This report takes a fascinating look at school safety issues in urban and suburban schools and presents findings from over 2,000 educators and law enforcement professionals.  This is a problem that we must look at closely since 2.7 million crimes are committed at schools each year.  The researchers provide information on quite a range of causal factors including parenting skills, the self esteem movement in educational philosophy, dress codes and body piercing.  There is also discussion of issues that may be a surprise to some parents such as hazing (in high school, who knew?) favoritism toward school employee/board members and girl aggression.

This group offers a look at some reasons why our schools suffer from safety problems that we read about in the news.  According to the data, everyone involved with children including both parents and educators need to look closely at their behaviors.  Many parents stick up for their kids, even when the child needs special psychological help, and educators still focus on self-esteem to the point of producing narcissistic students who cannot handle any level of criticism.  We have social trends that seem innocent enough, such as body piercing, but are statistically indicative of truancy, sex and drug use.  The report boils all this down to 5 conclusions, with recommendations for all of us to take note of.