Delivering remarks at a memorial to honor victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, President Obama suggested that school shootings had become “endless” and perhaps were becoming “routine.”
He was merely echoing a common belief that America is gripped by an epidemic of violence. People believe schools are especially unsafe, a locus not only of shootings but also of theft and bullying. This fiction has penetrated the national psyche so far that fear of school violence has led to a rise in homeschooling.
Instead, the country is in the grip of a form of unfounded panic. Real-world data, including new numbers from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, demonstrate that Obama and those who echo his views have it backwards. In many important respects, schools are safer now than ever.
Data from 2012-2014 show that fights, thefts and bullying are all at their lowest levels since researchers first started collecting it, which 1992 for thefts, and 2005 for bullying. Although the share of students subjected to violent or serious violent crimes ticked up slightly since the prior period, the new data include numbers from the Sandy Hook shooting. But in both periods, the numbers are significantly down from 1995.
Less than 2.5 percent of students reported being victims of theft or violence in the previous 6 months. Less than 10 percent said they were in a fight at school in the previous year. Although 22 percent of students said they had been bullied, that’s down from 28 percent in 2005. Only one in 33 students said they feared attack or harm at school. Students now feel as safe in school as they do at home or at the mall with their friends. That wasn’t the case in 1999.
School shootings are uniquely traumatic events, and any child’s death is an appalling and sad event. But school priorities should reflect how rarely a child dies in school. Roughly 50 million children attend K-12 public schools. Thirty-one were killed in the 2012-13 school year. That translates to odds of 1 in 1.6 million of a student getting killed at school. Parents worried about their kid getting killed at school should be more concerned that he or she will be struck by lightning, for which the odds 1 in 1.2 million.
Obviously, schools must protect children in their charge, and they should have plans in case of a shooting or other violent incident happens; 88 percent of public schools have done so.
But the culture of fear that persists among administrators, the one that has given rise to “zero-tolerance” policies, has gotten out of hand considering the real rather than exaggerated level of risk. Americans may recognize the ridiculous nature of stories like the one of the 7-year-old suspended for eating his Pop Tart into a gun shape, but they are unlikely to appreciate just how overwrought fears of school violence really are.
School administrators need to stop letting panic get in the way of disciplinary flexibility. The danger that students will actually suffer physical harm seems at times less than the danger that they’ll be arbitrarily suspended or expelled for something harmless.
It’s time for schools to get their priorities right. Horrific incidents like the one at Sandy Hook must be prevented, but they are not remotely likely and certainly not routine.
