Absolutely Shocking!!

Students in Chicago's public schools report physical assaults by teachers, coaches and staff.

An exclusive CBS 2 investigation discovered Treveon Martin is one of at least 818 Chicago Public School students, since 2003, to allege being battered by a teacher or an aide, coach, security guard, or even a principal. In most of those cases - 568 of them - Chicago Public School investigators determined the children were telling the truth.

"I'm thinking that I don't really feel safe," Martin said.

The 2 Investigators found reports of students beaten with broomsticks, whipped with belts, yard sticks, struck with staplers, choked, stomped on and pushed down stairs. One substitute teacher even fractured a student's neck.

But even more alarming, in the vast majority of cases, teachers found guilty were only given a slap on the wrist.

It seems as though Chicago Public Schools is not taking this seriously enough.

The Chicago News station asked Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about these charges, to which Duncan replied:

"If someone hits a student, they are going to be fired. It's very, very simple," Duncan said.

Before heading to Washington, he vowed to take action.

"Any founded allegation where an adult is hitting a child, hitting a student - they're going to be gone," Duncan said.

But like a lot of Obama administration official, rhetoric did not exactly match up with action:

But that's not what happened under Duncan's watch. Of the 568 verified cases, only 24 led to termination. Records show one teacher who quote "battered students for several years" was simply given a "warning" by the Board of Education.

And another student was given "100 licks with a belt." The abuse was substantiated, but the records show the teacher was not terminated.

To be honest, I don't know what to say. I believe that we have gotten too lenient with punishments in schools, but there is no cause for this kind of behavior and there is no excuse for not taking more drastic action.

If an allegation like this comes in and the investigator believes it to be true, then the teacher should be immeidately suspended and appropriate disciplinary actions taken. If it is proven that the teacher or staff member did in fact physically assualt a student (and I am not talking about simply escorting a student by their arm to their seat), then they should not only be fired, they should be charged with the crime and prosectuted to the fullest extent of the law, their license should be revoked and the fact that it has been revoked shared with all the other states so they can't simply go to another state to work.