By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

NEW YORK – New York City’s top education official blasted the teachers union this week, claiming the United Federation of Teachers is responsible for keeping sexually abusive teachers on the payroll.

“It’s appalling to me that a union representing teachers is the biggest obstacle to getting those accused of sexual misconduct out of our classrooms,” School Chancellor Dennis Walcott said, according to the New York Daily News.

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“Public school teachers accused of sexual misconduct enjoy protections that no other city employee has. It’s outrageous and we cannot allow it to continue,” he said.

The union’s response?

“We’re not going to respond to it,” a union spokesman told the newspaper.

That’s because there’s nothing to say. Walcott is exactly right.

A recent Daily News investigation found that, since 2007, the school district has tried to terminate 128 predatory teachers, but only 33 lost their jobs.

The Daily News headline read, “Why can’t they be fired?”

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The answer is because, in New York City, “independent” hearing officers have the final say in the teacher termination process. These officers are hired jointly by the school district and the union, and the union expects its share of victories.

The Daily News uses former Stuyvesant High School librarian Christopher Asch as a perfect example of the type of abusive employee who benefitted from union protection, then turned around and abused again.

In 2009 Asch was accused of “inappropriate touching” of students at his school.

“The city fought to fire Asch but a state hearing officer let him off with a fine and suspension, despite the teacher’s own admission that he attended two meetings of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which advocates for legal sex between men and boys,” the Daily News reports.

“In April he was arrested in connection with the FBI’s ‘cannibal cop’ probe and charged with plotting to kidnap, torture and rape women and children.”

Walcott and Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2012 pushed state lawmakers to give city education officials the authority to terminate teachers who engage in sexually suggestive or abusive behavior, but that legislation has remained stalled due to union lobbying.

New legislation introduced this week by Bronx state Sen. Ruben Diaz Jr. would ban school employees charged with sexually abusing students from entering public school buildings, the Daily News reports.

It will be interesting to see how UFT officials respond to that bill.