As I pointed out in my earlier post about the academic weakness of the American public education system, speaking negatively about our government-run schools is a touchy thing.  Teachers and students have a tendency to identify closely with their schools, and nobody wants to admit that their school might have problems.  However, all of us citizens — especially Christians concerned with truth — need to be willing to be honest about the system’s shortcomings.

In recent months, there has been an increasing movement of extreme progressives, like Elizabeth Bartholet and James Dwyer, toward attempts to presumptively ban homeschooling.  And yet as they purport to measure homeschooling against public schooling and find it wanting, there is an automatic presumption that public schools are perfect in all of their areas of comparison.  If we are to accurately consider the benefits and drawbacks of various means of schooling, we must at least begin with accurate facts.

And so I would like to tackle an uncomfortable subject: abuse.  More specifically, how do government schools stack up when it comes to protecting children against physical harm?

Sexual Harassment & Abuse in School

Statistics like these are inherently “fuzzy.”  Reporting may be inconsistent due to embarassment, definitions may vary, etc.  But we can at least draw some conclusions about general trends based on the information available.

AAUW Sexual Harassment Study

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) conducted a survey on sexual harassment at school.  This report is limited to secondary school (and college) students, so it doesn’t offer any information about grade schoolers.  According to their report, 44% of secondary students (7th-12th grades) surveyed reported experiencing in-person sexual harassment during the 2010-2011 school year.  Although this was more prevalent for girls (52%), it was also a significant issue for boys (35%).

Many of these encounters consisted of inappropriate jokes and the like, so some people might not consider them “harassment.”  Just to be clear, let’s look at some of the more specific categories.  

• being shown sexy or sexual pictures you didn’t want to see: 13%
• being touched in an unwelcome sexual way: 8% (13%, for girls)
• being physically intimidated in a sexual way: 6% (9%, for girls)
• having someone flash or expose themselves to you: 7%
• being forced to do something sexual: 2% (4%, for girls; 0.2%, for boys)

Keep in mind, these are the percentages of students; many of the students reported experiencing these situations multiple times over the course of the school year.

DoE on Educator Sexual Misconduct

The primary focus of the AAUW report is on peer harassment (although other AAUW studies suggest that roughly a third of students are harassed by teachers or other faculty), but research from some other sources is broader. 

A report on Educator Sexual Misconduct, from the Department of Education, surveys the existing literature available as of 2004.  Although, as previously noted, there are some limitations to this type of data collection & analysis, the researcher’s conclusion is that at least 6.7% of students are targets of contact-based educator sexual misconduct sometime before graduation, with the number rising to 9.6% if all educator sexual misconduct (such as showing porn) is included.

Shakeshaft reports that educator-abusers of younger children have “different patterns” from abusers of secondary school students, often showing up as some of the most accomplished teachers in the area (and thus being overlooked when allegations are made). 

Sexual abuse of children in general — not just within the school system — is underreported.  This is unsurprising when we consider the response.  “When alleged misconduct is reported, the majority of complaints are ignored or disbelieved.”

“In an early study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York, all of the accused had admitted to sexual abuse of a student but none of the abusers was reported to authorities and only 1 percent lost their license to teach…only 35 percent received a negative consequence for their actions: 15 percent were terminated or, if not tenured, they were not rehired; and 20 percent received a formal reprimand or suspension.”

Sexual Assault by Students

More recently, the Associated Press (AP) did research on the subject of sexual assault in schools.  They focused on assaults by other students, not teachers, and their conclusions are particularly useful because they used a relatively narrow definition of “assault.”  They “excluded […] minor incidents that might have resulted from childish misunderstandings and overly broad categories like sexual harassment or bullying, which included non-physical incidents or did not specify instances of sexual assault.”

The AP found “roughly 17,000 official reports of sex assaults by students over a four-year period” — which is likely a significant under-representation due to general underreporting, and the lack of data for some states.  About 20% of these assaults were penetrative. About 5% of the assaults involved 5- and 6-year-olds.  

Physical Assault of Special Needs Students

Physical, non-sexual, abuse in school is less heavily studied.  One area that presents a particular risk, however, is among special needs students.

