Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
MAY 6, 1999, THURSDAY
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
LENGTH: 33320 words
HEADLINE:
HEARING OF THE SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS
COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT
CHAIRED BY:
SENATOR JAMES JEFFORDS (R-VT)
WITNESSES:
WILLIAM STRAUSS, AUTHOR AND
GENERATIONAL HISTORIAL
DENISE GOTTFREDSON, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
CRIMINOLOGY,
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK
JAMES FOX, DEAN OF
CRIMINOLOGY,
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
PAUL EVANS, COMMISSIONER,
BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT
KAREN BIERMAN, DIRECTOR, FAST TRACK PROGRAM,
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
JAN KUHL, SUPERVISOR OF SCHOOL COUNSELING,
DES
MOINES INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
KEN TRUMP, PRESIDENT,
NATIONAL SCHOOL
SAFETY AND SECURITY SERVICES
ROBERT EAGAN, VICE PRESIDENT,
SANDIA N
BODY:
(Gavel.)
SEN. JAMES JEFFORDS (R-VT):
Good morning. Today, we have hearing on safety in the schools.
Keeping our
children safe is a concern of all Americans. Ensuring that each day, our
children are developing and learning in a secure environment, free from harm, is
paramount to each and every parent in this country.
The recent wave of
school violence in the communities of Springfield, Oregon; Jonesboro, Arkansas;
West Paducah, Kentucky; Edinbourgh, Pennsylvania; Pearl, Mississippi, and now
recently in Littleton, Colorado, has profoundly affected all Americans. We share
in the loss and the pain of families involved. Our confidence is shaken and now
we must answer the tough questions why did this happen. What can be done so it
never happens again?
In our soul searching, we recognize that school
violence is not a small town phenomena or an urban phenomena or something that
happens to other people. The tragic fact is it happens here in America, in our
schools, to our children in our communities.
As we go through the process of
seeking explanations for this senseless tragedy, it is clear that we need to do
more to help these students, who show signs of withdrawal and isolation. Alice
Miller from Shaftsbury, Vermont articulated this best when she said, quote,
"we're finding that kids who are causing problems are the ones who feel detached
and distant. We performed a survey of kids who are truant and we found that one
of the main reasons they don't go to school is because they are afraid of their
peers", end of quote.
While we search for explanations, we must also look
for safe solutions. In 1994, the President and Congress expanded the Drug Free
Schools Act, incorporating a violence prevention program into the Safe and Drug
Free Schools Act.
Just this year, $125 million funds were appropriated for a
new school violence prevention initiative. Overall, more than $550 million in
grants are provided annually to states and localities to support school and
community based violence in drug prevention programs. How effective are these
programs in promoting safe schools? Are they reaching the students, who need
them most? Are they working or should reform of the Safe and Drug Free Schools
Act be a top priority in reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act -- the ESEA?
We must also consider the
potential for other ESEA programs to safe school environment
and instill a belonging for all our students. It is well known that the after
school hours are when most violent juvenile crime occurs.
Existing
ESEA programs, such as the 21st Century Community Learning
Centers Program enable schools to keep kids off the streets and engage in
productive after school activities. Equally important, the 21st Century
Community Learning Centers Program benefits communities by expanding the way we
look at school buildings and it's purpose within the community. The school
becomes an anchor for community activities and projects, and a center for
promoting the educational, health, social services, cultural, and recreational
needs for all community members for all ages. From preschool to after school to
senior life long learning programs, the school building comes alive at all hours
of the day and night pulling us together and keeping us connected.
These
ESEA programs are but two examples of the direction we should
pursue as we grapple with this very serious issue. We will confront it again
when we consider the reauthorization of SAMHSA, and I know my colleagues have
suggested several other avenues, which should be explored.
Today, we have
assembled an impressive collection of witnesses whose combined experience in
school safety initiatives and research is unmatched. We look forward to hearing
their views and recommendation for safe school solutions.
Perhaps one
solution we might all adopt beginning here today, is that offered by retiring
Denver Bronco's quarterback John Elway when he responded to his young children's
questions about Littleton -- we just need to start being nicer to each other.
Senator Kennedy.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA): Thank you very much,
Chairman Jeffords. And I think all of us want to thank you for having this
hearing today.
It was only a few hours after Littleton you had indicated to
the Senate that you would be having this hearing, and we're very grateful to you
for bringing the range of witnesses to help all of us here today. All of us are
deeply saddened by the tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, and the countless other
acts of youtce that have brought us here today. As a nation, we're struggling to
make sense of this strategy to understand what leads young men and women to
engage in such destructive and deadly behavior.
To do so, we must listen
to a wide range of voices, to young people themselves, to parents, to educators,
to mental health professionals, law enforcement officials, and other experts.
Our goal is to develop sensible responses, and hears such as this one and
others to be held in the coming weeks will provide ideas and strategies for
action to reduce the likelihood of future tragedies. There are no easy
solutions, but many factors -- the easy availability of guns, peer pressure,
violent media images and games, the lack of trained mental health professionals
in schools, the lack of parenting skills, the lack of adequate time for parents
to spend with their children.
All of these factors contribute to youth
violence. Preventing it will require a broad approach, and as we have learned
all too well from the tragedies of the past, we cannot afford to leave a single
child behind. The vast majority of nation schools are safe, yet violence in
school continues to endanger the well being of far too many children and youth.
Not surprisingly, fear among children in youth is increasing. In 1995, 9
percent of students from ages 12 to 19 feared that they'd be harmed or attacked
at school. Young people cannot excel and reach their full potential when they
fear going to school. Parents, too, are fearful. In Columbine High School,
parents recently toured Chatfield (sp) High. They are more interested in
learning about the location of a number of exits than about any other school
facilities.
In the coming weeks, we will ask many questions about parenting,
about the availability of guns, about the media, about our values as a society.
Parents have many important roles to play. As parents and caregivers, as
teachers and mentors, as role models and confidants, we know the importance of
strong parental guidance and support for healthy development.
Spending time
together is a basic ingredient for building strong parent-child relationship.
Yet, time is increasingly scarce for working parents. We can't create a 30 hour
day, but we can do more to see that every parent is equipped with the skills
they need to raise their children. And we can support family friendly policies
at work -- flexible work hours, greater family and medical leave, so parents can
be with their children more of the time. We know what works and we need to do it
more. Last year, the Department of Justice and Education created a guide to safe
schools, the Early Warning Timely Response. This is a copy of the publication
that was sent to every school in the country. Every school in the country has
this in their library or hopefully on the teachers' desks, or hopefully its been
implemented. But parents ought to know that in every school has this.
And in
this book, which is an excellent, excellent book, the results of the work that
was done by the Attorney General as well as the Secretary of Education and a
range of other professionals, there is very many helpful observations -- Early
Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to the Safe Schools. What to look for, what to
do, characteristics of a school that is safe and responsive to all children,
early warning signs.
It continues to characteristics of a school that is
safe and responsive to all children, and it talks about how parents are able to
tell. Later on, it has tips for the parents, a long list. Parents can help
create safe schools. Here are some ideas that parents in other communities have
tried, and it lists the tips for parents. It's an excellent summation. And then
later on, it has action steps for students, a whole list of action steps for
students. And for those that are interested in it, every school, as I mentioned,
has it.
And we're going to here later in the day from Kenneth Trump, but
this is a practical school security. It hasn't been sent to every school, but
it's Corewinn Press (ph) in the company in Thousand Oaks California and this is
an excellent publication as well. These are things that can be done virtually
immediately and can be, I think, can be helpful to schools, and to parents, and
to students.
The tragic events -- and I will also indicate that there is a,
on the Internet, the Internet website address is wwusdoj.gov; wwus -- Department
of Justice -- doj.gov on the website. They can get this on the website for those
that are interested even as of today.
The tragic events in Colorado last
month are a clear reminder of how much we need to do to help families. By
building models that work, a number of programs throughout the country have
successfully targeted youth violence. Success occurs when there is a cooperative
effort.
Today, we'll hear from Police Commissioner Paul Evans about the
remarkable program that helped Boston go 18 months without one juvenile death
that involved a firearm. This program works because it involves the entire
community, police, probation officers, community leaders, even gang members
themselves.
