With all this attention being paid to the Catholic sexual abuse, it seems that a much larger problem of sexual abuse is being ignored.
Rogue mentioned how sexual abuse wasn't uncommon by teachers and coaches (which are in secularized schools and thus the blame can't really be given to religion). I didn't really look much into it at the time, but I have now. Some of the data seems legitimately frightening. According to this, nearly 7% of children from 8th to 11th grade have been physically sexually abused by an adult in school... and the percentage goes up to 10% if we count non-physical sexual abuse. Now it's true that information comes from a 2004 report so it could be out of date, but as the site indicates, the numbers may have actually gone up since then.
In a more localized case, a few months ago this came out about public schools in Chicago. Eek.
This appears to be a big issue that seems to be largely ignored. Granted, part of the problem is that the school system in the country is fairly decentralized, even with the Department of Education, and thus it's hard to make across-the-board changes to improve things or to try to connect things. But it's a real problem that doesn't seem to be getting proper attention.
I'm not just saying this as some kind of "see, the secular institutions do it too!" point either. I find this legitimately troubling. What are possible ways to fix this on a large scale?
Rogue mentioned how sexual abuse wasn't uncommon by teachers and coaches (which are in secularized schools and thus the blame can't really be given to religion). I didn't really look much into it at the time, but I have now. Some of the data seems legitimately frightening. According to this, nearly 7% of children from 8th to 11th grade have been physically sexually abused by an adult in school... and the percentage goes up to 10% if we count non-physical sexual abuse. Now it's true that information comes from a 2004 report so it could be out of date, but as the site indicates, the numbers may have actually gone up since then.
In a more localized case, a few months ago this came out about public schools in Chicago. Eek.
This appears to be a big issue that seems to be largely ignored. Granted, part of the problem is that the school system in the country is fairly decentralized, even with the Department of Education, and thus it's hard to make across-the-board changes to improve things or to try to connect things. But it's a real problem that doesn't seem to be getting proper attention.
I'm not just saying this as some kind of "see, the secular institutions do it too!" point either. I find this legitimately troubling. What are possible ways to fix this on a large scale?
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