State-by-state discipline audits promised in wake of USA Today exposé

An investigation of records pertaining to teacher discipline found 1,400 instances where a teacher’s license was revoked, but that information was not listed in the nation’s only database for monitoring teacher misconduct, a USA Today Network story reported February 16.

The group in charge of the database, NASDTE (National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification), announced two days after the story appeared that it will be requiring state-by-state audits to identify why so many reprimanded licensees are missing from the database.

Education agencies in every state are supposed to report instances of license revocation to NASDTE. However, USA Today reported that 1,400 names of teachers whose licenses were revoked were incorrectly reported to NASDTE, or not reported at all. Such an oversight by state agencies could allow teachers who have had licenses revoked in one state to move to another state and avoid disciplinary action, the report concludes.

Read the full report here.