The strategy is based on three components: tough law
enforcement, heavy emphasis on crime prevention, including drug treatment and
effective gun control. Neglect of any of these aspects undermines the whole
strategy, and model programs like Boston's can work across the country. And
we'll have an opportunity to hear from Commissioner Evans.
We can promote
healthy children and healthy youth in safe communities. We can help parents with
parenting from birth through adolescence. We can help teachers and school
officials to intervene before violence occurs.
We can give law enforcement
officials the tools they need to keep guns away from children, and we can work
with the media to achieve responsible programming for children and youth. And
today, in ways like these, we can fashion a full and effective response for the
tragedies of Littleton and to the ongoing crisis of youth violence in our
society.
And I thank the Chair. And I want to extend a warm word of welcome
to Senator Campbell. We'll be grateful to hear from him.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Yes,
Senator Campbell, it's wonderful to have you here. And I would just note that
this past year, you championed legislation, which I co-sponsored, which was
signed into law, which allows communities to hire resource officers to help in
this area.
So, I appreciate your excellence in that area, and please
proceed.
SEN. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL (R-CO): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I
want to thank you for being, in fact, the first original co- sponsor on that
bill.
It think it's going to be highly successful. It brings into play a
program that had been talked about several years, but the President did sign it
last October. In fact, it's being administered through the Justice Department,
and it is on the Internet, too, so I am sure schools will eventually avail
themselves to it.
I also want to thank Senator Gregg. I don't believe he
serves on this committee, but he's the chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and
States Appropriation Subcommittee, as you know. And he made sure that that $60
million in funding for the program you're speaking of, which we calmly call the
Cops and Schools Program, that was included in the FY '99 Appropriations Bill.
And I want to acknowledge his leadership in crafting this Safe Schools
Initiative through his subcommittee.
Together, I think we've made some very,
very positive steps in the right direction. But as recent events, including the
terrible tragedy in Littleton to which Senator Kennedy spoke, they have shown
that a lot more needs to be done.
I used to be a schoolteacher, Mr.
Chairman, as I'm sure some other committee members here, were. And I'm very
proud of that. I taught for 10 years in every level from junior high up through
college. I was also a deputy sheriff. I was also a volunteer prison counselor
and a number of other things. But before that, I was a bona fide, honest to
gosh, juvenile offender, like so many other youngsters. In fact, I remember when
I was a junior in high school, I had a history teacher tell me that I was a
menace to society. Lo and behold, as I sit in the Senate here I think her
prophecy probably came true, but in a little different forum.
(Laughter.)
But I think through those varied backgrounds, I developed a special
sensitivity to the problems that students have cause I had plenty of them
myself.
I came to the conclusion that many of you also have that it's
really a pay now or pay later deal. We can put more resources and more help into
alternative programs to violence where we end up building more prisons -- and
Senator Kennedy has spoken to this for years and years -- and I know it's
probably better than most.
The downside of not helping enough when
youngsters are growing up, the single family homes, the distractions, the peer
pressure, all of the things that tend to lead a youngster away from what he
ought to be doing, and what we would expect of him as an adult is, in my view,
getting worse.
In my home state on April 20th, as you know, there were 13
innocent victims -- 12 youngsters and a very heroic teacher -- that were
tragically murdered at Columbine High School. The town of Littleton, by the way,
is a very, very nice town, kind of an upscale town. And Columbine High School,
to my knowledge -- and I've visited there over the years a time or two -- they
don't have the problems that many schools do, perhaps inner city schools as an
example. There are very little racial problems, no gangs to speak of.
And I
guess when you look at what happened at Columbine, we can say, by golly, if it
happened there, it can happen anywhere. It was obviously totally unexpected,
although there was some red flags that maybe should have been noticed.
And I
know when we, selected officials, when we're pummeled by the media and by our
constituents to do something, I think there is a quick rush to judgement and a
big flurry of activity about new things that we ought to start and ought to
develop. And sometimes we overlook a lot of the good programs that are already
online that perhaps we ought to expand and make more available.
And I know
it's also very common to kind of look for scapegoats and to point fingers.
That's going on right now in the media. I'm sorry to see it in the press in
Colorado. But clearly movies, video games, and guns seem to be where a lot of
the focus is now. And I suppose that more can be done in all those areas.
I
note with interest, yesterday, that Vice President Gore announced a voluntary
program that most of the large companies that deal with the Internet are going
to do. It's kind of a self-policing program to make available a screening system
where parents can screen out the kinds of things that they do not want their
youngsters pulling up on the Internet. And I think that's a step in the right
direction.
And clearly, I don't know, there is going to be a pretty big
dialogue, I'm sure, on gun legislation. It's my understanding there's about
20,000 gun laws federally, state, local ordinances, and so on, in effect now.
And it's also my understanding that these two youngsters that purported this
terrible crime broke 17 federal laws and something like 6 laws in the process.
So, maybe there is more that can be done, but clearly it ought to be done with
some very clear input and some objective dialogue and debate, rather than just a
rush to judgement, which may or may not work.
But I know one thing, our
children deserve to go to school and come home alive and do their homework and
be happy youngsters. And we certainly have that obligation to help it. They
shouldn't have to go to school when they fear for their lives.
I noted also
with interest just in watching the local press that in the schools are the
District of Columbia, they had one bomb threat from 1994 to 1998. And since the
Littleton tragedy, there have been nine, I believe, nine.
So, clearly there
is also a copycat mentality out there. It is bad, certainly not in the good
interests of anyone. But these kinds of huge media events that seem to surround
tragedies, they tend to maybe encourage borderline people to do things that they
would not ordinarily do.
The statistics on violence in schools really is
quite startling, and I am sure most of the committee members know them as well
as I do. But recent news reports indicate that there are 173 violent deaths in
schools between 1994 and 1998. That's not counting colleges. 50 percent of the
children nine through 17 are worried about dying young. 31 percent of the
children, ages 12 to 17, know someone who carries a gun.
According to the
National Education Association, 100,000 youngsters a year carry guns to school.
160,000 children miss class everyday because they are afraid of being harmed
while they are in school. And 81 percent of the teachers say they spend most of
their time on undisciplined students.
And I know from my personal experience
as a teacher and my wife who will be retiring, in fact next month, after 24
years as a teacher in a public school that those statistics are on teachers'
minds everyday.
Now, I frankly don't know, looking at my own experience as a
youngster, which were not that good, believe me, I'm not sure when kids decided
to go from beer bust drag races and fist fights into killing each other, but
clearly has changed. And disputes are more volatile, more violent, and final,
many times more often than not.
Things are changing rapidly. And my view of
school and youth violence is really from several perspectives. I mentioned that
I had been in some trouble, and had been a counselor, and had been a policeman,
and so on, but they are all tempered with that. And I know that there's got to
be a better correlation.
We can't do it all in government. We're often
expected to, but government can't be a family. It can't be a church. It can't be
a Boy Scout group, or a community event, or things of that nature. We can offer
resources. And we can offer some guidance.
But it seems to me that everybody
with a real interest in this and reducing school violence has got to step up to
the plate and not simply expect more government regulations or more laws out of
Washington, DC to be the answer. They're not going to be the answer, but I think
that we can work in a team effort, and that should include law enforcement,
officers, principals, teachers, parents, and the kids themselves. And that
teamwork should be encouraged with funding that we can provide as one of the
main sources of helping.
Studies indicate, over and over, that kids that are
in fear of their lives can't learn. And if we're going to expect our youngsters
to be the best in the world and be able to compete in the international
marketplace in a world that's growing smaller and smaller, we have to make sure
they have an environment that's safe, an environment where it is conducive to
learning.
When you and I introduced 2335 last year, Mr. Chairman, the School
Resource Office Partnership Act, it was a terrific, I think a terrific,
movement. But it's also my understanding that under the first round of grant
applications that's being administered to the Justice Department -- and by the
way, this will provide $60 million for this Cops and Schools Program -- no
school in Colorado had applied for it.
Now, I don't know if that's our fault
or the Justice Department because they had not gotten the word out better that
those funds were available. But I can tell you right now, a number of schools
are applying for those grants now. And these partnerships really, as you know,
would make schools eligible to hire school resource officers, who are basically
working policemen.
