David Hogg, still capitalizing on his 15 minutes of fame following the tragic Parkland high school shooting – and still living comfortably in his reality-free zone – recently tweeted this silly assertion ~

Violence is a disease that will be cured.

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) July 27, 2018

Clearly world history is not a subject on which our public schools spend much time these days. Or maybe they just skip right over the entire 20th century – the most violent one ever, considering the millions murdered by the evil ideology of totalitarianism. We humans are getting more violent not less. So, sorry Mr. Hogg, violence began when Cain murdered Abel and it’s not going away any time soon.
 
Of course young David must be forgiven for his idealism, as he’s product of his progressive environment. Under an Obama-era directive, his school district simply overlooked the violence in some of his fellow students, apparently wishing it away.
 
Unfortunately, as I wrote back in March, it’s now painfully obvious that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting could have been prevented if the school authorities had effectively dealt with Nicholas Cruz when it first became obvious that he was a potential threat to the safety of the other students.

 
Kelsey Harness, in an article at The Stream last month, described the extremely misguided 2014 federal directive that effectively tied the school’s hands. Giving the O’Ministration far more credit than I ever would, she said ~

The U.S. Department of Education had good intentions in establishing the policy, noting that black students in the 2011-12 school year were three times as likely to be suspended and expelled as white students. Many argued that high suspension rates for minority students contributed to a “school-to-prison pipeline,” where already disadvantaged children ended up incarcerated.
 
To address this disparity, the Obama administration established new school discipline guidelines in 2014. Using the threat of civil rights lawsuits, the policy urged the nation’s schools to use positive reinforcement instead of punishing students’ bad behavior by suspending or expelling them.

Writing at Breitbart back in March, Dr. Susan Berry’s assessment of the new guidelines was much less sanguine ~

In 2014, the Obama administration issued a “Dear Colleague” guidance that threatened school districts – whose disciplinary measures showed a disproportionately greater number of minority students affected – could be subject to investigation by the Departments of Justice and Education, regardless of whether the behaviors leading to the discipline were unacceptable.

In other words, don’t discipline your (minority) students – or we’ll discipline you.

“The Florida Legislature … has instructed school districts ‘that zero-tolerance policies are not intended to be rigorously applied to petty acts of misconduct and misdemeanors, including, but not limited to, minor fights or disturbances,’” says the PROMISE agreement, signed onto by the school district and law enforcement.

 
Under such an irrational policy, a delinquent like Cruz was a ticking time bomb. It’s actually amazing we haven’t seen more like him.
 
In a Baltimore, Maryland school district, there haven’t been any shootings, but one family says it’s due to that same dysfunctional federal disciple policy that their young son is suicidal ~

Nicole Landers found a note written by her 9-year-old son, Jared. “Kill me. I mean nothing. I have issues,” it read.
 
Her son’s April 16 note, Landers said, was the culmination of months of bullying Jared endured in the classroom. That bullying included being struck in the face and thrown in the mud by another student. Even threats of electrocution.
 
Nicole and Josh Landers say their 12-year-old daughter, Tamar, has faced multiple instances of sexual harassment in the same school district. They say Justin, their 18-year-old son, was threatened after reporting a student with a knife in class at his school, Loch Raven High School.

This is outrageous. Students must live in fear because bad behavior is now consequence-free?! As the children’s father says ~

“We went from a policy of zero tolerance to extreme tolerance,” Josh Landers says. “All that it has done is caused chaos within classrooms. It has disarmed teachers from having the ability to control their classes and stay safe and protected. Students are bullied relentlessly.”

 
It’s not just the kids who are endangered by this irrational lack of discipline. Educators are no longer safe in their own classrooms ~

Peter Kirsanow – an African American conservative on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights – cited federal data that showed that, in just the first year of the new Obama-era policy, there were more than 160,000 “physical attacks” on teachers throughout the country, though fewer than 130,000 assailants were expelled.
 
“Many teachers have been sent to the hospital by students emboldened by the lax discipline rules — which remain in full force, despite the change in administration, and have now been adopted by 53 of the nation’s largest school districts, including NYC,” (journalist Paul Sperry) wrote.

Unlike young Hogg, who naively believes banning guns will magically eliminate violence, Andrew Pollack, a father of one of the Parkland victims, understands that the explanation for this tragedy is far more complicated. Not only has he has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against former Broward Sheriff Deputy Scot Peterson, gunman Nikolas Cruz and several others, he wants to make sure that the Broward County School District School Board has members who will revoke the reckless PROMISE (Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Supports & Education) Program – as Broward’s incarnation of the O’Ministration guideline is called ~

Many believe the program allowed Meadow’s killer to not only avoid punishment for his aggressive behavior but set the scene for him to purchase the weapons he used in the attack.
 
“I want her death not be in vain and to make sure that other parents in this country realize how important it is to look into local level government,” Pollack said. “That’s where it starts.”

 
Rather than the ignorant, immature, reactionary antics of David Hogg and his fellow gun-banners, Mr. Pollack is holding accountable the people directly responsible for the death of his daughter – and 16 other students and teachers. And he’s rightly seeking to eliminate the lax discipline climate that allowed a troubled Cruz to slip through the cracks without a criminal record, despite committing multiple crimes.
 
We can only reduce the violence if we fix what’s broken – and stop ignoring anti-social behavior.
 
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Related:
Time for Secretary DeVos to Rescind Obama-Era School Discipline Policies ~ As Max C. Eden, Jonathan Butcher and Lindsey M. Burke point out at National Review, the Obama directive which led to this anti-discipline policy being established in various school districts across the country ~

… is an affront to the separation of powers, federalism, and the rule of law. Nothing in the Constitution, legislation, or even regulation authorizes the secretary of education to dictate local school-discipline policy. Rather, the Obama administration did an end run around the Administrative Procedure Act by issuing a sweeping new policy by fiat.
 
The Civil Rights Act unambiguously, and entirely properly, says that schools may not treat students differently based on their race. But the Obama administration declared that the Civil Rights Act forbids not only disparate treatment in school discipline, but also disparate impact. According to the 2014 letter, schools could face a federal investigation and potential loss of funding even if their rules are fair and applied evenhandedly.

 
When law enforcement won’t “enforce”
 
Teacher Coalition Seeks to End Obama School Discipline Policy: ‘A Lot of Fear in Schools’ ~