Black Man Thinkin'

The Catholic church paid a heavy price for its pedophilia scandal. In the U.S. alone:

• There were, at least, 7,400 abusers,
• There were at least 15,200 victims, between 1950 and 2009,
• The Vatican ponied up $3 Billion to address the matter, and
• Eight dioceses declared bankruptcy.

More than 700 priests and deacons left the ministry, either voluntarily or perforce. Even a U.S. bishop went down.

Of course, regard for the church eroded. As the priest-shuffling scandal reached its heights, the public did not hide its disdain:

and the Catholic Church was political cartoon fodder:

By the time Pope Benedict XVI resigned, 3/4 of U.S. Catholics surveyed were ready for him to go, his handling of the pedophile scandal being a major factor.

It was a sorry episode in which the blatant disregard for the welfare of more than 15,000 children outraged the public…

However, now the public can read of:

• A California teacher feeding his bodily fluids to blindfolded elementary school children,
• A Michigan teacher in a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy,
• An HIV-positive teacher in Georgia indicted for sex with a teenager,
• An over-achieving Michigan teacher who slept with four of her male students,
• An Oklahoma teacher buying beer for students, then sexing one of them at her home,
• Female teachers makin’ it happen in Florida,
• Principals and their assistants gettin’ their share, and
• So much more.

Unfortunately, it does not end with a few select news accounts:

• In 2000, an American Association of University Women report indicated that 10% of 8th through 11th graders experienced inappropriate sexual conduct at school,
• A U.S. Department of Education Report indicated 6% to 10 % of public school children are victims of sexual abuse by school teachers and employees, and
• Another report indicated 9.6% of all students experienced some form of sexual abuse during their K-12 matriculation.

Since annual U.S. public school K-12 enrollment is 50 million children (and growing), those small percentages produce staggering numbers.

Over a 13-year period, more than 650 million children pass through U.S. public schools. A 6% abuse rate produces more than 39 million victims; a 10% rate, more than 65 million. Divide those numbers by 13, and there are 3 million to 5 million child victims of sexual abuse, in U.S. public schools, every year…and the average U.S. school year is only 180 days.

It took the U.S. Catholic Church more than 50 years to violate some 15,000 children; abusing, on average, less than one child per day. If that is reprehensible (and it is), then what is the proper adjective to describe U.S. public schools’ sexual abuse of, on average, 17,000 and 28,000 children, every school day?

To say the Catholic Church was slow to respond to its pedophilia problem would be, well, understatement; but it did respond. Despite missteps, there have been apologies, even recently, with the last pope doing so publicly in 2010:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPLthTU-bEg[/youtube]

By comparison, there seems little by way of contrition or apology from U.S. public schools. It seems absent from teachers:

After the Michigan teacher’s conviction, 8 teachers – 6 current and 2 retired – wrote letters to the judge, seeking lenient sentencing, and saying the homosexual pedophilia (which would also be statutory rape) was a mistake.

…absent from school districts:

The aforementioned California pedophile fought his dismissal as an unfit teacher and received a $40,000 back pay settlement from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which offered the following explanation: “The State’s current teacher dismissal framework makes it extremely difficult to terminate unfit teachers like Berndt, thus requiring the District to find other viable options to ensure the safety of our students” …like paying off pedophiles?

…absent from teachers unions:

• Cities: New York City spends $22 Million, yearly, appeasing its teachers union by paying teachers deserving of termination, including Roland Pierre, who stayed on payroll for 13 years after molesting a female student in 1997;
• States: The California Teachers Association used their influence to kill legislation to remove child molesters from classrooms;
• Nationally: Though both Democrats and Republicans agree on the need to protect children, both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) oppose a bill to keep criminals, including sex offenders, out of schools, citing potential compromise or unionized worker protection and even racial disparities in background checks.

One could argue it is also absent from the country’s parents and guardians as well; there is a reason images like this one are popular on social media:

However, at least as interesting as the relative lack of concern from schools regarding their behavior is the relative lack of rage from the public. Outrage over Catholic pedophilia was strong, leading to priests being killed in Poland, in Massachusetts, and a Canadian priest, convicted of pedophilia, committing suicide. However, aside from the community reaction to Michigan teachers who supported their convicted pedophile colleague, there appears to be little national outrage at what schools are doing to the nation’s children.

If the wave of Catholic priest pedophilia victims made people’s head spin, then the tsunami of US public school pedophilia victims should make those same heads explode. However, apparently, it does not. In fact, at least one leading intellectual, Richard Dawkins, does not consider it a big deal, though he himself was abused. One can only wonder whether his experience influenced his outspoken atheistic stance.

When one teenager, recently, died under tragic circumstances, the nation mustered this reaction:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYigIN-XG_M[/youtube]

So, when will the streets fill for the more than 17,000 children and teenagers who are sexually abused every day that a school bell rings?

And if, the nation will not take to the streets, might it at least withdraw the taxes that support, and protect, such blatant and defiant pedophilia, at least until U.S. public schools do as much about their pedophile problem as the Catholics did about theirs? Unless the message is, as Richard Dawkins implied, pedophilia is not a concern, as long as God is kept out of it.