Now we know why.....

[Dr Mordrid]

.....some school employee unions fought Michigans new Student Safety Initiative, which mandates criminal background checks of school employees;

http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060513/SCHOOLS/605130338

A statewide criminal background check of some 200,000 school employees revealed that 66 teachers and 399 other school employees are felons. Eleven more had sex-related convictions.

Under new laws to protect children, those 11 employees -- three of whom are teachers -- will be fired immediately. The other felons can keep their jobs only if the school board and superintendent approve it in writing.

[Sasq]

I can appreciate problem and am even appalled that 11 convicted sex offenders are teachers. (define sex offender please for those of us not in the US)

Though I fully agree with the article regarding the 465 with felony convictions, people change. I just hope this doesn't bring about a witch hunt.

[Dr Mordrid]

Sex offenders range from offences like statutory rape (legal = 16 in Michigan) all the way up to rape-homicide....basically your sex related "Law & Order SVU" crimes. All get put on Michigans Sex Offender Registry website for all to see.

http://www.mipsor.state.mi.us/

[Brian Ellis]

The figure is remarkably good. I'm sure that if you took 200,000 unscreened persons at random, you would find more than 0.23% would be convicted felons and more than 0.0055% had been found out in sexual shenanigans (not necessarily involving minors, which is all that should matter).

In fact, these figures are so low, I don't even believe them! If you extrapolate the sexual offenders to the whole population of Michigan, you would get ~550 names on the list. One web site states there were over 32,000 registered sexual offenders in Mi in 2003!

There's something wrong somewhere.