From the article: "Lumping harassment together with serious sexual misconduct does more harm than good."

Admittedly, the speaker here is an NEA spokesman, but he's got a point: public schools really are safer than just about any other place that kids can be, and the authors of the study probably decided to lump harassment together with real abuse simply because that enabled them to reach the "one in ten" figure that guaranteed headlines.

How would the Catholic Church look if we lumped harassment together with sexual abuse?
Joel | 06.30.04 - 2:37 pm | #

I agree with Joel. Judging from the article, the study doesn't differentiate between rape and calling the wrong girl "sweetie."
Stephen | 06.30.04 - 2:58 pm | #

Looks like the classic approach to getting attention for your cause. You define something so loosely that almost anything will fit, then say, "Gosh, look how often this happens."
GregK | Homepage | 06.30.04 - 3:08 pm | #

Waiting for major exposes by LibEstablishment Papers. Impromptu press conferences by victims' groups in their lawyers' offices. Grand jury depositions to Get To The Bottom Of This. Dredging of cases going back to WW II. And we want juicy facts- how victims were assaulted, in minute detail. Leading to petitions by school district personnel to call for married and female teach- oh, we have them already. So the Hofstra study finally received mainstream attention. Probably for about 37 hours, then on to the next anti-Bush screed. Yawn. Still prefer headline on Reason to Homeschool.
Gerard E. | 06.30.04 - 3:15 pm | #

I'm skeptical of the 1 in 10 number as well. It's very easy to manipulate a statistical study to give you the answer that you want to see. It would be nice to see the raw data.
Karen Howard | 06.30.04 - 3:32 pm | #

It's my impression that the US Church's "zero tolerance" policy does lump pretty much everything from a look to rape together. If I recall correctly, that was one of the criticisms after the Dallas meeting two years back.
Kevin Miller | Homepage | 06.30.04 - 3:51 pm | #

I am not skeptical of the 1 in 10. I can think of a teacher at my HS that was notorious for inappropriate contact with females in his class.

The denial is classic ... When it is happening in the Catholic Church it is a problem with Catholicism. When it is happening in the schools, their methods are flawed. One of the articles I post below (the pittsburghlive one) even has an example of a teacher that was shipped around. Now where have we seen that before?

This is old news BTW. I was wondering if it would ever get headline space. Here are some similar stories ...

http://headlines.agapepress.org/...afa/ 252004f.asp

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/...l/ s_198683.html

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/...4/5/ 01552.shtml

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/...604/ 032604j.htm

http://www.edweek.org/ew/ ewstory...lug=26Abuse.h23

http://www.catholicnews.com/data...use/ abuse19.htm

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ new...RTICLE_ID=37567

http://www.ncasv.org/ educator_se..._statistics.htm

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0.../15/ smn.13.html
Ggoose | Homepage | 06.30.04 - 4:15 pm | #

BTW this is horrible no matter where it happens. I would just love to see initiative taken to handle this in all professions with frequent contact with children and teens.

Meanwhile, I will homeschool.
Ggoose | Homepage | 06.30.04 - 4:18 pm | #

In keeping with the increased snarkiness and vitriol that you and others have noted on the blog, Your Majesty, I must denounce your having used a home-school reason number that is smaller than several posted previously. I shall be communicating with Verizon, Google, and your Ordinary.
Ed | 06.30.04 - 6:05 pm | #

I guess I'm skeptical of the figure both because I never ran into any sexual abuse, harassment, or even inappropriate remarks when I was in school (but then I graduated HS in 74), nor have I heard of anything from a single one of my friends or family who have children of that age (but that may be my particular circle).

If the number were truly 1 in 10, I would have expected to have personal knowledge of at least one incident.

It doesn't follow that the study's conclusions are false, but they do seem pretty counterintuitive to me. Which is why it would be interesting to look at the raw data.
Karen Howard | 06.30.04 - 6:15 pm | #

Mark,
Here's eveidence of your influence. The moment I sauw this on TV, the first thing that popped into my head was "If only teachers could marry, this would never happen."
Dave | 06.30.04 - 7:42 pm | #

Ah, but did you read they included incidents which did not fall under the description of "abuse", but which could still negatively impact a child and the school experience? Why can't we understand that it doesn't have to be full blown intercourse, or molestation, to knock a kid off his or her equilibrium? Me, I believe it. And I'm homeschooling mine, and my radar is set to high...
VBD | 07.01.04 - 9:10 am | #

Joel, if we lumped harassment of all sorts in with sex abuse of all sorts, well my friend, the rate would be 100%.
michigancatholic | Homepage | 07.02.04 - 4:23 pm | #