Paducah Sun editorial supports stronger laws prohibiting teacher/student sexual contact

One of the problems in Kentucky's public schools is the tendency of the state to resist strong action against teachers who may be shown to be incompetent, who cheat on state tests or who violate the public trust by engaging in sexual contact with their charges. The Paducah Sun (subscription) says this must change. They're right. State education officials would benefit from a stronger set of laws that would encourage action.

OFF LIMITS

State should criminalize teacher/student sex

The Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board

receives at least one complaint every month

about a teacher having sex with a consenting student

In Kentucky, a public school teacher can have consensual sex with his — or her — 16-year-old student. And for parents who discover their sons or daughters have been in sexual relationships with teachers or coaches, there is no legal remedy.

That must change.

Fortunately, state Rep. J.R. Gray is doing something about it. The Benton Democrat has prepared legislation for the next term of the legislature to make it illegal for teachers, as well as anyone else in a position of trust, to have sex with anyone under age 18. Although Gray won’t be able to introduce the legislation himself, as he has taken a cabinet position in Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration, he has ensured it will be introduced.

Kentucky is behind many surrounding states with this protection. But in those states that have criminalized teacher/student sex, resistance has come from some unlikely quarters.

In Louisiana, the president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers objected to that state’s law. Steve Monaghan asked, “Why are you centering on one group of individuals that has contact with this age group and ignoring legislators who have pages, the clergy and others?”

The short answer is that legislative pages and minor parishioners should also be protected. But public school teachers have a particular responsibility since education is mandatory in the United States. Kids don’t have any choice but to attend, unless their parents can afford private education or can teach them at home themselves.

Under American law, schools serve in loco parentis — in the place of parents. A teacher, especially the president of the state teachers’ union, ought to know this. He ought to, in fact, be the first to insist on the strictest of standards.

Monaghan’s question is based on what he sees as an underlying assumption that teachers are particularly prone to such violations. He said, “It is creating a perceptual problem that we have a monopoly, that educators are somehow the only profession that has this problem.”

Well-publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, Protestant clergy and private day care workers provide ample proof that the problem extends throughout society. But the fact is, stories about school teachers, coaches and band leaders having sex with students have become far too common. The Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board receives at least one complaint every month about a teacher having sex with a consenting student.

Most sexual abuse in schools is never reported, according to Whistleblower magazine, which cited statistics to back up that premise. The most exhaustive study to date, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education and published in 2004, revealed that 10 percent of public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees — with the behaviors ranging from sexual comments to rape. And a study by the American Association of University Women Education Foundation determined that 290,000 public schools students experienced some form of physical sexual abuse by school employees during the decade of the 1990s.

In one study, only two of 225 New York City public school teachers who admitted sexually abusing students lost their teaching licenses, and not one of the cases was reported to police. And in another study, two-thirds of the 159 coaches in Washington who were reprimanded or warned about prior sexual misconduct with players continued teaching or coaching.

With unnerving frequency, the teachers and coaches caught in sexual misconduct with students are popular among students and in their communities, and their targeted victims are often shy and unaccustomed to attention from such high profile people. The teachers frequently break down the barriers slowly, winning trust, and making the students believe they are responsible — and therefore less likely to speak up. And like sexual abusers in other situations, teachers who get away with it repeat the behavior, sometimes for years.

This is not to say that every teacher accused of sexual misconduct is guilty. Students have made false accusations for reasons ranging from not enough playing time on the court to revenge for discipline and even as a twisted prank.

Teachers have the right to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty — not only in court, but in public opinion.

Society should honor those who dedicate their lives to teaching, men and women who sacrifice the higher salaries and less demanding work they might otherwise enjoy for the noble calling of molding the next generation. But society must also demand high standards for behavior from those who teach. Teaching is a sacred trust, and it must not be abused.

Sexual contact between teachers and students is an abuse of that trust. Students are in too vulnerable a position to give reasoned consent. The legislature must strengthen the law to protect the young people of the Commonwealth.