List of problem teachers is flawed and incomplete
A list considered the best existing tool for education officials to prevent problem teachers from jumping state to state is flawed and incomplete, according to a review by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the first newspaper to gain access to the list. Before a teacher gets hired in Florida, state education officials run the candidate's name through a database called the Clearinghouse created by the nonprofit National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, or NASDTEC. 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 number of cases reported by each state underscores problems. 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 Associated Press (AP) 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 NASDTEC data the Herald-Tribune 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. Every other state is represented in the database obtained by the Herald-Tribune.
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.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune By Chris Davis & Matthew Doig
[Editor’s Note: The Herald-Tribune has made the searchable database available online below. An excerpt of the AP series on abuse by teachers and some related resources are at the second link.]
Sanctioned educators search
NSBA School Law pages on abusive teachers