In eight pages this paper discusses school violence in a statistical analysis and consideration of district efforts regarding school safety measures. Nine sources are cited in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: MM12_PGscvl.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Educators, students and family alike all wonder how safe are our schools. The tragedy at Columbine High School was brought into our homes via our television sets (Reddy et al,
2001). The images of students with hands over heads as they left the building while heavily-armed law enforcement officials helped those innocent kids will no doubt stay in many of
our minds for a long time to come. But, these kinds of incidents are rare in our schools (Reddy et al, 2001). They can be likened to airplane crashes. So
few occur and the tragedy is so great when a plan goes down that it receives a great deal of attention in the media, causing people to think that flying
is the least safe way to travel. The same is true with school shootings. The actual incidence is so low and it is such a horrific tragedy that the images
are cast before us for days and even weeks following the incident. Schools are still the safest setting for our children and youth. There are statistics to support this
statement. First, a look at the states who had the highest ratio of students who were expelled for violating the Gun-Free Schools Act. The data re for the school year
1998-1999 and reflect the percentage per 1,000 students. The data is from the U.S. Department of Education and reported in the American School & University journal. These states had the
highest ratios: 1. Alabama = 0.233 2. Missouri = 0.187 3. District of Columbia 0.181 4. Alaska = 0.177 5. Tennessee = 0.168 6. Nevada = 0.167 7. Georgia =
0.148 8. Arkansas = 0.146 9. New Mexico = 0.143 10. Colorado = 0.134 (American School & University, 2001). School violence, whether it entails bullying, teasing, excessive shoving, kicking,