Yeah, I just read the entire study; "mixed bag" is about what I'd call it as well (as regards the larger question of in-school violence). However, the following numbers from that study tend to support what I was saying, which was concerned
specifically with student-on-teacher violence (this study doesn't account for other abuse like spitting, cursing etc.):
The 1993-94 Schools and Staffing Survey (US Department of Education, 1997) found that 12 percent of all elementary and secondary school teachers reported being threatened with injury by a student while four percent reported actual attacks. Recent surveys found that 16 percent of teachers had reported being victims of school-related violence in 1998 (Binns & Markow, 1999).
Even ignoring the disparity between these numbers (4% report being attacked in '93 while 16% report being a "victim of school-related violence" in '98, an increase of 12%-- which could be due to methodology, reporting errors etc.; perhaps the latter survey counted "being threatened" as being "a victim of violence", though that'd be odd)-- but even ignoring all this, the number of teachers around the nation who were either threatened with injury by a student
or attacked by a student is somewhere between 12-16% (and likely higher since the 1998 survey cited did not report "threat" numbers, which would, in all likelihood, have increased along with the 12% increase in actual violent incidents). Again, keep in mind that in urban areas this number is likely higher, and you'd likely have ~18-20% (if not more) of teachers either being threatened by students or being victims of physical violence.
And I'd not only call that totally unacceptable, I'd call it an epidemic. If one out of every five teachers is treated in such a manner, then something is
seriously wrong.
Another thing to keep in mind in general is that this study compared statistics from 1993 (the "peak" year) with those of later years (in certain cases it mentioned its relationship to the levels in the 80's, but this was only for weapons possession-- which, I should note, was not subdivided into knife/gun categories, where there'd be a greater disparity-- and one or two other categories; also, this comparison to early 80's levels was the exception rather than the rule). It did
not compare the reported student-on-teacher statistics with those of earlier decades, which was what my entire involvement in this thread was concerned with.
I realize you weren't necessarily contending anything I've said, but I just wanted to note that I was making a more limited point than "violence in schools is increasing" (which is false). My assertion is that "violence and acts of gross incivility against teachers is increasing" (which, according to the 1993 vs. 1998 statistics quoted in the previous excerpt, may very well the case; the study, too, concludes that this is so as illustrated in your citation in the original post).
