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Violence In Schools Has Gone Down Dramatically (No Shit)
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Back in 1999, two dick-brained, attention-seeking numbfucks decided to shoot up their high school, forever pushing school shootings to the forefront of the American news cycle. In the ensuing years, such incidents have grown to all-out epidemic proportions, transforming our schools into Stand And Deliver-esque murder factories in which no child is safe. You'd be better off sending little Johnny down to the classroom at the nearest federal prison than you would sending him to the den of iniquities that is your local public school.
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At least they teach practical life skills, like how to shank a bitch.
That's why schools are staging live-action drills with fake guns, sometimes without letting anyone know in advance that it's actually a drill. Hey, there won't be any advance warning when the real shooting inevitably occurs!
The Good News:
The past 25 years have seen a significant and continuing drop in violent crimes perpetrated at schools. Not only are schools safer than they've ever been, but researchers argue that, statistically, schools are now the safest place for kids, period.
And they're not pulling this out of their asses: 1993 was the most violent school year in the U.S., with 42 homicides and 13 other serious crimes per 1,000 students. By 2010, those numbers had dropped to two and four, respectively.
NPR
Coincidentally, a graph of what SATs have done for our children's brainpower follows the exact same trajectory.
But how is that even possible, when it sometimes seems that every other week brings a new incident of school violence plastered all over our screens? Well, what you need to stop and realize is that we're all victims of a news media that's focused entirely on the small (if unquestionably tragic) picture. School shootings make headlines specifically because they're so rare, but the prevalence of those headlines gives the impression this shit is happening all the time. But if you pan your mind's camera out, you see that our schools are benefiting from a general downtick in violence that's taking place across all strata of our society.
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