court evidence, included abuse accusations from a half-dozen more girls and their parents, along with reprimands from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately ignored until 1995, when allegations from Bramow and two other girls forced his early retirement.

Even then, he kept his teaching license until the Bramows filed a complaint with the state. He was never charged criminally.

School districts try to take as many precautions as they can before hiring teachers, but a lot of their research depends on the forthrightness of a teacher's previous employers.

BACKGROUND CHECKS

Both the Broward and Miami-Dade school districts fingerprint prospective employees and perform comprehensive background checks on all employees. This includes asking teachers' former employers a specific set of questions, such as whether they would hire them again or if there is any reason they wouldn't, said Joe Melita, the Broward school district's chief investigator.

''Assuming that the person is getting good information, we should be OK,'' Melita said.

''We also do drug testing and vigorously check references,'' said Miami-Dade school district spokesman John Shuster.

The state Department of Education tracks teachers through the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, said Pam Stewart, deputy chancellor for K-12 educator quality.

But the database includes only information about whether teachers' certificates were revoked, and it is dependent on whether states report the information to the clearinghouse.

MOSTLY MALE

In nearly nine out of 10 cases nationwide, the perpetrators are male. While some were accused of abusing students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a child from their classes.

The AP discovered efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance to recognizing and fighting abuse. That enables rogue teachers, and puts children who are not likely to be believed into a tough spot.

Very few abusers are caught. Academic studies estimate that only about one in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone who can do something about it. When it is reported, teachers, administrators and some parents frequently don't -- or won't -- recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.