What Can The Schools Do?

As the country watched Littleton last week, we seemed to be hurtling toward a National Moment, a late-'90s version of, say, the sinking of the Maine, or the Kent State shootings during Vietnam, or Rock Hudson's death. These moments can be dangerous, as such soul searching quickly turns into lawmaking. History may remember last week because of what happens in the next few weeks, so let's try to get it right.

We might go ahead and dismiss a few of the too tiny suggestions (those mesh backpacks you keep hearing about still carry guns--just stinky ones wrapped in gym clothes) as well as the too big ones (Ohio Representative James Traficant used Littleton to try to revive the idea of prayer in schools, which the Supreme Court has ruled illegal about 38 times). But what about New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman's proposal to spend $10 million turning schools into little fortresses, with security better than that at the nuclear lab in his state? Or more gun control, as New York Senator Charles Schumer urged when he reminded us that "a teenager can only do so much damage with his fists"?

By week's end, a sense of panic had crept from the 24-hr. "Terror in the Rockies" broadcasts into the statehouses as well. Some were more panicked than others: California Governor Gray Davis spoke of the importance of guidance counselors, but, reflecting the differences in the men and their states, Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore ordered superintendents to report any potentially dangerous student to police immediately. School districts are alarmed by the governmental consternation. Just last week, 150 calls were directed to Russ Ebersole, who runs a small but suddenly lucrative Bethesda, Md., firm that takes $500 from schools to bring in Labrador retrievers that sniff out bombs and gunpowder. Even so, after the worst school massacre in this country's history, there must be something we can do. Right?

If crime in the classroom is an epidemic, it's like tuberculosis--one we basically control, with a few flare-ups every once in a while that beat the inoculation. Overall, school violence is not going up. Just 10 of every 1,000 students were the victims of serious violent crime at school in 1996. And while that's 10 too many, more than twice that number (26) were victims off campus. After the shootings that occurred in the 1997-98 school year, many districts tightened security. It's having an effect, according to the National School Safety Center: there were 42 deaths in the 1997-98 academic year, and just nine--before last Tuesday--this school year, which ends soon.