Sexualized Culture Blamed for Teacher-Student Sex Epidemic
by Jim Brown
March 30, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An author says parents may want to consider pulling their children out of public schools once they find out young people are much more likely to be sexually abused at the hands of public school employees than by Roman Catholic priests.Last week Florida public school teacher Debra LaFave escaped jail time despite admitting to repeatedly molesting a 14-year-old boy. WorldNetDaily magazine managing editor David Kupelian has analyzed a study commissioned by the U.S. Education Department that finds such abuse is "likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
Kupelian, who has a 14-year-old son, says Americans -- for the most part -- do not understand how large the problem of sexual abuse in public schools really is. "This problem of teacher sexual predators in schools is just one of a thousand huge, daunting problems facing the public school system," he says.
The journalist, who has a 14-year-old son himself, says the prospect of such problems in public schooling has affected his decision as a parent. "If this happened to my son, it would destroy him. It would devastate him," the managing editor shares. "But that's why my wife and I home school our children."
But that remedy, he admits, is not for everybody. "There are other solutions besides home schooling," he says. "There are private schools, there are religious schools -- and they're all better than the public school solution."
Kupelian is convinced there are several primary factors fueling the epidemic of teacher-student sex. For one, he says, American culture is very sexualized.
"Our popular culture is swimming in it, TV and movies are filled with it, and with the Internet, more young people have seen hard-core sexual images than at any time in history," he exclaims. "That's one major factor. But there's another huge factor, which I think is even more devastating, and that is that many Americans just have no understanding of right and wrong anymore."
Kupelian, author of the book The Marketing of Evil, says the epidemic can also be traced to a lack of parental involvement in children's education.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
