Dive Brief:
- Following a USA Today investigation's revelation of thousands of skipped names in the only national database of teacher misconduct in the U.S., the non-profit National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, which operates the system, has announced a state-by-state audit of the information.
- Responses are already differing across states: In Iowa, an internal audit and third-party external audit will occur, while elsewhere, some teachers who lost their teaching credentials and then moved to other states have already been removed from classrooms where they were currently teaching.
- Iowa state Rep. Megan Jones (R) has also called for background checks on all school employees nationwide.
Dive Insight:
Districts should pay close attention to what happens in order to better avoid hiring teachers who have been found guilty of misconduct in other states. Teacher misconduct is a thorny problem, and both timelines and reporting vary state-to-state. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, a team comprised of former law enforcement officers called the Student Safety Investigation Team, or SSIT, was formed in order to investigate misconduct allegations quietly. SSIT reports to local school boards, which then make decisions regarding what actions to take regarding the alleged misconduct.
Until the results of the audits are revealed, districts can look to USA Today's original investigation and interactive maps to see how their own state held up in terms of teacher misconduct. A reported 1,400 teachers permanently lost their licenses, but were never listed within the NASDTEC database.