School violence may not be the most appropriate holiday season topic, but it is hardly avoidable. While parents, teachers and pupils enjoy their winter vacation, Frances Glick, the teacher-victim of an assault at George Washington High School Annex, remains in the hospital. At last report, her head injuries we so severe that she could not recognize her father five days after the assault occurred. City and school officials, after investigation, called the assault an "isolated incident." In one sense they are right. The evidence seems to indicate that the attack was not related to the organized violence, which has taken place in the main building of the school. However, this "incident" is related to the rising wave of violence in our public schools which, in turn, is attributable to the refusal of officials to deal with the problem in any serious fashion. Some of the aspects of this refusal are evident in the following:
* Victims of assaults (teachers and students) are reluctant to report assaults and to press charges because of the all-too-prevalent stratagem of shifting blame from the assailant to the victim himself. A pupil-victim who has been mugged and had several dollars taken from him may be accused of having "invited" the attack by carrying too much money with him. Teacher victims may be accused of having "provoked" assault by demanding, for example, that a student return to his classroom rather than "cut" class and loiter in the cafeteria. The assailants soon learn that they can continue in their actions with virtual impunity because the innocent victims, instead of receiving official support, are themselves denounced when they ask for help. In many schools there is a basic absence of order: How can teachers be expected to demand adherence to school regulations when, in any conflict that arises, they receive no support? (In an effort to reverse this trend, the new principal of George Washington High School sent a written notice to all students on December 16 informing them that "beginning Friday, faculty and student patrols will be in the lunchroom ... They will ask you to stop smoking. They will ask you to stop gambling or trespassing in a school building ... Now that you have been informed that the cafeteria will no longer be a haven for trespassers, pushers, cutters, you can be certain that I will keep my word.")
* The legal procedures, as they now operate, prevent effective prosecution of those accused of assault.The accused now has available to him a host of attorneys and civil liberties organizations in the exercise of his right to due process, but, in most instances, the victim of the assault is left to his own devices in pressing his case. The result, time and again, is that the amateur (whether he is teacher, student or principal) is no match for the legal experts on the other side. The assailant goes free. The teacher or student victim, if he is lucky, can transfer to another school in order to be spared the anguish of being assaulted by the same person again.
* The courts are powerless to act because, even when they find that a student is "dangerous" to himself and to those around him, there are no special school or institutional facilities available. Those engaging in repeated acts of violence know that this lack exists and that, except for the most violent of actions, they are free to do as they please.
* School principals may suspend a student only twice in any school year ... each suspension limited to 5 days. After a student has been suspended twice, the principal's hands are tied, and the student may do as he pleases until the community superintendent decides to take action. Principals who ask for help from their superintendents risk being blamed themselves for not being able to handle the situation on their own; those who do not ask for further help are plagued with a corps of offenders who cannot be touched.
Action - Now!
We hear much talk of dissatisfaction with the public schools and of the quest for alternatives --including the alternative of flight from the public schools. There has indeed been an exodus from our schools, not (as school critics allege) because of dissatisfaction with the curriculum but rather because of the failure of school officials to protect children from violence. Unless action is taken, the flight from public schools will continue to accelerate.
No one should be optimistic about finding simple and quick solutions, and the very last thing needed is a demagogic appeal for "law and order" in the schools. There are complex problems, which cannot be ignored: What educational and programmatic changes in schools will reduce violence? What facilities are needed to help rehabilitate the young offender rather than harden him in his ways? How can we ensure due process for the accused, while guaranteeing effective prosecution of the guilty?
But we cannot wait until these questions are answered before taking action. As in our society at large, we in the schools must continue to improve law enforcement while we work to eradicate the social conditions, which are the breeding ground of crime. We must proceed with educational reforms which will reduce school violence, but we cannot wait for these reforms to prevail before taking immediate and effective action against those who are making it impossible for students to learn and teachers to teach. Our new Chancellor and the Board of Education must reverse the failure of nerve, which has gripped our system. The task of dealing with the violent and the severely disturbed cannot rest with the school alone. While the schools share the responsibility of rehabilitating the violent and curing the disturbed, they cannot assume such a role at the expense of sacrificing (and, in some cases totally destroying) their basic function as a place to teach and place to learn.