Colorado House Representative Gwyn Green (D-Golden) has written a bill, House Bill 1344, well on its way to becoming law. According to the Rocky Mountain News, HB 1344 flew through the Colorado House yesterday ("Bill would banish teachers who abuse", April 19, 2008).

House Bill 1344 is designed to offer better tracking of Colorado educators convicted of preying on children and to prevent these criminals moving from school to school. School districts in Colorado would be required, should this bill become law, to report crimes against children by educators to our State Department of Education.

An amendment to this bill introduced by Representative Cory Garnder (R-Yuma) further stipulates should an accused educator enter into a settlement agreement to avoid prosecution (often the case, sadly), part of the settlement agreement must be the accused educator will "never teach at a public or private school in this country", as stated in the Rocky Mountain News.

I have concerns regarding this bill (and the law likely to ensue). Though legislation with this spirit is long, long overdue, too often well meaning education codes are eventually shot down.

Two things about this bill warrant closer looks.

First, the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (www.nasdtec.org) already maintains a centralized, national data base that includes names of educators reported to them by school districts across the nation who have had their "licenses disciplined", a term that means they have been disciplined or fired for any reason whatsoever. Having been "disciplined" or "fired" can be information about a job candidate just as important and telling as criminal convictions.

Though my understanding is not all states require all school districts to join NASDTEC, and thus subscribe to their informational services, perhaps that is the solution, rather than school districts being required by their own state laws to report just to their own state's department of education criminal convictions of educators, as House Bill 1344 intends.

If states required their school districts to utilize the data bases of NASDTEC before hiring and after disciplining and/or terminating, the goal of shared information would be more effectively accomplished.

My second concern is that as long as the arm of Colorado state justice might be, I worry it is not long enough to enforce a promise by a bad educator that he or she will "never teach at a public or private school in this country".

If a teacher entered onto such a promise to avoid prosecution, moved to another state, perhaps one of those that requires very little of its school districts (and even less of private schools) in the way of background checks, and the teacher with the Colorado promise gets hired, what law has been broken? Under whose jurisdiction? I honestly do not see the State of Colorado (a) finding out about future employment of such promise breakers, or (b) having authority to prosecute.

We do desperately need centralized information about child predators working as educators in both public and private settings. We do desperately need microscope-strength background checking before granting any adult access to students. Though HB 1344 gets my enthusiastic thumbs-up, I worry it lacks the sharp teeth needed to take a big bite out of adult-on-child violence in school settings.