A new report says public school educators were arrested on sex-related crimes involving students at a rate of one per day through the first nine months of the year.
Data analysis from Fox News showed that 269 educators were arrested, including four principals, two assistant principals, 226 teachers, 20 teacher’s aides and 17 substitute teachers.
The analysis only counted alleged crimes that results in arrests and that also hit some local media.
“Arrests that weren’t publicized were not counted in the analysis, meaning the true number may well be higher,” Fox noted in its report.
The Department of Education estimated that up to 3 million kids suffer physical sexual abuse at the hands of public school teachers. You wrote forcefully against abuse in the Catholic Church, why give public schools—where the scale of the problem is 100x—a pass? https://t.co/xGtkNIvmT6
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 12, 2022
Fox’s report said 74 percent of the crimes involved students.
Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, sought to put the number in context.
“The number of teachers arrested for child sex abuse is just the tip of the iceberg — much as it was for the Catholic Church prior to widespread exposure and investigation in the early 2000s,” he said in a statement.
“The best available academic research, published by the Department of Education, suggests that nearly 10% of public school students suffer from physical abuse between kindergarten and twelfth grade,” he said.
“According to that research, the scale of sexual abuse in the public schools is nearly 100 times greater than that of the Catholic Church,” he said.
Rufo said the issue cannot be swept under the rug.
“The question for critics who seek to downplay the extent of public-school sexual abuse is this: How many arrests need to happen before you consider it a problem? How many children need to be sexually abused by teachers before you consider it a crisis?” he said.
Rufo told Fox News in July that the education industry does not want to know the full extent of the problem.
“This is a scandal that the political Left is doing everything in its power to suppress,” he said.
“The basic fact is incontrovertible: every day, a public school teacher is arrested, indicted, or convicted for child sex abuse. And yet, the teachers unions, the public school bureaucracies, and the left-wing media pretend that the abuse isn’t happening and viciously attack families who raise concerns,” he said.
Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, told Fox News in May that a full study is needed to update the last research done in 2004.
“The last federally commissioned study on the issue was in 2004, pre-smart phone and those who study the issue closely say that the problem has been exacerbated by the ease of communication that a smart phone provides,” she said. “We need to get much more honest about the problem, study it again and ensure that we have policies and laws in place that protect children.”
Sanzi said the issue is uncomfortable to study, but cannot be allowed to fester.
“Educator sexual abuse is a major problem that largely gets ignored because it’s so uncomfortable to talk about,” she said in a statement, according to Fox. “While a very small fraction of educators and school employees prey on the children in their care, one bad actor can do damage to many students,” she said.
Fox News has tracked educator-related crimes all year, and in its March report found crimes had been reported in 41 states.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
