12-22-2007 Florida:
Before a teacher gets hired in Florida, state education officials run the candidate's name through a database called the Clearinghouse.
A match on the name sends up a red flag, because the list contains roughly 35,000 teachers from across the country who have been disciplined for professional misconduct.
The list, created by the nonprofit National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, or NASDTEC, is considered the best existing tool for education officials to prevent problem teachers from jumping state to state. cont. below:
»Search the database
»Search for Florida educators
The number of reported cases in a national database of educator misconduct varies greatly by state*:
| State: | State | State: | State |
| Alabama: 498 | Alaska: 176 | Arizona: 375 | Arkansas: 106 |
| California: 5,997 | Colorado: 427 | Connecticut: 114 | Delaware: 13 |
| District of Columbia: 0 | Florida: 3,922** | Georgia: 2,904 | Idaho: 175 |
| Illinois: 204 | Indiana: 164 | Iowa: 143 | Kansas: 171 |
| Kentucky: 532 | Louisiana: 78 | Maine: 58 | Maryland: 315 |
| Massachusetts: 138 | Michigan: 233 | Minnesota: 434 | Mississippi: 71 |
| Missouri: 476 | Montana: 85 | Nebraska: 174 | Nevada: 148 |
| New Hampshire: 104 | New Jersey: 539 | New Mexico: 160 | New York: 897 |
| North Carolina:353 | North Dakota: 90 | Ohio: 1,021 | Oklahoma: 122 |
| Oregon: 953 | Pennsylvania: 704 | Rhode Island: 90 | South Carolina: 896 |
| South Dakota: 92 | Tennessee: 200 | Texas: 2,124 | Utah: 301 |
| Vermont: 96 | Virginia: 117 | Washington: 941 | West Virginia: 255 |
| Wisconsin: 338 | Wyoming: 30 | Hawaii: 2 |
Unknown or from outside the U.S.492. *People can be reported by multiple states. **According to NASDTEC, as of February 2007.
But the Clearinghouse is flawed and incomplete, according to a review by the Herald-Tribune, the first newspaper to gain access to the list.
The number of cases reported by each state underscores problems. California has nearly 6,000 entries, while Hawaii has 2.
The relatively small states of Washington and Oregon have more cases in the database than more populous states, including New York and New Jersey. South Carolina has more cases than Pennsylvania.
Beyond population differences, the wide range is explained by the fact that some states report infractions as minor as failure to repay a college loan, while other states may report only misconduct cases that result in a criminal conviction.
In those states, a teacher who gropes a student and has his or her license suspended, but is not convicted of a crime, would not appear in the Clearinghouse.
NASDTEC has no official relationship with the U.S. Department of Education. Membership by states, school districts and private schools is voluntary, and so is reporting cases to the Clearinghouse.
As a result, there is nothing stopping states from signing settlement agreements with teachers that keep their names out of the Clearinghouse.
NASDTEC executive director Roy Einreinhofer acknowledged that he had heard of such agreements, but he said he has addressed it with members and does not believe it still happens.
Einreinhofer said that despite any limitations of the database, it is still a powerful tool to protect children.
It is unclear how many cases in the database deal with minor issues and how many involve allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse or other crimes because that information is not included in the version obtained by the Herald-Tribune.
The newspaper used public records law to obtain the database from the Florida Department of Education, which has used it to screen job candidates since the mid-1980s. The newspaper sought the database as part of a two-year investigation that revealed earlier this year how lax oversight and shoddy investigations allow abusive teachers to keep their jobs in Florida classrooms.
The series, which also examined how abusive teachers are able to move undetected from state to state, has prompted an attempt to create a federal tracking system and has led to sweeping changes in how the state regulates teachers.
The Associated Press brought more scrutiny to the issue in October with the publication of a three-day series exploring sexual abuse by teachers nationwide. AP reporters sought the NASDTEC database but ultimately were forced to compile data about abusive teachers one state at a time.
The Herald-Tribune first requested a copy of the NASDTEC database more than two years ago from Einreinhofer and from several states, including Florida.
Although membership bylaws prevent NASDTEC members from releasing information from other states, the Herald-Tribune argued that Florida's public records law trumped any such contractual agreements.
NASDTEC director Einreinhofer asked the Herald-Tribune not to publish the contents of the Clearinghouse. He said some states have laws prohibiting disclosure of the information, and he fears NASDTEC members in those states will no longer report problem teachers if they know the information might be made public.
"Honestly, I don't know what's going to happen," Einreinhofer said. "I'm afraid it may cripple the one tool we already have to protect kids."
Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Mike Connelly said the Herald-Tribune is publishing the database on the Web so organizations besides school districts have access to the information.
"A parent should have the ability to check whether their child's nanny, or youth league coach, appears on this list," Connelly said.
The NASDTEC data the newspaper received contains about 24,500 names, about 10,000 fewer than NASDTEC officials said existed in the complete database early this year.
About 4,000 of the missing names are teachers from Florida. Those names were not included in the newspaper's copy because of how Florida accesses and saves the data, education department officials said. However, a partial list of Florida teachers who have been sanctioned is available at www.heraldtribune.com/brokentrust.
Every other state is represented in the database obtained by the Herald-Tribune.
The states with the most reported cases in the database are California, Georgia, Texas and Ohio. According to Einreinhofer's figures, Florida is second.
Georgia, with nearly 3,000 reported cases, is so high because it takes action and reports teachers who fail to repay college loans, Einreinhofer said. Other states may only report cases that result in a criminal conviction, he said.
Some states report people whose licenses are restored after a revocation.
The lack of a uniform reporting requirement likely means that an untold number of physically and sexually abusive teachers are not flagged by the NASDTEC database because the teachers are only reprimanded or placed on probation.
A federal law proposed by U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam in response to the Herald-Tribune's investigation is designed to establish more uniform reporting requirements.
Putnam's plan calls for, among other things, the first government-backed national database of teachers accused of sexual misconduct. Under Putnam's plan, those names would be available to the public.
A spokesman for the Polk County Republican said Putnam's bill, the Student Protection Act, was filed with the education committee in March but has yet to receive a hearing. ..more.. by CHRIS DAVIS and MATTHEW DOIG
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