There’s a popular internet meme that we used to think a lack of information made people stupid, but nope, it wasn’t that!

Public school teachers are supposed to be educated, with at least a baccalaureate degree, and frequently an expectation that you must work on your master’s. From the case of Mary Kay Letourneau in the 1990s until now, teachers are taught about and warned against sexual contact, any sexual contact, including just flirting, with students. Most states have laws which hold teachers accountable for sexual contact with students, even those who have reached the age of sexual consent, due to the positions of authority teachers are presumed to hold over students. Yet we keep getting the stories over and over and over again:

Perv substitute teacher sent 14-year-old naked snaps every time she showered: ‘God, I want you so bad’

By Chris Bradford | Tuesday, July 14, 2026 | 11:17 AM EDT

An Indiana substitute teacher jailed for sexting a 14-year-old boy had sent him naked snaps every time she showered — and once lustfully messaged him, “God I want you … so bad,” court docs show.

Cassidy Carter had just started substituting at South Dearborn Middle School in Aurora in late 2023 when she admits sending the underage student obscene messages.

The boy “disclosed that every time Carter would take a shower, she would send an unclothed picture of herself and that sometimes it would be late at night,” investigators said in court documents seen by WXIX.

The idiocy started when Miss Carter was 21-years-old, an age at which even the dullest of people have heard of the internet and sending photos. It occurred with a teacher who could not have not known that teenaged boys, especially younger teenaged boys like 14-year-olds, are not going to keep such things secret. A naked picture of a 21-year0old substitute teacher? Yeah, that’s going to be kept under wraps!

As a Catholic, I was hugely disappointed by the revelations concerning sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and the major loss of respect for all of the priesthood following that. But the stereotype of the abusive priest has been shunted to the background by the huge number of teachers being exposed to such charges. At least the Church has been trying to do something to eliminate sexual abuse by priests; have the public schools?

There have always been teachers attracted to students, but in the days before internet file sharing and everyone having an iPhone with a camera, at least those teachers couldn’t send dirty pictures and texts to students. The internet has made the stupid even more stupid.

At least to judge by her not-very-happy mugshot, Miss Carter is no great beauty but is at least attractive enough to be able to go out and get laid by an actual adult. Aurora, Indiana, isn’t large, only 3,479 souls living there, but surrounding Dearborn County has an estimated 51,609 people.

Yet Miss Carter fixated on a 14-year-old boy.

Because the boy moved away, and was unwilling to testify, Miss Carter was able to plead down to a two-year sentence for a lesser charge of battery. She should get out only slightly older, and who can know how much wiser, but can we ever expect a woman who was so mentally enamored of and fixated on a 14-year-old boy to get herself mentally straight?