The authors respond to Goodwin's (2014) "Threat Assessment: Are We Using the Wrong Nets?" and use that article as a springboard to discuss various aspects of the threat assessment and management process. We find that Goodwin misses critical elements of the threat assessment and management process, conflates the process with two types of…

Students with disabilities who engage in high rates of challenging behaviors require educators who employ function-based thinking and have a particular sensitivity to the wide range of factors that influence student behavior. In essence, educators working with special needs students need to know what makes their instruction "special"; they must…

The Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is committed to preventing youth violence. For the past decade, DVP has supported research on risk and protective factors associated with youth interpersonal violence and the development and evaluation of prevention programs. This commentary addresses…

The reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is 3 years overdue, and the Obama administration, through Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, has explained the urgency of revising and reauthorizing the law. Attention has been focused most acutely on the provisions that directly relate to academic performance and accountability.…

School shootings have been in the news of late. People ponder what occurs in classrooms today. Why would a young person wish to take a life? Within educational institutions, the killings are a concern. In our dire attempt to teach the children and ensure student success, it seems many of our offspring are lost. Some students feel separate from…

This article argues that colleges should not dismiss troubled students first and ask questions later. There are better ways to prevent campus violence than trying to predict students' future behavior, including mental-health support and thoughtful, responsible risk assessment. While no panacea exists, there are helpful, proven strategies: (1)…

The release of "The New Zealand Curriculum" causes us to rethink the aims of education. Dr Cavanagh offers an alternative set of aims to the vision outlined in the Ministry of Education document, which is based, at least in part, on socialisation into the corporate industrial world. Dr Cavanagh's position is focused on putting…

Notes that the beginning of the 20th century witnessed "The Manifesto Moment"--a ten-year period of "glorious madness" in which nearly every "-ism" that people identify with Modernism proclaimed its existence. Considers how in a time of heightened student violence, the manifesto may offer young writers a proactive strategy for expressing their…

Addresses students' writing that often requires special attention. Considers this in relation to violent fantasies. Discusses censorship in relation to student writing. Recommends finding out whether the law requires educators to report any evidence of illegal activity to the police. (SG)

The field of education is spending too much effort on managing the schools and too little on redirecting student self-expression away from violence and destruction and toward self-understanding and self-development. (MSE)

Analyzes the responses of administrators in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area (California) to a survey concerning the types and causes of conflict and violence involving students in school and concerning attitudes, training, and policies that are effective in dealing with conflict. (PGD)

Boredom and violence are not disconnected, and kids who aren't engaged in what they must spend more than twelve years doing, day after day, are at risk. But are schools safe even in more favored neighborhoods? Not in the deeper sense of safe. Not only are children verbally and physically abused in many public schools in minor ways--in ways that…

The fact that hazing continues at a steady clip is evidence enough that Black Greeks' national headquarters either do not want to stop the practice or do not know how. One would hope the latter is closer to the truth. Certainly, there is also the possibility that pledging--and the hazing which invariably accompanies it--cannot be stopped at all.…

The use of physical violence on students affronts democratic values and infringes on individual rights; furthermore, a study of school violence found a high correlation between physical punishment and violent behavior of students. (Author/MLF)

Examines the educational and cultural system that formed the environment out of which grew the fanaticism of the Weathermen, the militant student group of the 1960s. (GT)