Nearly 270 public educators were arrested on child sex-related crimes in the U.S. in the first nine months of this year, ranging from grooming to raping underage students.

An analysis conducted by Fox News Digital found that from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, at least 269 educators were arrested, which works out to roughly one arrest a day. The 269 educators included four principals, two assistant principals, 226 teachers, 20 teacher’s aides, and 17 substitute teachers. At least 199 of the arrests, or 74%, involved alleged crimes against students.

The analysis looked at local news stories week by week featuring arrests of K-12 principals, assistant principals, teachers, substitute teachers, and teachers’ aides on child sex-related crimes in school districts across the country. Arrests that weren’t publicized were not counted in the analysis, meaning the true number may well be higher.



Only 43 of the alleged crimes, or 16%, did not involve students. It is not known whether another 10% of the alleged crimes involved students. Men also made up the vast majority, with over 80% of the arrests. There are an estimated 3.2 million public school teachers in the country, meaning the arrests compiled by Fox News Digital make up only 0.0084%.

“The number of teachers arrested for child sex abuse is just the tip of the iceberg — much as it was for the Catholic Church prior to widespread exposure and investigation in the early 2000s,” Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “The best available academic research, published by the Department of Education, suggests that nearly 10% of public school students suffer from physical abuse between kindergarten and twelfth grade.”

“According to that research, the scale of sexual abuse in the public schools is nearly 100 times greater than that of the Catholic Church,” he said. “The question for critics who seek to downplay the extent of public-school sexual abuse is this: How many arrests need to happen before you consider it a problem? How many children need to be sexually abused by teachers before you consider it a crisis?” Many of the arrests in Fox News Digital’s latest analysis involved especially heinous allegations. READ MORE