And they are not being hired as guards with a gun on the
door, although they're clearly qualified and clearly sworn to be able to uphold
the law. But basically, they're to be hired to deal with conflict resolution, to
be able to spot early warning signs that are usually there, whether it's, you
know, the behavior, whether it's a kind of address, whether it's who the
youngsters are associating with, things of that nature. But they would work in
cooperation with both students, parents, and teachers, too, to try to keep track
of potentially dangerous youngsters. And I think that that's going to help, and
obviously too late for Jonesboro, Paducah, and Littleton, too, but perhaps it
will help in the future.
We're also doing a number of other things, too. As
you know, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned one of the new bills.
And I also
wanted to just tell you today that we're working on a new one that hopefully
we're going to get some help with this year in Congress. It's going to be called
the Student's Learning and Safe Schools Act of '99. And it would deal with the
resources that we can provide.
The schools, you know, are always strapped
for money, always difficult to get a new increase and a new levy to go through
so that they can buy the kind of equipment they need. And basically this would
be patterned after the Bulletproof Vest Act of last year that the President
signed, which helps policemen in the streets. But this act basically would
provide money for matching grants, obviously, for metal detectors, things of
that nature, for schools.
I've also talked to the ATF to see if they would
be willing to give seminars for bus drivers, custodians, and groundkeepers in
schools on how to spot different kinds of apparatus. There were something like
50 bombs planted in Littleton, as you probably know, and that didn't happen
overnight. That must have been days, if not weeks, ahead of time that was done.
Clearly, custodians, grounds people, and bus drivers have trained keen eyes
and are there when many other people are not. Custodians, for example, are in
schools all night. They have keys to every room. They go through every room.
And it would seem to me that if we could offer some kind of training for
them to spot suspicious kinds of things, they could then report it to police and
bomb squads could do whatever is necessary to do it. The AFT is willing to do
those kinds of seminars, so I hope that we're going to be able to include a
section in the Treasury Appropriations Bill to allow them to do that.
With
that, I think, Mr. Chairman, I would probably just stop there. I know, as you
do, that whatever legislation that we pass is certainly not going to correct all
the problems we have in schools, but hopefully we can add our voice to it and
try to reduce the school violence.
And with that, if you have any questions,
Mr. Chairman, I'd be glad to try to answer them.
SEN. JEFFORDS:
Thank you very much, Senator Campbell, right.
I want to inquire a little bit
into your personal life, if I might.
SEN. CAMPBELL: Do you want to know me?
SEN. JEFFORDS: Yes. You mentioned your past, but I also know that at some
point you became involved with martial arts, and you became a world champion, I
believe. And I wondered, I've always had a feeling and try to urge the District
here to teach the martial arts starting in probably the first grade and all. I
wondered if you'd have any comment --
SEN. CAMPBELL: Well, I came from a
dysfunctional home, and I was in and out of an orphanage, and in a lot of
trouble as a, really pre- teens. But I think that youngsters that are in that
kind of a lifestyle, they tend to gravitate towards activities that really are
borderline violent. That's why some of them get into gangs.
And frankly,
over the years, I've come to the conclusion that one of the differences between
teams, whether it's a football, and a gang is only that one is positive and one
is negative because the youngsters that gravitate towards either one tend to
look for the same thing. They look for comradeship. They look for acceptance.
They look for recognition. They look for stature. They look for all those kinds
of things.
They find that in gangs. They find that with teams, too. And both
require some kind of leadership. There is a negative leadership in one, a
positive leadership in the other. And even now to this day, I do some work with
inner city gangs in Denver.
We did a retreat a few years ago with Crips,
Bloods, Inca Boys, and so on. And I'm really amazed. I saw these youngsters, and
talking to them, some of those kids could have been terrific school leaders if
they had, I think, the right direction, the right help when they were younger.
But I, to this day, I think that if I had not got involved in sports in the
military, too, by the way, I might have been in a different kind of an
institution because I was going the wrong way, as a lot of my friends, who also
came from dysfunctional homes, did.
And I think I gravitated towards the
sport of judo naturally. Both of my uncles had been boxers on my mother's side,
so we were always -- I came from family that was interested in sports. Those
combative, contact kinds of sports give you a chance to work it out, I guess,
hit somebody within the parameters of fairness, instead of taking it to the
streets.
That's what really helped me, but it could not have been done in my
case if some adult hadn't been willing to reach down and help me, reach out and
help me. And after World War II, when I got involved in that in the late 40s,
'48, you know there was a lot of discrimination. I lived in California at the
time.
There was a lot of discrimination against Japanese-Americans, and they
tended to gravitate towards enclaves in the cities or little small towns that
were basically of a Japanese makeup. And I had a job working on a ranch picking
fruit -- pears, and tomatoes, and so on. And I met some of them, and they got me
interested.
So, I just kept up with it until I retired in 64. Then I coached
youngsters for a number of years after that, while I was doing some police work.
And I guess that's what formulated a lot of my ideas about alternative programs
for kids.
But before the press records something erroneous, I didn't win a
world championship. I was a gold medallist in the Pan-American games, and in old
America I won some US championships. I got fourth in the Olympics, and got my
clock cleaned in the world championship in the final round --
SEN. JEFFORDS:
Sorry I brought that up.
SEN. CAMPBELL: -- by the Dutch. By the way, the guy
that beat me is currently the Dutch Foreign Trade Minister. Well, he is in
Holland.
(Laughter.)
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Kennedy.
SEN. KENNEDY:
That was fascinating.
Thank you very much, Senator Campbell, for taking the
time. And I think, obviously, from the breadth of your own experience and
association with children, I think the words that you give have special value
and special meaning and should get the attention of all of us here. They will,
certainly from me.
Could you, you mentioned -- I just have one question --
about, you attended yesterday in the White House the meeting of the Vice
President on the Internet. Is there anything you want to share with us, any of
the suggestions down there, any observations that were made about --
SEN.
CAMPBELL: I think it's a good program. You know, one of the problems I think we
have, Senator Kennedy, is that we are always trying to balance constitutional
rights and often they are opposed to what the public feeling is at the time. We
do that with the First Amendment, obviously, with what rights the media has, and
where the danger signals are, too. We do that with the Second Amendment, with
gun rights, too, as you probably know.
I've always been of the
belief that if you can get voluntary compliance and get people involved, it's
better than simply trying to do it more and more with more restrictive
legislation. I mean, we found out, you know, during the years of prohibition you
can change the Constitution. You can pass all the laws you want. If people are
not inclined to obey it, they're not going to do it.
Look at the problem we
have with the so-called drug wars. We can't get the thing fixed because we have
a supply and demand problem, and there is no way that you can cut off the supply
without dealing with the demand side of that component.
As long as people
demand it, they'll be a supply one way or another.
They'll come in with
parachute drops or boats around, you know, around the parameters of the United
States or slipped in, in shoeboxes or whatever, but that supply will always be
here.
And I think the same thing applies to the Internet or trying to reduce
violence, if we really do make that connection between watching all these
violent programs and the susceptible youngsters that might be, you know, open to
suggestion. I mean, there is that discussion that if they watch enough of those,
they say that kids by the time they are out of high school now have watched
8,000 murders on television.
Well, if there is that connection, although I
have never seen absolute scientific proof one way or the other, if there is that
connection then we don't have too many alternatives. We've either got to pass
something by legislation to reduce that, and I've heard this discussion.
We
see the connection between hazards to youth health in smoking, and so we've
taken some legislative steps to reduce smoking because that's hazardous for the
health. Well, maybe it could also be said of watching too much violence on TV,
it might be hazardous to their health. But if you try to reduce that by law,
then you're tinkering with the First Amendment -- very difficult.
And so, I
think, basically, the Vice President's agenda yesterday was to, after he had
done quite a bit of negotiating between about 20 major Internet companies,
including TCI, and Disney, and a number of them, that they are willing to step
up and recognize they've got to be a participant in this whole dialogue. And
it's really going to be a system of self-policing.
I'd like to see that done
before we get involved and start hammering them.
SEN. KENNEDY: Just one
other -- on the video games, any observations about how you deal with those
issues, as well?
