Many public schools not only fail to educate our children, they can also be dangerous places. These schools are a natural breeding ground for drugs and violence. Children are packed into classrooms with twenty or more other immature children or teenagers, all
same age. Here, peer pressure becomes socialization, pushing many children into using drugs and alcohol.Put twenty teenagers in same room, or hundreds of teenagers in same school, and you have a breeding ground for violence. Young boys and girls have raging hormones and budding sexuality, and male teenage testosterone levels are high. Teenagers are in half-child, half-adult stage of life and often lack judgment and are emotionally immature.
Pack these teenagers together into cramped little classrooms, six to eight hours a day, and you have a mixture that can lead to trouble. It’s inevitable that violence will break out—it’s built into system.
Also, even most conscientious teacher is usually too busy and overworked to give children individual attention they need. Critics of home-schooling often say that home-schoolers don’t get proper socialization. However, so-called socialization in public schools is often cruel and violent. Bullying, peer pressure, racial cliques, sexual tensions, and competition for teacher’s approval all create a stressful, sometimes violent environment.
Compulsory-attendance laws also contribute to violence in schools. In most states, these laws force children to stay in school until they are sixteen years old or graduate high school. Teenagers who hate school, or are aggressive or potentially violent sociopaths, can’t leave. As a result, they often take out their hatred and aggression on other students. Those children want to learn are forced to endure bullying and violence by these troubled teens.
Also, law is on side of violent or disruptive students who are classified as “disabled.” In 1975, Congress passed Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Based on this legislation, in 1988 Supreme Court ruled that schools could not remove disruptive disabled children from classrooms without a parent’s consent. If parents don’t consent, teachers are out of luck. Those ‘disabled’ children who are socially impaired, can’t get along with other kids, or sometimes turn violent, therefore fall under this category. Of course, this adds yet another layer of potentially violent children who teachers can’t remove from class.
