Teacher Misconduct in Illinois

NEWSPAPER INVESTIGATION

How Illinois fails to take teacher misconduct seriously.

Oct 18, 2007 - "Superintendents become de facto investigators" by Scott Reeder, Small Newspaper Group.

Because the Illinois Department of Education has no investigators to follow up on misconduct complaints, they rely upon regional education superintendents to investigate. But there's a problem

The problem is that those charged with following up are wholly unqualified to do so. And their sympaties are not with the victim or the parents.

Generally regional superintendents are former teachers or school administrators who have had little to no training in conducting investigations.

Placing teachers in charge of investigating other teachers creates a tendency for investigators to look after their own, said Charol Shakeshaft, chair of Virginia Commonwealth University's Education Department.

Educators tend to be more sympathetic to the adult facing the allegations than to the children making the complaint, said Shakeshaft, a nationally known expert on sexual abuse in schools.

After investigating and filing Freedom of Information requests, the newspaper group made some startling discoveries.

Of those 70 regional offices of education, only 24 have taken any action in the last decade.

Of the 24 regional offices of education that have taken any disciplinary action, about eight took discretionary action for a noncriminal offense such as immorality or unprofessional conduct.

"It's not hard to figure out why this is," Superintendent Donkin said. "We don't feel comfortable investigating these matters. We aren't comfortable with all of the formalities associated with it and everyone is scared to death of being sued. So we just wait until the teacher has been convicted of a crime before we do anything."

But Kansas State University Education Law Professor Robert Shoop said this is flawed reasoning.

"Just because they weren't convicted doesn't mean they are innocent," Shoop said. "It's like O.J. Simpson. He was never proven innocent; he was just found not guilty. In a lot of these cases the kids don't want to come forward to testify. And what parent wants their kid on the front page saying I had oral sex with a 50-year-old guy in the band room? Another thing is that these people are smart. They don't typically do things in front of witnesses."

For all of these reasons it is quite appropriate for education officials to seek to revoke a license, even if there is not a criminal conviction, he said.