Teacher Misconduct, Media Malfeasance

The Tampa Tribune wonders,
"What's Going On With Stephanie Ragusa's Smile? "
ABC wonders,
"Was Debra LaFave's arrest the start of a troubling trend? "

April 29, 2008 - From the Tampa Tribune: Karen A. Duncan, a sex assault therapist in Indianapolis who has studied women as sex offenders.

"I think something is going on with a certain group of young women and the media attention," Duncan said. "They seem to be seeking the media attention. Some sort of need is being met for them. … They kind of pose for the camera and they dress up."

Bonnie Bucqueroux, who runs the Victims and the Media program at Michigan State University, wondered whether female teachers who have sex with their students are doing it for media attention.

"It gives them their Paris Hilton 15 minutes" of fame, Bucqueroux said. "Does it spark that sort of behavior or was it there all along? I find that to be a difficult question to answer."

Tampa Tribune Graphic: 14 incidents in which Tampa Bay-area educators have been charged with having improper relationships with minors.
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TT - While there are sexual predators in the classroom who are there with the express purpose of sexually abusing children to feed some sick fantasy, they haven't been the majority - or even close to being a majority - of cases we have seen in two years.

It's interesting that both experts have clued into the one thing we think accounts for the upsurge in both female and male teacher misconduct: media attention. What grabs media attention more than expertise or competence, is bad behavior. Whether it is Madonna's antics, Michael's Jackson's weirdness, Britney Spear's bouts with drugs or misbehaving or drug-taking athletes, the media works constantly and consciously to undermine community standards.

Newspapers frequently refer to sordid sexual encounters with students as "trysts" or "an affair" or the sexual involvement as "romantic." Headlines from Our Idiotic Headline Writers Awards aren't from small, obscure newspapers. The St. Petersburg Times editorialized against prison for one teacher, calling it a "complicated affair." They referred to the teacher as "her boyfriend." The St. Petersburg Times runs the Poynter Institute that trains a large number of journalists and runs seminars for the industry.

The Tampa Tribune concluded the public was fed up in an editorial, citing Debra LaFave, but if you followed her case in media reports at the time, you found no such indignation or outrage. The final line in that March editorial was the clue: "It's that the rest of us are finally recognizing these relationships for the crimes they are." How dumb is that??

The media is not in the business of passing judgement, except when it serves a political purpose. Equally, they are not in the business of strengthening or supporting a community. They are show biz and the more unseemly the show, the more fun - for them. It's entertainment, folks, and if your child is sexually exploited by a teacher or a coach, if your child's complaint is never investigated by a school because of personal friendships or a desire to keep the whole thing quiet, that's your problem.

If your school board member is personally selected by the teacher's union and the union sends professional campaign workers to your district, that's your problem. If union money buys a legislator, that's your problem. And if archaic labor laws means the teacher who has sex in his or her car with your son or daughter can't be fired without spending $200,000 or more, that's really your problem.

The fact is that we don't have the media we deserve. We have a media that we tolerate and we only barely do that. In the last twenty years, ABC, NBC and CBS were sold and not because they were profitable. Major newspaper chains are barely holding on and newspaper circulation numbers drop every quarter.

So, if you really want to make a difference, don't' subscribe. If you really want to make an impact, contact Disney to ask why they have sleazy t.v. If you really want to see legislative change, write a letter or an e-mail to a legislator on any issue just so they will know you are watching. Best of all, go with your instincts. There's a major problem in education and in the universities that turn out teachers who can't pass basic tests and whose ethical training consists of a slide show complete with misspellings and bad graphics.

You can make a difference just by knowing the extent of misconduct and incompetence in education.