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Passing the Trash
When Randall Crane came to teach at Jennings Middle School in Akron, Ohio, the superintendent felt lucky to get him. After all, the principal at Crane's previous school in Manchester had given him a glowing letter of recommendation, noting his "outgoing personality" and saying, "I wouldn't hesitate to hire him again."Oh, really? That same principal helped oversee an investigation into Crane's relationships with his female students, after accusations that included "too much touching of girls," "too much like boyfriend/ girlfriend," and "taking girls into rooms with the door closed." Crane denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to resign.
No one at Jennings knew about Crane's earlier conduct because, the Manchester superintendent told a local newspaper, "you don't want to pass problems on to other schools, but at the same time, you weigh that against what you can say that might cause litigation for your school too."
So Crane got his sterling recommendation and a new teaching job. Last June, he got something else: a two-year sentence for having sex with a 14-year-old student.
After being shown papers detailing Crane's inappropriate behavior in Manchester, the Akron superintendent said to a reporter, "No other district would have hired that individual knowing what you just showed me in that file."
"It's called 'passing the trash,'" says Kansas State University professor Robert Shoop, an expert witness in nearly 50 school abuse cases. "I've worked with individuals who are in their fourth or fifth district, and you find out they've been molesting people for 20 years."
This shuffling of sleazy characters from school district to school district is just one way we're failing to fully protect our children. It's no small concern: In 2004, a U.S. Department of Education study found that nearly 10 percent of public school students have endured unwanted sexual attention from school employees, and close to 7 percent had experienced actual sexual contact -- anything from pinching to kissing to outright molestation.
Let's make one thing clear: Most teachers are honest, hardworking, and truly care for their students. And it's important to protect teachers from false allegations, especially when harassment and abuse charges are used as punishment for bad grades or strict discipline.
Still, there's no denying that the threat from molesters exists in every state. In West Virginia, for example, sexual abuse of students is the No. 1 reason teachers lost their licenses over the past five years -- a whopping 35 percent of all licenses lost. And a Detroit News study found that, in the 15 months from January 2004 to April 2005, 22 present or former school employees were convicted of sexual misconduct involving minors or the mentally impaired. The vast majority were teachers, although a coach and a janitor were also among those convicted.
Perhaps the creepiest thing is all the sexual predators we don't even know about. When The New York Times recently investigated pedophiles, it found that "the most frequent job mentioned was schoolteacher." How many parents shuddered when it turned out that a slime ball named John Mark Karr -- the man who claimed to have murdered Jon Benet Ramsey -- taught elementary school?
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