THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 19, 1995 TAG: 9505190006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that the federal government could not impose gun-free school zones on states, many people perhaps thought the decision freed young and old to tote firearms near schools.
Not quite. Forty states, including Virginia, ban guns in schools' vicinity. And the 1994 federal Gun-Free Schools Act denies federal education funds to school districts without a policy of expelling for at least one year any youngster who brings guns to school.
Public schools have ever been controversial. One-house schools are more pleasant in memory than they were in reality. Schools in large cities have always been strapped for resources while trying to educate polyglot populations - and inevitably producing spotty results.
Battles over public education are the norm. Before the Supreme Court's 1944 decision outlawing racially segregated schools, one long-running war was over consolidation of schools in rural areas. Hamlets complained about the loss of their community schools and the busing of their children to central schools.
Then there was the quarrel over ``progressive'' education, which was viewed not only as bad for students but subversive of traditional economic, social and religious values - possibly a communist plot.
Now urban-school violence leads the lengthy list of criticisms of public education that includes sliding test scores, large percentages of dropouts, semiliterate graduates and reforms widely judged to have failed.
A gratifying zero tolerance for disruptive schoolchildren is now widespread. And guns and other weapons in schools, in Hampton Roads and elsewhere, bring harsh penalties.
And should, of course. Parents entrusting children to schools rightly demand they be safe there. Violence too often and in too many schools feeds disenchantment with public education. No school should stand in a no man's land. The purpose of gun-free school zones is to diminish the odds they will. by CNB