By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press

ALBANY - The governor and the state education commissioner plan reforms, a newspaper has called for investigations, and New York's largest teachers' union issued its strongest directive: If you suspect a colleague of having sex with a student, report it.

The reactions are among those that followed a recent series of articles by The Associated Press detailing cases of teachers and other school employees caught in sexual relationships with students. Records in the stories showed that many of the relationships continued for months and went unreported despite widespread rumors.

"The information is very shocking and serious," said Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Catherine Nolan, a Queens Democrat. She said she will work with the governor, the Senate and her Assembly colleagues on specific bills.

"As a parent, these stories are like a nightmare," she said. "I was particularly struck that often times, children were not believed or families that brought charges were ostracized. Surely we can do better as a society."

The Post-Star of Syracuse called the AP's findings "disturbing data that should encourage independent state investigations ... The issue deserves further inquiry and attention - on how abuse is reported, how records are kept and how teachers are disciplined."

Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state Education Commissioner Richard Mills are working together to push administrative and legislative changes.

"We cannot and should never tolerate any behavior that risks the physical and emotional well-being of the students that we are entrusted to serve," Spitzer said. "My office is working with state Education Department officials and administrators to continually examine data and to identify proactive measures that could include stronger policies and procedures, increased training for staff, as well as the use of available ‘phone tip lines' to report known or suspected violations."

"We will present major reforms during the upcoming legislative session to increase student protection," Mills said, "by getting the legal authority to revoke automatically the certification of educators convicted of sexual misconduct and by funding increased training of school personnel about appropriate conduct.

The AP's search found that sexual-misconduct allegations led states to take action against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005. That figure includes licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered. There are about 3 million public-school teachers in the United States.

In New York, the number of "moral conduct" accusations against teachers, administrators and aides has doubled in five years. In 2005, 134 cases were reported involving teachers, other school employees and some seeking teaching certificates. That compares to 70 cases in 2001. Almost three in four of the moral-conduct cases involved sex or an inappropriate relationship, according to the first study of the cases.

In all, 485 misconduct cases were reported over five years, most of them involving sexual misconduct.

National surveys show that the problem may be many times worse. Cases show that there's a reluctance of victims to come forward and a reluctance by some teachers and school officials to report what can be a career-ending accusation against a colleague, as well as bad publicity for the school.

"The message from NYSUT is, if there is a suspicion, it should be reported," said Carl Korn, spokesman for the New York State United Teachers Union. "We have no stake in protecting teachers who hurt kids or act in a way that embarrasses or tarnishes the profession."

The union is still in "preliminary conversations" with the education department over adding a code of ethics for teachers to promptly report suspicions of sexual misconduct with children.

Other professions licensed by the state are already covered by similar provisions.