SEN. CAMPBELL: I wish I had the answer. I've seen a few of
those, and the ones that I've seen really, I guess, are pretty mild and that's
just in the normal video arcades that are often next to, you know, youth centers
or restaurants, or so on, you see all those things. We used to have pinball
machines, but now, I mean, in these high tech things you can blow anything up,
shoot anything, destroy anything with the touch of a button without recognizing
or feeling the consequences of the tragedy, or the hurt, or any of the downside
of it.
And so, I think it, very frankly, that they desensitize youngsters to
all the other components of violence. It just becomes a game. And my own view is
that there is some kind of a connection. I just don't know how to, I don't know
how to deal with it as a government agency.
And so, it seems to me the best
thing we can do is encourage industry that they have a responsibility as
Americans to do whatever they can to reduce the violence. I can tell you one
thing. If the owner of some of those real violent video games was killed in a
school tragedy, like some of the youngsters were in Littleton, I'll bet the
manufacturer of those games would have a different perspective.
SEN.
KENNEDY: Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. JEFFORDS:
Senator Enzi.
SEN. MICHAEL B. ENZI (R-WY): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want
to particularly thank you for having this hearing today. It's extremely
critical.
What's happened in Columbine High School is such a tragedy that
it's just inexpressible. And I appreciate Senator Campbell's insights into it. I
know that he's been more involved and has studied this for maybe longer than any
of us have. And I appreciate his insights.
I would ask that a full statement
that I have be a part of the record.
I had heard the statistics earlier
about the increase in fear in schools. And it's interesting that that doesn't
follow with the statistics on the actual violence, that the violence is going
down, but the fear is going up. And I wonder if that isn't due to some of the
media attention that's involved in this, where people who have done such
horrible things wind up with their pictures on the front of Time magazine. And
the other kids have --
SEN. CAMPBELL: You know, well, that's why I mentioned
the number of increased bomb threats here in the DC area of schools just since
the Littleton tragedy. I understand it's nine now just since Littleton, when
before that from '94 to '98 you only had one. So, there is a copycat effect.
And I think youngsters that are perhaps looking for excitement, looking for
recognition, or maybe, who knows, maybe playing a prank or something. They don't
understand the ramifications of making those kinds of threats.
I might
mention, though, that a number of us have just formed a Youth Violence Task
Force. In fact, Senator Hutchinson, I believe is also on it with me. Senator
Allard and a number of us that are really looking for ways, you know, how we
deal with this, whether it's through legislation, through funding or so on.
We had a first meeting yesterday, and we hope to come in the weeks --
divided in the subcommittees, and we're working on this now. And we hope within
a few weeks, we're going to have some good concrete recommendations for the
committee and for the Senate as a whole.
SEN. ENZI: Before I came to the
Senate, I was trying to find some answers to some violence. I started out in
politics as a mayor, and there are always things that happen in a community. And
I noticed them when I was in the legislature.
And one of the books that I
ran across is one written by a professor here at the George Washington
University on communitarianism. It kinds of takes a village approach. It's been
out there quite a while.
And unfortunately, that's one of those answers
that's given to us that's a lot tougher. We've kind of grown reliant on federal
government. You know, it's an easier place. It's a one-stop shopping center for
asking for things, and this takes the exact opposite approach.
Unfortunately, it's a very difficult one where it says what you've said
already, that you have to involve the kids. You have to involve the families.
You have to involve the neighbors. You have to develop that sense of community
again, so that people are watching out for other people.
I noticed in some
of the newspaper articles that one of the reactions or causes of this last
violence might have been the kids feeling that others were picking on them. I've
had a suggestion that perhaps we need a mandatory course in all the schools
called Life's Not Fair 101.
SEN. CAMPBELL: Well, clearly, having taught high
school, I can tell you that cliques are not new. Cliques have been around since
people have been around, I suppose, but they do take some pretty, you know,
pretty mean spirited direction sometimes among youngsters.
And I think all
of us have either seen that or known somebody that's either been in a clique or
been the object of a clique's, you know, derogatory remarks. Sometimes it's
racial. Sometimes it's based on socioeconomic backgrounds, sometimes on their
lifestyle and so on.
You've seen one of the suggestions that some
people are saying, is, well, maybe we should encourage the use of uniforms
rather than clothes because the, you know, appearance in dress seems to be one
of the components. I don't know if that's good or bad.
I lived in Japan for
a number of years, went to a university in Japan. And of course, in Japan all
youngsters wear uniforms, as you know, up through their junior year in college.
And they seem to think it works best for them. The downside of that, as some
people say, well, that has sort of a militaristic approach and wouldn't fit our
society.
But it's certainly something worth studying and seems to me should
be left to local school boards in states.
If they feel that's an
appropriate thing to do, then they should do it.
SEN. ENZI: I'd be remiss if
I didn't mention the Congressional Award Program, too, which is a program where
kids doing volunteer work in their community, setting goals for themselves, can
get awards that we sponsor and put a positive spin on all of the good efforts
that kids are doing out there.
I thank you for the time.
SEN. CAMPBELL:
I might say, too --
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Murray. I'm sorry, go ahead.
SEN. CAMPBELL: I might say, too, as you do your hearings, I would hope that
you would hear from some youngsters, too. I think one of the weaknesses we have
in being this august body, as some people call it, is that we tend to, we tend
not to include people that are right on the front lines.
There is sort of a
movement now, you know, when you campaign if you talk tough, it seems to get
votes, and so what you do is say, boy, I'm going to be tough on crime. I'm going
to, you know, lock 'em up, throw away the key. That's stuff that seems to elicit
votes. And if you look like you're doing anything that could be, you know,
construed as mollycoddling people that are in trouble. Then somehow you're weak
on it, but, boy, that's a component that we've got to face up to.
I know
there is kind of a movement across the country now in prisons, as an example, to
take away the use of gym apparatus, weights, things of that nature -- you've
seen that -- you know, take away televisions and all that. I think that that
direction is being made a lot by people that have never been in a prison.
But if you go out into a real prison and talk to the convicts or talk to the
warden, they will tell you that's the worst thing you can do because then they
have too much free time. And with too much free time and no outlet for
aggression, you end up with more prison violence. So, it's one of those things
that sound good, but without talking to the real people, who are effected, I
think you shortchange this. So, I hope this committee would also talk to
youngsters, as well as professionals.
SEN. JEFFORDS: That's an excellent
suggestion.
Senator Murray.
SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and thank you, Senator Campbell, for your insight and especially for
your last comment.
It's exactly what I wanted to talk about is that we do
have to listen to young people. And they say very different things than what
adults do. And I think we have to hear what they're saying, which is they feel
very isolated. They feel that they aren't paid attention to. They feel anonymous
in today's world.
No surprise, growing up today is very, very difficult. And
I think we have to hear what they have to say, if we truly want to respond to
this in the right way, and not just do a lot of things that look good maybe to
us, but are not really effective when it comes to reducing violence, which is
obviously everyone's goal. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having the hearing today.
And our hearts go out to all of the people in the community effected in your
home state, and certainly to every community in all of our states, as well,
where they are feeling this fear, and where you talk to teachers, who have been
teaching for years, and are now wondering if they want to keep doing it, and to
young people, who feel like they don't have any power over a kid, who can come
to school and do this.
That's not a good place for all of us to be. And I
think it's important that we do everything we can to address this. And there is
a gambit. Senator Kennedy went through a lot of it. And there are a lot of
really great ideas out there.
But let me just speak to one and that is we
have to talk about the issue of parents. And it's hard to raise a child today.
Parents are asking what do I need to do. How can I do this right? Who do I call?
What happens if my child is going down a wrong path? Where are the resources?
I know there is great conversations going on in every community in my state.
Are people in your state talking about those kinds of things as well, and if you
could give us --
SEN. CAMPBELL: Oh, yeah, no question about it. I think
everybody is looking for some direction. But as I talk to people in our state,
most of them recognize that the family component is singly the most important
one. And if we were going to do anything as a government agency, we ought to try
to provide the atmosphere where those families have a stronger unit. And
frankly, Senator Murray, I don't know the answer to all that stuff. I just know
that government can't be a family.
SEN. MURRAY: Thank you, sir.
SEN.
