Emotion and reality in the school safety debate

The Trump administration on Sunday announced the formation of a new school safety task force to evaluate ways to make U.S. students safer on campus. The committee will examine a diverse range of proposals, including arming teachers.

But are such extreme measures really necessary?

According to a recent study by researchers at Northeastern University in Boston, they’re not.

“There is not an epidemic of school shootings,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law, and public policy.

Contrary to the alarming statistics widely reported earlier this year, which included a variety of incidents that did not affect students, school shootings remain rare, Fox’s research revealed. Since 1996, records show 16 school shootings that involved multiple victims and at least two deaths. Of those, only eight qualified as mass shootings, incidents that included four or more deaths. During the past 25 years, 10 students died each year, on average, as a result of gunfire on campus.

Fox notes more children die each year from pool drownings and bicycle accidents. And the frequency of school shootings has declined since the 1990s, which saw four times more students die in school shootings than today.

Education and government officials should still consider ways to make students safer, Fox said, but they need to approach the task with realistic expectations.

“The thing to remember is that these are extremely rare events, and no matter what you can come up with to prevent it, the shooter will have a workaround,” he said.

Lawmakers in several states are considering raising the age to buy rifles, the mass shooting weapon of choice, from 18 to 21. But Fox noted only five mass shootings in the last 35 years involved a shooter younger than 21. Installing physical security measures such as barriers and metal detectors have also proven ineffective, Fox said.

Despite the evidence, lawmakers continue to debate new security measures, and parents continue to fear for their students’ lives. One company is cashing in on the alarm with bulletproof backpacks, although the Justice Department recently pilloried claims the bags passed any kind of official safety rating certification. And around the country, parents and officials are lobbying for more police officers on campus, a measure promoted by Florida Gov. Rick Scott after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14.

But Stoneman Douglas had a sheriff’s deputy on campus, and that didn’t stop what became the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. Still, it’s hard to listen to pleas from grieving parents and shrug off attempts to do something to prevent another tragedy.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, charged with leading the Trump administration’s new school safety commission, vowed Sunday to fight for “every student and teacher to have a safe environment. “We will bring together a wide array of practitioners, including teachers, those on the front lines, to help identify best practices and solutions that are working in communities and states across the country,” she said.

Off again, on again

Last week I told you about Harvard University’s decision to penalize its biggest campus Christian group over its position on marriage and sexuality. A few days later, religious liberty law firm Becket announced it had filed suit against Wayne State University in Detroit on behalf of another Christian group kicked off campus over the same issue.

The dispute didn’t last long. Two days after Becket filed its lawsuit, the school relented, reinstating InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The lawyers representing the students aren’t sure yet whether the change is permanent.

“It’s good that Wayne State saw the light after it felt the heat,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at Becket. “But after putting these students through the runaround for months, a last-minute change of heart is hardly enough. This kind of official religious discrimination should never happen again. And Wayne State needs to return the thousands of dollars it charged the student group.”

Becket’s on a roll fighting public colleges and universities that try to force Christian groups to abandon faith-based leadership requirements. But private schools present a bigger challenge because they are not held to the same government standards for free speech and religious liberty. —L.J.

We don’t need no education?

Emboldened by the success of teachers in West Virginia, who went on strike for nine days and forced state legislators to give them a 5 percent raise, educators in other states are issuing walkout warnings. For days, teachers in Kentucky have filled the state Capitol to protest planned pension benefit cuts. The teachers union in Oklahoma wants lawmakers to consider $10,000 in pay raises over three years, which would bring educators there closer to the $58,950 national average. They’ve warned of a possible strike if their demands aren’t met. In Arizona, where teachers also want a bigger pay raise, organizers asked educators to wear red Wednesday in a show of solidarity—and to test support for a walkout, something West Virginia teachers proved possible. “To be able to do that there? I think people in Arizona started looking at each other saying, ‘Wow!’” said Noah Karvelis, an art teacher in Phoenix who helped organize the wear red campaign. But West Virginia teachers drew strength from their unity: So many participated that officials had to close every school in the state. The same level of solidarity might be hard to achieve on a bigger scale. —L.J.

A popular choice in Illinois

Administrators for the Illinois tax credit scholarship program have a stack of 33,000 applications to process for its first year of grants. State lawmakers in the reliably blue state approved the school choice program last year, and its popularity so far testifies to the desire of low-income families to have more say over their children’s education. But many of them won’t get a scholarship for next year: Empower Illinois, the biggest scholarship administrator in the state, expects the program to max out at 15,000 grants. Donors have pledged $46 million toward the program so far. —L.J.