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The Associated Press tells a sad but all too common tale in an Oct. 19 story: “The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact.” He had touched a fifth-grader inappropriately during recess.

“I guess it was just lust of the flesh,” he told his boss.

His boss fired him. “But it didn’t end his career,” said the report. “He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.”

He didn’t lose his teaching license for 40 years — and then, only because one victim wouldn’t give up.

There are a lot of parallels between the Church abuse crisis and the teacher abuse crisis.

One is the unique vocation of the perpetrators. These are “the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation’s children,” the story said.

Another is the difficulty victims might have in coming forward.

But there are also some big differences.

For one, the size of the problem. In the schools, the problem is illuminated by Carol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University researcher who prepared a federal report on public school sexual abuse. She submitted written testimony to the Colorado Legislature that stated: “The physical sexual abuse of students in public schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”

Said the Associated Press: “Students in America’s schools are groped. They’re raped. They’re pursued, seduced and think they’re in love.”

For another, there’s the response to the problem. The Church responded by instituting a zero-tolerance policy. The schools? Their tolerance is far from zero.

According to the Associated Press, there are multiple abuse incidents daily.

“Most of the abuse never gets reported,” said the report. “Those cases reported often end with no action. … No one — not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.”

Which brings us to a third difference between the clergy abuse problem and the teacher abuse problem: When clergy abuse was at issue, many people pretended to care deeply for children, denouncing the Church and seeking to change its very structure to get at the problem.

These same people haven’t said anything at all about the much larger problem of teacher abuse, raising the obvious conclusion. They didn’t really want to protect children. They only wanted to hurt the Church.

The Associated Press investigation was an unprecedented, national look at the scope of sex offenses by teachers — “the very definition of breach of trust,” said the report.

The conclusions are startling.

Said the report, “Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that’s been apparent for years.”

It cites a report mandated by Congress that found that about one of every 10 students is “subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade.”

Said the report, “The perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators — teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They’re often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they’re male.”

Though it found some efforts were being made in some places to stop the epidemic of teacher molestation, there was, “overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help.

School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.”

The report even discovered a slang among teachers about “mobile molesters” and among schools for “passing the trash.”

“In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior were dismissed,” says the report.

“Unless there’s a videotape of a teacher involved with a child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure,” said one detective.

We have some advice for schools: Follow the lead of the Catholic Church. Yes, our problem was much smaller than yours. But we owned up to mistakes, accepted the humiliation and put the policies in place to protect kids as much as we humanly can.

Why aren’t you doing the same?