JEFFORDS: Senator Hutchinson.
SEN. TIM HUTCHINSON (R-AR): Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I join my colleagues in applauding how quickly, how promptly you
called this hearing, and for compiling such a valuable panel of experts, and we
look forward to hearing those. I think, Ben, you had a very good point in saying
we need to hear from those that are in the schools and the kids themselves.
Arkansas like Colorado went through this. A little over a year ago, we had a
similar tragedy and shooting at a Jonesboro, Arkansas school and so I can relate
a little bit to what Coloradans are feeling today and what you're going through.
I appreciated your testimony.
It seems to me in listening to what you're
saying and observing what's going on in schools around the country that there
are really two types of violence in the schools. There is the gang violence and
more traditional types of juvenile crime and juvenile violence, more severe and
more violent than in the past, but still more traditional in it's composition.
And then there is the Paducahs, and the Littletons, and the Jonesboros, where
you have these senseless, inexplicable, maddening incidents of mass murder, mass
killings
But in both types that there is that common thread that you spoke
of -- the culture of violence, the glorification of violence in the media,
whether it's the movies, the videos, the Internet, the music that the kids are
listening to. That if you look at -- and I know there's going to be a lot of
research done -- but just on the service if you look at the various, the
senseless mass killings that there is that kind of common thread where all of
these kids were involved in this culture of violence. And that is a very complex
problem that is not easily solved.
I think if you start pointing fingers and
there's enough blame for a lot of folks that there's got to be some blame for
the schools partly because of the permissiveness in schools today, partly
because of a lack of security I think. And we're trying to address assessment
and technological, Senator Bingaman and I have been working together on some
ways to assist in that. There's certainly blame for parents today. And we think,
as policymakers we've caused some of that by anti-family policies that make it
difficult for parents to spend the time with their children that they should.
Cultural leaders and we've talked a lot about that and individual responsibility
on the part of kids and they have to finally take responsibility for their own
acts.
A couple of questions, Senator Campbell, at Littleton were there, I
heard that these kids were talking about these kinds of acts for a year -- how
did that go unnoticed or how was there not action taken? Are there things that
we can do to ensure that as you said those in the school who are there are
observing, are detecting, and are reporting. Where was the breakdown in
detecting what was coming?
SEN. CAMPBELL: Well, I wish I could speak to that
but I don't know. I do know that there were some kind of telltale signs that's
kind of coming out now. Nobody put them together, I guess, each one of those
telltale signs whether it was the dress of the demeanor or the kind of
glorification of Adolph Hitler, so on, you know things that you've read about.
Kids say a lot of things and 90 percent perhaps means nothing, they just
say it to get some attention, something of that nature. Individually they didn't
amount to much and nobody collectively put them together.
You know, I think
too from a broader standpoint, you know one of the differences between most
adults and a lot of youngsters, if you're an adult and you have a real tough day
at the office and your boss has hammered on you all day long to get your reports
in and you didn't get the pay raise you thought you were going to and it was
just a murderous day. You go watch a Rambo movie at nighttime and you come out
feeling pretty good. It's sort of a form of therapy, I suppose. But you don't
act it out afterwards. And I think the difference with youngsters, they go
through that same kind of a day and they see some suggestive violence or so on
and some of them borderline ones tend to act it out, tend to go do something.
They don't have the restraints or the balance or something to recognize that's
just a form of entertainment and doesn't mean anything.
SEN. HUTCHINSON: And
those are certainly the deeper causes and the things we've got to look at. But
were there, were there's security things, security measures that could have been
taken at Littleton that perhaps would have prevented these things from being
introduced?
SEN. CAMPBELL: They did have, there was a policeman in the
building as you probably know from your readings. In fact, he did exchange fire
with those two perpetrators of the crime, but I don't know if they had any metal
detectors, things of that nature or not.
SEN. HUTCHINSON: And if those
things would have helped. It would be interesting -- I'm sure that's being
examined.
Well, thank you, Senator Campbell, for your involvement and your
valuable testimony today.
SEN. CAMPBELL: Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS:
Senator Mikulski?
SEN. BARBARA A. MIKULSKI (D-MD): Thank you very much,
Senator Jeffords, for organizing this hearing and I do hope that it's one in a
series so that we can begin to fashion the policies we need. And I know you've
assembled many experts. One will be Dr. Denise Gottfredson from the University
of Maryland. I'll be leaving to go meet with the head of CDC in order to get Dr.
Copeland's ideas on what we could be doing, so if I leave it's not because I'm
not interested.
Senator Campbell, just some words to you and to the people
of Columbine -- first of all my heart goes out to you. And I think what we see
in Columbine was and why we've had such a response is that what is in Columbine
is really us and how we can respond. And when I saw on TV continually the logo
as they reported the news, they called it Terror from Columbine. I wish they
would have had another logo, dear colleague, I wish they would have had a logo
that said Courage from Columbine, Character from Columbine, and Compassion from
Columbine. Because while we focus on the tragedy, the overall culture of
Columbine in the way both students, teachers, and community responded was really
something to be proud of. Children tried to rescue other children. Some went
back to try to save other children at great risk to themselves. We had teachers
who put themselves literally in the line of fire for their students. And then
after the bloodshed was over the response of Columbine to each other, whether it
was comforting those who lost someone or someone was I thought was a great
outpouring of compassion.
Well, I think we've got to get real here that
we've got a lot to build on. There was obviously very right at Columbine while
something went wrong. So, I'm going to extend my appreciation to the people of
Columbine and to those students and to those teachers for their courage, for
their character, and for their compassion. And that's what I hope we build on as
we work on our solutions.
I think we need family-friendly workplaces. I
think we need a Patient Bill of Rights so that we can have the early detection
and screening so that our children know if they need eyeglasses or hearing aids.
Maybe that's one of the things that make them so angry. How about mental health
benefits so that parents could really get their kids to the help they need
before we're willing to create national programs. I think mental health parity
might go a long way in tearing down some of these problems. And I think we need
to get behind our teachers, lower school class size, and get help for them.
I was a social worker. I 'm still a social worker. I'd like to see a nurse
and a social worker in every school in the United States, exactly for early
detection. Seventy-five percent of some of the kids in my schools are either on
asthma medication or some type of Ritalin or other antidepressant. First of all,
that's an epidemic. And also, I hope that when we look at our curriculum, we
look at conflict resolution; we look at community service, and we look at
character building. But again I'm going to conclude my remarks by saying -- I
was impressed by the people of Columbine and how they responded to this terrible
situation.
SEN. CAMPBELL: Not just the people of Columbine. You
know every high school, Senator Mikulski, every school, every school has a
cross-town rival, I mean that's part of growing up, you know the teams compete
against them and so on. Well, Centennial was the big cross- town rival of
Columbine. And as you know Columbine has not reopened and won't for the rest of
this year. And so, the two student bodies and teachers are now sharing one
school.
And the youngsters and teachers and parents and so on of their
cross-town rival are now, they have flags of both schools flying. They've put
the colors of both schools in their school as a kind of a commemorative symbol
to help the youngsters of Columbine and it's just a really wonderful thing to
behold that these cross-town rivals could come together in a time of tragedy.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator DeWine?
SEN. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Mr. Chairman,
thank you very much. Senator Campbell, thank you for your very, very helpful
testimony and our heart does go out to you and to the families of Littleton.
Losing a child is the worse thing that can happen to a person in their life. And
nothing that any of else can say that helps but we all do care. We just extend
to you through you to those families, our sympathy.
I think as we as a
society look at, try to find some lessons, if you will, or things that we could
do differently as a result of what happened in Littleton. I think it's important
that we try to look at maybe even a bigger point of view. We may never know
exactly why this tragedy occurred. But I think when we consider the fact that
tragedies like Littleton occur, not exactly like them, but they occur silently,
quietly in communities across the country every day. I mean the statistics been
given. I believe it's true that 13 children lose their lives every day either in
gun accidents or homicides because of guns, suicides.
I think it tells us
that we have problems as a society and we know we can't find the answer to all
these deaths, but maybe we can find answers and I think we can that will save
some lives. And I think as we hold these hearings, hold these national
discussions, maybe that's the way we need to look at it. We do as Senator
Mikulski has said very eloquently, we do have mental health problems and
challenges with children. And I think most principals and most teachers will say
that they do not have enough help and enough assistance and enough expertise in
the schools with mental health problems. And mental health problems seem to
really focus many times on teenagers.
