Do you really know who is teaching your child?
A disturbing investigation from USA TODAY suggests some teacher misconduct falls through the cracks.
An investigation into a national database that tracks teacher misconduct found more than 1,400 cases where a teacher permanently lost his or her license, but that information was not listed in the database. The nonprofit, National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, runs the database.
After the investigation, NASDTEC is calling for a state-by-state audit.
The newspaper gave Tennessee a “F” in how it background checks its teachers. Mississippi is not much better, having received a “D” grade.
The Tennessee Department of Education confirmed it uses NASDTEC to screen teaching applicants, and it said it reports teaching license suspensions and revocations to the database.
Still, many across the country are concerned about the databases’ potential gaps.
“Yes, it should be concerning to everyone, because you don’t want a teacher going crazy and then something horrible happening,” Memphis resident DeKeisha Thomas said.
USA TODAY said Tennessee does not do well at sharing teacher misconduct data with other states and some online disciplinary records are incomplete. It said Tennessee has “weak screening.”
The state Department of Education said teachers who are trained in Tennessee undergo two background checks.
The first happens at Tennessee teacher training institutions. The second happens at the district level and involves the TBI and DCS.
Keith Williams, the executive director of Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, called USA TODAY’s investigation frivolous.
“This study, to me, is an attempt to, again, impugn teachers who are in the trenches, working with children. Trying to compare what you do state-by-state and disciplinary actions for teachers, again, seems to be a far stretch,” he said.
WREG asked Shelby County Schools about reporting teacher misconduct. A district spokesperson said SCS reports some cases to the state, but the state is responsible for any reporting past that.
If you want to know more about the teachers your students spend most of their days with, see these links for state databases parents can use to verify and review the credentials of public school teachers in the state: