Voice of Revolution

School Shootings in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin

Organize Together to Avert Such Tragedies

- Statement of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization -

The U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization extends its condolences to the families of all the young girls killed in the recent school shootings: Naomi Rose Eversible, Lima and Mary Liz Miller, Anna Mae Stultifies and Marian Fischer, the five young girls killed at the Amish school in Pennsylvania and Emily Keyes, the sixteen-year-old shot in her school in Colorado. We extend them to the family of Wisconsin high school Principal John Clang, shot by a 15-year-old student, and to the families of the young girls molested by the homeless man who did the shooting in Colorado. We also extend condolences to the families of the individuals who did the shootings. Two killed themselves, and the other, a fifteen-year-old, is now in prison, being sentenced as an adult for murder. We appreciate the efforts of the friends and families, the Amish community and others in these three places who have acted to assist and support all the youth, teachers and staff involved in these tragedies.

These tragedies, one after the other, are a shock to the entire nation. One cannot help but be deeply concerned, especially for the difficulties facing young girls and youth as a whole. What are the conditions producing such acts? How should we proceed to deal with these complex matters?

President George W. Bush is already dictating that the problem is one of law and order. While saying that the “most important job” of those in the schools and government is “the safety of the children,” he is calling on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the FBI to head up a government conference on “school safety,” along with the Secretary of Education. School safety, far from being a matter of government responsibility to defend the rights of youth and teachers, is a matter of law enforcement.

President Bush is himself directly responsible for the mass killing of thousands of innocent children in Iraq and Afghanistan. Alberto Gonzales is directly responsible for promoting and defending torture, including that of the teenage youth imprisoned at Guantanamo. We are living in a society where youth are considered violent criminals, to be policed and jailed, and young girls are fair game. Bush, head of the federal government, which by definition has responsibility for society, takes no responsibility for these conditions. Indeed, they are not even considered part of the problem.

The conference planned will no doubt continue the government efforts to profile the youth and to turn teachers into police. Schools will be told to increase the monitoring of the youth, with spy cameras, with more police, and with more rigid rules to “correct” the behavior of the youth. Already most schools force youth to march in straight lines without speaking from one class to the other, and also commonly use silent lunches as collective punishment. As well, in the wake of the shootings, schools across the country went into lock-down. It is well known that use of lock-downs, regimentation and forced silence are conditions imposed in prisons. Yet they are becoming commonplace in the schools, all in the name of safety.

Youth, parents and teachers are not to be concerned about these problems. They are not to examine society and the fact that the government engages in mass killings of innocent people on a daily basis and has already imposed the highest incarceration rate in the world — a large percentage of those jailed are youth under twenty five.

Social, political, economic and cultural problems cannot be ruled out of existence with law and order campaigns and the simplistic answer that the youth are the problem, or some individuals have somehow gone nuts. These shootings show that people are being driven into a disconnect, leading to truly crazy and barbaric acts. Everyone witnesses daily the U.S. government committing brutal acts against whole populations. In the case of the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, in U.S. prisons, U.S. leaders openly promote torture and mass killings and proclaim them acts of great courage. In the face of widespread opposition, they declare that they will continue doing this because they can. Then when the tragic consequences of such a culture are revealed, they declare that some individuals have a behavior problem. No social responsibility is taken.

This society is creating great problems for the youth. The future being presented is one of chaos, violence and anarchy. Militarism, in the schools and society as a whole, and a gangster culture, where might makes right and anything goes, is said to be normal.

Law and order and military solutions will not deal with these problems; they will only make them worse. Youth, teachers, parents and all of society’s collectives must together organize to avert these tragedies. Solutions must come out of a broad discussion amongst the people on the overall direction of the society. Let us together take up our social responsibility to turn things around.

[TOP]

President Bush Speaking on School Shootings, Defends Hastert

In a visit to an elementary school in California October 3, President George W. Bush said he was “saddened and deeply concerned” about “the school shootings that took place in Pennsylvania and Colorado and Wisconsin. We grieve with the parents and we share the concerns about those who worry about safety in school.” He said “the most important job of those involved with schools and government is to make sure that children are safe.”

He called on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, head of the Justice Department and law enforcement in the country, along with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, to convene a meeting Tuesday, September 10. The meeting is to include “leading experts and stakeholders to determine how best the federal government can help states and local governments improve school safety. Our school children should never fear their safety when they enter a classroom.”

In the same speech, Bush commented on the what he called the “case of Congressman Mark Foley.” He said he backed House Speaker Dennis Hastert, was confident in Hastert’s leadership, and supported his call for a police investigation of Foley’s “unacceptable behavior.” Bush added that parents who send their children to be congressional pages have every right to expect that “those children will be safe.”

Representative Foley, from Florida, recently resigned when emails he sent, with sexually explicit messages to underage -congressional pages, became public. Florida law prohibits anyone from “encouraging, offering or soliciting sexual conduct’’ over the Internet with anyone under 18. Federal law also prohibits the solicitation of sexual conduct over the Internet. Although Foley has not yet been charged, the FBI is now investigating. Hastert, along with other leading Republicans, such as Tom Reynolds of New York, all knew about the emails, about Foley’s activities, and a complaint by one of the pages. They did nothing to make it public or prevent it.

[TOP]

Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006

Turning Teachers and School Officials into Police

The U.S. House and Senate are currently working on a bill that dramatically steps up the criminalization of students and turns teachers and school officials into police. This is being done in the name of “safety.”

The Student and Teacher Safety Act of 2006 (H.R.5295) states that searches can be done by “a full-time teacher or school official, acting on any reasonable suspicion based on professional experience and judgment, of any minor student on the grounds of any public school, if the search is conducted to ensure that classrooms, school buildings, school property and students remain free from the threat of all weapons, dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics.”

Many youth and teachers have already had the experience that plastic tableware is considered “dangerous,” and elementary-aged youth have been suspended simply for having such a plastic knife in their hand. There are also numerous examples of officials conducting mass searches of youth, their belongings and lockers, based on the “suspicion” that there “may” be drugs in the school.

The notion that safety is based on more repression and policing has also meant school officials more often call in armed police. Last year a youth was killed by a SWAT team for having a BB gun. Police officers stormed a high school in South Carolina, in 2003, forcing dozens of students to the ground and pointing guns directly at their faces, supposedly in search of drugs. No drugs were found.

The proposed bill also does not take into account that more metal detectors, more spy cameras, more searches, and more police in schools have not improved school safety. Chicago schools, for example, typical of large urban districts, have metal detectors in every school and 70 full-time armed police officers in the schools, in addition to off-duty police and security officers.

It is also the case that the large majority of school districts have increased such measures since 1999, when the Columbine tragedy occurred. They have not increased safety nor prevented tragedies like the shootings that occurred in the past two weeks.

These measures have contributed to an atmosphere of fear and anxiety among the youth while at school. The spokesperson for the Chicago schools, for example, says the atmosphere in the schools is one of “continual high alert.” These measures, along with “zero tolerance” policies, have also given rise to many more unjust suspensions and expulsions of youth, and more youth who do not finish school. They contribute to a situation where youth are being trained to accept being treated like and considered criminals simply for coming to school. Their role in life is to follow orders, be quiet, and accept being searched and brutalized at any time. Teachers, instead of pursuing their role to assist and educate the youth, are to become police.

Youth and teachers are rightly rejecting these measures and organizing to defend their rights.

[TOP]

Letter from a Teacher Educator

Use of Police in Schools Threatens the Authority of Teachers and the Public

As reported in Buffalo Forum, city and school officials recently announced various plans and initiatives to “curb violence” in and around the city’s schools. Key among these efforts is the creation of a new post of “chief of school safety,” headed by a police officer with the rank of chief while overseeing the Buffalo schools.

Officials say their desire to use police force against the youth is not only a deterrent to violence, but also to “bad behavior.” According to school officials, the police are to delineate “the good kids” from “those with challenges.” With this, “bad behavior” has, ipso facto, become a criminal offense, with the new police chief the prosecutor, judge and jury. I cannot help but see a connection to the recently passed Military Commissions Act which allows the president to indefinitely detain and torture any he deems a “threat to safety.” People and youth are being criminalized when no crime has been committed.

Teachers and the public might be compelled to accept this arrangement on the grounds that it will protect them and youth from physical harm and help restore order in classrooms. Teachers are rightly concerned about the difficulties they face in creating a pro-learning environment in their classroom. They often report, for example, that more of their attention and that of their students is focused on “classroom behavior” at the expense of academics.

Teachers in my classes express confusion about what stand to take in regard to this new police presence in schools. We have found it useful to begin sorting through this issue together.

We began our discussion by delineating the difference between “school resource officers,” which already exist in Buffalo schools and many others nationwide, and police proper. The resource officers do not function to enforce law and do not carry with them the threat of use of force or criminal charges. Their main role is to help the youth sort out problems and to do so without use of force and often without disciplinary action. Police, on the other hand, function to enforce the law and commonly use force however they see fit. It was useful for us, then, to compare in more detail the basis of teachers’ authority to that of police.

The basis and nature of the authority of a teacher has to be examined in relationship to the requirements of teaching and the larger social and political functions of public education. The authority of teachers is rooted in their authoritative knowledge of their subject matter, their knowledge and skill in teaching that subject matter, and their stand to assist the youth in reaching their full potential as members of the society. Students come to follow teachers for these reasons, not because of the threat of use of force against them. (Witness the difficulties faced by those who yell and scream at students as their primary means of instruction.) The authority accorded teachers is based on the requirements of directing classroom lessons, socializing youth, assigning grades, and so on. The teacher must be recognized as holding the legitimate authority to organize learning activities, to engage students in investigating and finding out about problems, to assist them in reaching their full potential as human beings.

The main mechanism teachers rightly have at their disposal in directing these activities is the power of persuasion, of discussion and deliberation. For example, new teachers often express that they have to win students over, that is, convince them through word and deed that the teachers “know what they are doing” and are acting in the best interests of students. Effective teachers use dialogue and argumentation to bring order to their classroom and school, and thus create the conditions for learning. Note that this process for establishing authority in the classroom mirrors and trains youth to participate in a society that accords public opinion a key role in directing and legitimating the acts of government. That is, the method of establishing authority in the classroom of a public school is to mirror the method of establishing -authority in a democracy.

With this in mind, we examined the authority and role of police. The basis and nature of the authority of police is quite different from that of teachers, and thus the mingling of the two areas — that of police work and that of education work — raises serious concerns. Police exist to enforce the law. The presence of police normally comes when a law has been broken. Police enforce the law with guns, handcuffs, and so on. Teachers, in contrast, take up their role with books, discussion, computers, and similar means. These tools are used to both educate and socialize.

A call for an increased role of police in social and educational matters suggests a breakdown and lack of official support for the role of discussion and public opinion in governance, in establishing authority. An increased use of police in social, cultural and economic matters points to a breakdown in the rule of law.

What we concluded from this brief exercise is that the city’s plan for a police chief to oversee “school security” mandates that the authority over students is to be obtained by the threat of use of force and by the actual use of force by police and not the expertise and social standing of the position of teacher, other educational professionals and the public more generally. The plan, we concluded, represents the government’s continuing efforts to undermine the authority of teachers and the public at large under the guise of promoting “security.” We decided that the government was pushing students, teachers and the public at large down a very dangerous path, and that we must oppose these police-state measures and instead rely on our own thinking and organization to contend with the difficult and very real issues faced by students and teachers in their schools, and in their neighborhoods.

[TOP]