We've all been teenagers, we know --
we talked about some of the problems with teenagers, we know that mental health
problems are very, very significant. Maybe if we put more resources there, more
energy there, that's something very positive that we can do. And so I think as
we approach this hearing we approach issues, we shouldn't be deterred by the
fact that we can't find the answer, or we can't find one thing that's going to
save every life. But we can save some lives and if that is something positive
that has come out of this horrible, horrible tragedy I think it's our obligation
to try to find that. So, we appreciate your testimony. It's been very helpful
and look forward to the other witnesses.
SEN. CAMPBELL: I think that's a
very important comment because I think in times of tragedy we're kind of driven
by emotion of the time. We tend to look for easy targets. And an easy target
right now is the media. And an easy target right now is guns. But mental health
and the relationship to youngsters in making sure that they're sound is more
important.
You know I'm of the age group -- I'm older than many on this
committee, but I remember in the 50's when some of the kids I know were very
bad, there was not the access to guns that there is now. But they had them
anyway. They called them zip guns; they'd them themselves. They made them
themselves. And if you come form any area that has a big inner city, you talk to
somebody in their 60s now that grew up in the late '40s and '50s, they know what
a zip gun is. If they can't get them, they can make them.
SEN. DEWINE: Thank
you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Bingaman.
SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN (D-NM): Mr. Chairman, thank you for having the hearing.
There are two aspects of the problem. I thank Senator Campbell very much for his
eloquent testimony.
Two aspects of the problem that I've been focused on
here that I hope will make a contribution to the discussion. I think we're
having a useful national dialog about what needs to be done now and the Congress
needs to be right in the middle of that which we are. One of the initiatives is
the one Senator Hutchinson referred to which is an effort to see that technology
is used as effectively as possible to assist school administrators in ensuring
that schools are safe. Sandia National Laboratory has been working on that with
one of our high schools in New Mexico, Belene (sp) High School. And Bob Eagan is
going to testify from Sandia National Lab about the success they've had there
and what they're trying to do to assist other schools and that's what our
legislation will try to make resources available for around the country. I think
that's one way in which we can make a positive contribution recognizing that
it's not the total solution by any means but it is part of the solution.
The
other, which I think ought to be part of this debate and dialog is the question
of whether we are organizing the education of our young people in ways that
cause some, or increase the likelihood of this alienation and all. What I'm
thinking about frankly is as I travel around my state, I've spent a lot of time
on the dropout problem in recent years and meeting with students about why
they're leaving school and why they don't think there's anything there for them.
And I've concluded that the dropout problem is not too dissimilar from the
absenteeism problem. And the absenteeism problem isn't too dissimilar from the
discipline problem. And the discipline problem isn't too dissimilar from the
violence in school problem and they all relate to large schools that a good
share of the problem that we have in running schools well and in providing the
education that kids deserve is that our schools are too big. Our high schools
are too big; our junior highs are too big.
I saw an interview the principal
of Columbine High School in the New York Times, I believe this last weekend
where he said just in talking to the reporter there. He said one problem is this
school's too big. We don't know all that's going on here. The teachers don't
know everything that's going on. There're too many people in one building. And I
think that's clearly -- that's a local decision. But there are ways in which we
can encourage schools and provide incentives for them to look at smaller
schools, smaller learning communities and I hope that that's part of the
discussion we have here, because I went to a much smaller school. Columbine High
School has an excess of 2,000, as I understand it. We've got many in my state
that are in excess of 2,000. There're lots of reasons why you want to have a
high school that's over 2,000 kids -- the economics of it, you want to be able
to compete in the top flight of the football teams. You know there're all kinds
of reasons why a local community wants to have a large school. But I think we
need to realize that there's a very heavy price paid in alienating a lot of kids
when we put them in those very large schools. That's just a comment that if
Senator Campbell had any thoughts about it I'd be anxious to hear them.
SEN.
CAMPBELL: Well, only that I taught for around 10 years and I noticed the adverse
correlation between class size and your ability to deal with the youngster on a
first name basis. The bigger the class size and the bigger the school, the more
impersonal it gets, it's as simple as that. Teachers can't, you know, they can't
divide their time as easily with 250 kids a day as they can with 50 youngsters a
day. And I know that Senator Kennedy has spoken of this many times, has been a
great leader on reduced class size and more resources for schools, too. But I'm
just convinced, even though a teacher can't be a parent, that little kid in the
back of the room that hasn't -- that didn't get breakfast and got holes in his
shoes and is having some personal problems and got the sniffles and all that,
when he's just one of hundreds that that teacher sees every day, there isn't any
way a teacher can work with that you to give him the kind of help he needs.
SEN. BINGAMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator
Sessions?
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just
briefly, following up on that, Senator Campbell, based on your experience do you
think there's a problem with the very large high schools the multi-thousand?
SEN. CAMPBELL: Well, obviously --
SEN. SESSIONS: I had 30 -- I grew up with
30 in my senior class. And my two daughters graduated from a school with 2,000
and did very well in public schools and all. But how do you feel about that?
SEN. CAMPBELL: I think kids that have solid stable family lives will do well
in either kind of a forum, either kind of a school. But youngsters that are at
risk or come from dysfunctional families or have some borderline problems, I
think the bigger the school, the more difficult it is for them to get the help
they need. Now, obviously school districts, I think the larger schools --
Senator Bingaman mentioned a couple of reasons, but I think another reason is
it's easier to afford accessible high-tech things in a bigger school than it is
a small school.
When you have a tax base that's primarily supported by a
bill levy, in other words the taxes of the home owners, those things that are in
a big school can be shared by more youngsters where you can't duplicate it by a
whole bunch of smaller schools. You just don't have the resources to be able to
buy a number of high tech things for each smaller school where in a bigger
school you can share it. And so, I understand their reasoning. But I'm convinced
that the kids that need the help the most are really at risk more in a bigger
school.
SEN. SESSIONS: I think those are good comments and things we should
think about. I do suppose in my just experiences in smaller schools you have one
group of kids and in larger schools they do tend to break up into different
groups who have different interests or whether it's a athletes and music or
theater or literary or other interest. And I think you have some of that
grouping that may not be quite as healthy as one little community when everybody
has to learn to live with everybody even with different views. Have you had, if
you've discussed this previously, cut me off, Mr. Chairman, but have you dealt
with the question of uniforms and do you have any opinion on that?
SEN.
CAMPBELL: Well, I did mention earlier, Senator, before you came in that I
attended a university in Japan for four years, in fact I have an honorary
doctorate from Waseda (ph) University in Tokyo. And Japan I think is probably
the country that has had the most success with uniforms. Everybody in Japan that
goes to public schools wears uniforms for the time they start school until
they're a junior in college. When they're seniors they can wear what they want,
but up to a junior a college -- unless it's changed in the last couple of years
-- I don't know now. But of course the feeling is that if they're all wearing
the same thing, then they don't get into this clothes hound race in which the
youngsters who have the finances can wear the $200 Adidases and the real
expensive clothes because those become symbols.
I think kids are
really seriously affected by symbols and if you talk to a youngster, just have
them picture in their mind, how do you frame success in your mindat is success?
What are the symbols of success? Well, they'll tell you, well it's power,
position, money, nice car, right big home -- things of that nature. When in fact
those might be the worst symbols of a real successful person, but we're talking
about impressionable youngsters. And clothes and what you wear and what you
drive has become increasingly important to them, I think.
SEN. SESSIONS: I
think you're correct. I think that's unfortunate, we are drifting too much into
materialism and my school system in Mobile, Alabama has gone to uniforms this
year. It's the biggest school system in the state, one of the biggest in the
country and I'm interested to see, but I think the preliminary reports are
positive.
And one gentleman told me recently -- he said the only thing I
know that will have some immediate benefit, from his own personal he said he'd
know, he meant himself would be to go to uniforms. He thinks that would help
some, not a cure-all but it is a minor step forward.
SEN. CAMPBELL: Probably
help the parents' pocketbook too.
SEN. SESSIONS: And help the parents'
pocketbook.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Harkin.
SEN. TOM HARKIN (D-IA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and again I join with
others, Senator Campbell, in expressing to you and through you to the people of
your state and especially the people of Littleton and more specifically the
people at Columbine our deepest sorrow for those that lost their children and-or
as Senator Mikulski said our admiration for the courageous activities of some of
the students and the teachers in that school.
I'm sorry I missed your
opening statement, having known you for some time I know a little bit about your
background. I just want to cover quickly two areas. When you were young and in
grade school or later on when you were teaching, did you have counselors in
those schools? In our time we probably didn't. I don't know, but I'm just saying
maybe later on.
SEN. COMPBELL: We did, we did. But I found you know being a
youngster that was in trouble myself that my best counselor wasn't a counselor.
It turned out to be the coach and my auto shop teacher. And they were the only
two, I think that didn't give up on me when I was in trouble as a youngster. But
I think youngsters --
SEN. HARKIN: That was when you were in high school,
right?
SEN. CAMPBELL: -- identify with a certain person. And it doesn't
always have to be --
SEN. HARKIN: That was when you were in high school?
SEN. CAMPBELL: Yeah. SEN. HARKIN: That's in high school.
SEN. CAMPBELL:
That was in high school.
SEN. HARKIN: And the reason I ask that is because
we had an experimental program started, McDonalds Corporation and actually some
government money came in to start a program in Des Moines called Smoother
Sailing where they put counselors in elementary school. Prior to this we had
like one counselor for every 1500 kids. And now we have -- they brought it down
to one counselor for every 250. And we're going to hear from one of these people
here that I asked specifically, Mr. Chairman, to come in and talk about this
program to get these kids early on. And the data that they have accumulated is
amazing at the number of fights that have gone down and truancies and conflicts
in these kids. We've always thought about counselors in high school but we
didn't think about them in elementary school and we bemoan the fact that you
know families aren't what they used to be.
We have single-parent families,
two parents working, we wish we could turn the clock back, but we have to deal
with reality as it is. And a lot of these kids are really confused at an early
age and they have real problems. And so these were trained counselors. These
weren't just somebody that came in and sort of talked to -- these were very
highly trained counselors that came in at elementary school.
And I just had
some data here for example in Des Moines where we had this program we have about
15 thousand elementary students, 44 counselors. That's about one for every 350.
It was one for every 250 and they had to cut back. But in the rest let's say
like Davenport we have only about -- we have seven elementary counselors for
about 12 thousand students. I hate to say this to my friend from Boston but we
asked about Boston, we have about 30 thousand in elementary schools had one
elementary school counselor. Now, that's -- I'm not just picking on Boston, I
think that's the way it is around the country. And so I wonder if we shouldn't
focus more on getting these kids earlier on in life. I just ask your views on
that.
SEN. CAMPBELL: I agree. I mean when you look at these statistics and
compare them. We've had more Americans killed in Colorado in the same timeframe
than have lost their lives in Kosovo for crying out loud. And there's no
question in my mind that counseling in early age would be a big help.
SEN.
HARKIN: I just for some reason, I think we always focus on high school. We never
focus on grade school.
The second think I wanted to bring up is this. I've
been getting this magazine. It's called Computer Gaming. And you talk about the
prevalence of violence and kids and things like that. More and more kids are
playing these computer games. I tell you, you ought to read this magazine. I'm
telling you if you're not reading it, your kids are. You open it up; it's the
number one PC game magazine. Here's just one right here. Here's just an ad right
here. You should see it. It says, you're going to die. It's a new game and you
open it up, big full color thing like that. It says here -- its called Kingpin -
Life of Crime. Actual game screen, really. And you see all the blood and these
people are lined up and they're shooting their guns and there's blood going all
over. And that's the real game screen. There's a body lying on there full of
bullet holes, blood. If you survive you'll like it, targets specific body parts
and actually see the damage done, including exit wounds. Steal a bike or hop a
train to get around town. Even the odds by recruiting the gang members you want
on your side. That's what they're selling.
That's not the only one. There're
all kinds of games in there. There's another one here the more you kill the
higher your score. Where was that, I saw that in there. Well, there's another
one. They're all over here. You know get your score up, the more you kill, yeah.
Racking up the Kills, that's what it is, Racking up the Kills. Now, you can't
tell me that that doesn't have an effect on kids. They're playing these games.
They're sitting at those computer screens. And they're playing them and it's
sort of unemotional. There's no emotion in this. If you've ever watched one of
these games -- I have -- people are blown up, body parts flying all around,
blood on the screen. You can see the exit wound. That's the kind of games. I
don't know, Ben, but I just wonder if you, again I'm just asking what's your
views on this? To me it just seems to me more and more of this is getting out. I
don't know what we do about it. I don't have the answer. But I think it's a
problem.
SEN. CAMPBELL: There's no question about it. I mentioned before you
came in that we've taken a great deal of pride in our leadership in federal
government about trying to reduce teen smoking because we know it's bad for
their health. That stuff's bad for their health.
SEN. HARKIN: It's got to be
real bad.
SEN. CAMPBELL: But because we get crossways with the First
Amendment, it makes it more difficult to address.
SEN. HARKIN: The title's
Playing God on the front cover of the guy with two guns in his hands blazing.
SEN. CAMPBELL: If I had a magic wand I'd do away with all that, Senator.
SEN. HARKIN: Yeah.
SEN. JEFFORS: Senator Gregg.
SEN. JUDD GREGG
(R-NH): Thank you and I want to congratulate Senator Campbell for what he's done
in this area. I know he mentioned when he came in some of the things the
Appropriations Committee has tried to fund in this area, largely as a result of
Senator Campbell's initiatives. Senator Campbell, ironically and obviously sadly
in its irony, was very active in putting together the Safe Schools Initiative,
which we put into the law last year. And which was directed specifically at this
issue and has a variety of different funding initiatives including technology
development for schools and Cops Grants for Schools and School Violence
Initiative.
And in addition, it was a result of Senator Campbell's
initiative within the subcommittee that we used a large amount of the Juvenile
Justice Delinquency money to support specific programs that worked with kids.
And I know Senator Campbell is a strong supporter of things like boys and girls
clubs and Parents Anonymous, a variety of different centers around the country
that we've tried to support that work with troubled kids.
So, this is not
something that Senator Campbell's new to. It's something he's been involved in
for a long time. And as chairman of that subcommittee I really lean heavily on
his expertise as to where we put these dollars and we have been putting a large
number of dollars into this area. But obviously dollars don't solve the problem.
And when you see magazines like this you recognize that the problem is more
fundamental and it goes to culture, in my opinion.
And I heard a commentary
and it was on NPR ironically, ironically for a Republican to be listening to
NPR. That was my point there.
(Laughter.)
But there were talking about
these types of video games and they were talking with a couple of kids who I
think had been at Columbine. And one of the kids they talked to was very
eloquent and she said you know a lot of kids play these games, but very, very,
very few kids react to them. And I think they ask her, they ask one of her
friends what was the difference and she said the difference is conscience. The
difference is the issue of conscience. And that goes so deeply to the issue of
culture and how you develop a culture that has conscience and how you develop a
culture that causes kids to understand that there's a separation between these
games and reality. And stepping over that from these games into reality involves
exercising matters of discretion and conscience, which you would think would be
logical to everyone, but unfortunately aren't. And I'm not sure how we as a
government address that issue, but to me we can set up a lot of programs as we
have. We will continue to do and will continue to fund. Somehow we have to get
to this issue of culture and I'm not sure how we do it. But I appreciate Senator
Campbell's help in trying to develop it.
SEN. CAMPBELL: We have
another cultural, I mean truism. In America billions of dollars a year, billions
and billions are spent on advertising. And why? Because the theory of
advertising is that you can motivate action by glorifying something. Why do
people pick one kind of toothpaste over another kind of toothpaste of pick a
Ford over a Chevrolet or a Chevrolet over a Ford? Because somebody in many
respects has told them this is better. Well, it seems to me that if that's the
basis of all advertising that we can motivate action by glorifying or showing
you know movie stars doing certain things. Then the downside, the dark side of
that whole picture also works. And if we're doing some of the things through
video games and we're glorifying that, I think it motivates people to -- at
least borderline people that don't think their way through it -- just as the
person that's motivated to do some positive thing by this process of association
in the advertising marketplace.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Frist.
