The reason why the scandal was taken to reflect poorly on Mother Church was because many high ranking bishops, instead of removing the offending priests, simply transfered them to other parishes, kept them in contact with children, and even covered up their abominations! Not only that, the Holy Father refused to depose such bishops even after learning of their actions. That was the real scandal, not the fact that some priests were abusers.
Put another way, the scandal reflects poorly on the Church because her bishops failed to act, possibly with the blessing of Rome, when it was in their power to stop the abuse.
If you want to apply the analogy to school districts, imagine what would happen if a school superintendant knew that certain teachers were abusers, but failed to remove them, and instead merely moved them to other schools, keeping them in contact with children and doing everything in his power to cover up their actions. If ever something like this came to light, it would cause just as big an outcry as the priest sex abuse scandal, and it would be taken as reflecting on the nation's public school system.
If ever something like this came to light, it would cause just as big an outcry as the priest sex abuse scandal, and it would be taken as reflecting on the nation’s public school system...
...not likely...the public schools are sacrosanct to the mainstream media, and any visible flaws are explained away as effortlessly as the bishops washed away the priest’s iniquities...after all, as Anne Coulter says, the media thinks every public school teacher washes the feet of the poor in the Ganges River, or something to that effect...besides, there is no shortage of teachers, as there is a dire shortage of priests...what would be a super’s rationale for keeping and reassigning an offending teacher, when he/she could simply be replace a day later...I’m not excusing the bishops for their willfull obfuscation, but there was incentive for it, however misbegotten it may have been...