Using Caspio's database software, HeraldTribune.com became the first newspaper in the country to post a newly released government database of punished teachers. Here's how the Associated Press reported it:
A confidential, nationwide list of 24,500 teachers who have been punished for a wide array of offenses was made available to the public Friday by a Florida newspaper.The Sarasota Herald-Tribune created a searchable database of the teachers' names after waiting for years to gain access to the list. The paper began seeking the material as part of its earlier reporting on teacher sexual misconduct in Florida. It obtained the list from the Florida Department of Education.
The list, gathered and maintained by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, does not provide any information on why any of the teachers were disciplined. Sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, criminal convictions and other misbehavior all can bring disciplinary actions against teacher licenses.
The credit for getting the database posted goes to several of the same people who brought you the Broken Trust series, which was named as a Digital Edge finalist last week. The investigative team at the Herald-Tribune is very aggressive, and my successor as Content Manager, Maurice Tamman, comes from the investigative team.
The database is linked now by the Drudge Report, so the traffic is big, of course.
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