For example, over the course of a single school year, over 61,000 students were reported to be physically restrained (along with 7,000+ who were mechanically restrained and 33,000+ who were placed in seclusion).  Seventy-five percent of these physical restraint encounters were special needs students. 

Common sense should tell us that many of these encounters are probably unavoidable — they’re necessary for the safety of an out-of-control student or of surrounding students.  But every occasion of physical restraint provides an additional opportunity for unnecessary force to be applied.  More concerning, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, these encounters are underreported.  Obviously, this means the reported totals are low.  More importantly, this also means parents may not be receiving important notifications when their children are restrained.

There are obvious reasons why reporting might be difficult — like that a teacher in the throes of caring for an out-of-control student is not in a position to be filing paperwork.  But this gap in reporting inherently creates a gap in accountability, as well.

As one example, Fairfax, VA (according to the same GAO report) reported “zero incidents” when, in fact, they had more than 1600!  This startling discrepancy becomes all the more concerning when you realize that Fairfax has been the subject of allegations that abuse of special needs students was covered up.  Many of these children have disabilities that prevent them from being able to speak up for themselves, so the lack of teacher/faculty advocacy is a critical fault.

Fairfax is not alone.  Teachers at a West Virginia school were investigated on similar charges at around the same time.  These two school departments among thousands are merely a small sampling.  The issue isn’t limited to these districts, and the total scope is unknown.  We do know that some students have been abused, even to the point of death.  Remarkably, some of the teachers involved are still teaching.

Bullying at School

Of course, staff are not the only source of aggression within a school.  A more statistically significant problem is bullying at school.  Like harassment, bullying can be difficult to define with precision.  Most organizations addressing bullying discuss four major types: physical, verbal, social, and online (cyber-bullying).  At first blush, some of these may seem less significant than others.  However, statistics and feedback from students both indicate that a significant majority of school shootings are retaliation for bullying — so clearly even more “moderate” forms of bullying can lead to escalation.

Most studies on bullying aren’t comparable, covering different grade ranges, but the numbers are high.  In one study, “about 49% of children in grades 4–12 reported being bullied by other students at school at least once during the past month” (and 30.8% reported bullying others!).  In another study, of middle school students, 32.4% reported being the victims of pushing or shoving, 29.2% the victims of hitting, slapping, or kicking.  (27.3% had experienced the theft of their personal belongings.)

Many studies indicate that only about 20-30% of bullied students report the bullying.  Some others show higher rates of reporting, more in the range of 40%-60%.  As with sexual harassment, it’s likely students expect that reporting is pointless.  Although most states technically have legislation intended to cut down on bullying, students and parents routinely report that intervention is ineffective.  Telling an adult at home or school about the bullying only helped about a third of the time.  Almost as often, it actually made the situation worse. 

Bullying policies often simply aren’t very effective.  Numerous anecdotal reports suggest that government mandates to provide “equal access” to education require the schools to protect the bullies, even at the expense of their victims.  Meanwhile, the “compulsory” nature of school traps the victimized student with no recourse.  (That is, he legally can’t choose to stop attending, in order to avoid the situation.)  

Bullying-heavy high school environments correlate strongly with increased dropout rates, and according to the most recent National Household Education Survey, 80% of homeschooling parents cited “concern about the school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure” (which includes bullying) as among their reasons for homeschooling.  About a third cited this as their most important reason.  These observations suggest that when the option to leave the situation is available, students/families take it — giving further credence to the idea that those who do not consider homeschooling a viable option and are not old enough to legally drop out are likely to feel stuck.

In Conclusion

The majority of educators, of course, are good people who care about their students and want to see them do well.  I don’t want to give the impression that I believe all — or even most — teachers and administrators are a threat.  I don’t believe that any more than I believe that most parents are abusive!  What I want to bring to light here is that public school is not a guarantee of safety.  

When Bartholet, Dwyer, and their ilk are comparing homeschooling to government-funded schools in the name of “safety,” we need to hold them accountable to acknowledging the abuse risks inherent in public school, too, on its side of the equation.