SEN. BILL
FRIST (R-TN); Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I too want to thank Senator Campbell
and look forward to hearing from the other witnesses. I just ask that my opening
statement be made part of the record.
And in addition just want to take a
very brief opportunity to note that later today, I along with Senator Kennedy
will be introducing a bill entitled The Youth Drug and Mental Health Services
Act. It addresses a number of the issues that Senator Campbell has addressed and
that we'll be talking about over the course of the morning. Several members of
the committee have had a chance to look at that bill and has signed on, Senator
Jeffords and Senator Dodd, DeWine, Mikulski and Collins, and I hope that others
can take a look at that. One provision of this bill addresses the mental health
resources available as well as the mental health needs of children and
adolescents who have witnessed a violent act or at risk for committing violence.
The programs are designed in a comprehensive, interagency, collaborative
approach, which links existing and new state and mental health service providers
with schools with very direct links. School districts will implement a large
range of early childhood development programs, early intervention and prevention
in mental health treatment services, all of which are part of this bill. It
looks at and establishes grants for developing knowledge with regard to
evidence- based practices for treating psychiatric disorders for children and
adolescents.
The bill is really one way that the federal government can and
should be involved. And many of the issues we're going to talk about today is
how the federal government doesn't need to be involved and how there are real
cultural issues that must be addressed as parents and as community leaders. This
bill we're putting out to show, and really take advantage of the programs we've
done in the past, but also engage in a collaborative way in a partnering way
with some new programs. I look forward to other people looking at that bill.
Again, it will be introduced later today and hope that my other colleagues can
sign on to that bill. Let me just ask Senator Campbell one question. We're
hearing more and more about violent acts in schools and suburban versus urban
areas in the suburbs, Littleton being a prime example. Can you comment on this?
And is this a real wakeup call for all communities, not just urban communities?
SEN. CAMPBELL: I think it is. I know specifically we've done some hearings
on the Indian Affairs Committee, which I chair and also through Senator Hatch's
committee on the Judiciary dealing with youth violence that's crept out to
Indian reservations as an example, which are pretty far removed in most cases
from any urban area. But there's not question it's growing and I think because
of modern technology, easy access to things that Senator Harkin has shown in
that magazine, it's going to be a growing problem. Historically, we've thought
about gang activity as an example in inner cities, but it can be anywhere now.
And Littleton I think proved that no school is immune from school violence
coming from a nice community in that town.
SEN. FRIST: Thank you.
SEN.
JEFFORDS: Thank you, Senator, you've obviously have been a very important
witness for us all and we deeply appreciate your sharing with us your life and
helpful suggestions on how to prevent similar situations occurring as they did
in Littleton.
SEN. CAMPBELL: I tell you it's just lucky for me that the
California Youth Authority erases all your records before 18 years old, when I
ran for Congress.
(Laughter.)
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you very much.
Let me alert all the members that we're going to have a vote at 11:30. I'm
going to call the second panel forward but we're going to move right along
because obviously we still have two panels of very excellent witnesses to go and
I want to make sure, I guess we've got three panels to come. So, we're going to
do everything we can.
So, the second panel just come forward, William
Strauss, author and generational historian, McLean, Virginia; Dr. Denise
Gottfredson, professor of the Department of Criminology, University of Maryland;
Dr. James Fox, dean of criminology the Northeastern University.
Also I would
like to recognize on behalf of Senator Levin that John Bancroft from Detroit,
Michigan is in the audience here and he's finishing his 30 years as a teacher
today. I wish you'd stand and we could recognize you if you're still here, nice
to have you with us.
Senator Kennedy?
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY
(D-MA): Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I just want to join in welcoming the whole
panel. But in particular to introduce to our committee, Dr. James Fox whose dean
of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University in Boston. And Dr.
Fox is a widely respected publisher having authored over 13 books, including
Mass Murder, Overkill, Killer on Campus, and currently working on the next book,
The Will to Kill. And he's an authority on homicide and has appeared before
Congress on a number of different occasions. We've always benefited from his
testimony. And he's also been participating with President and Vice President on
youth violence and with the attorney general on the trend toward youth violence.
So, we want to extend a warm welcome to him on this panel as I did to
Commissioner Evans on our next panel as well. We thank the, Chair.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Mr. Strauss, will you please proceed.
SEN. ENZI:
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. May I introduce Mr. Strauss?
SEN. JEFFORDS: Yes,
you may.
SEN. ENZI: I want to thank the chairman for the opportunity to
introduce our first witness, Mr. William Strauss. I met him first through one of
the books that he wrote. I got to meet him in person today. He's the father of
four children, all teens or older. He's a highly regarded writer and
generational historian with degrees from Harvard Law School and the Kennedy
School of Government. He has a broad knowledge of today's teens, having help
identify the Millennial Generation. And nearly a decade ago predicted its
capture of the public attention today. Mr. Strauss has a web site which hosts on
the most active discussion forums on teen issues and he's written two plays with
a book on Millennial Generation. I look forward to hearing Mr. Strauss's
recognition of the goodness that defines most kids today and his comments on how
we should respond now that this generation does indeed have our attention.
And Bill has also brought his daughter along today to see firsthand what
Congress thinks about today's young people. She's an avid soccer player and
student at McLean High School in McLean, Virginia and her name is Becky. We want
to welcome both of them.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Becky, would you stand, nice to have
you here, Becky.
SEN. ENZI: Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Mr. Strauss.
MR. WILLIAM STRAUSS: Well, thank you and I ask that my written statement be
include din the record please.
Mr. Chairman, as I've been listening to this
discussion I've noted that Columbine and the episode there has become for the
Millennial Generation what Sputnik was for Boomers and what the Nation at Risk
Report was for Generation X. And I think it's very important for us to put that
into some perspective. Because Sputnik ended up being a very positive force for
educational improvement in America and it tended to energize Boomers.
The
Nation at Risk Report with its line about how the products of American of
schools were a rising tide of mediocrity, tended to stamp Generation X with a
negative label that they've had trouble shaking ever since. And it's one of the
reasons why that generation has such thin support as a group for the public
schools and why they're not regarded as well in the workplace as they really
deserve to be. And I think it's quite important as we address Columbine to not
lose sight of the fact that we really do have a very good generation of
teenagers on the way. There is one generation in America, which has caused a lot
of negative trends through adolescence and that generation is Boomers.
This
is the generation, the Millennial kids are actually doing the tough work of
turning the trends around that Boomers created in their own adolescence and that
the Generation Xers had to deal with. I've gone through all kinds of polls and
surveys and let me just summarize the positive results of today's high school
life. And you can point to the reduction in the child poverty rate and the
reduction in the divorce rate as part of what adult America is doing on a
positive side, too.
But look at the kids. Teen pregnancies are down. Teen
sexual activity is down. Teen suicides are down. Teen drinking is down. Teen
drunk driving is down. Test scores are finally starting to rise and academic
standards are certainly rising. High school dropout rates are down. Time spent
watching TV by adolescents is down. Time spent on homework is up. Time spent on
chores is up. Attendance at religious services is up. High tech skills are
improving. Teenagers are generally agreeing more and more with parents on value.
And they're trusting institutions more than prior high school kids did. They
actually trust public institutions more than adults do. Teenagers, right now
today at least before Columbine were America's most optimistic age bracket. They
are far more optimistic than adults right now.
Most importantly and I want
to emphasize the point that Senator Enzi was mentioning earlier, youth violence
is down in nearly every category. The high school age murder rate has fallen
nearly 50 percent since 1993. That's the biggest decline for any age bracket.
The high school murder victimization rate has substantially fallen, also the
steepest decline for any age bracket.
Today's American teenagers face
roughly the same risk of murder as do people in their 40s, their parents age.
School related violent deaths are declining sharply. They reached an apparent
peak in the early 1990s with the last of Generation X. There were 55 school-
related violent deaths, murders and suicides of students and teachers in the
1992-'93 school year. Before the Columbine atrocity there were only nine in the
entire school year. Even with Columbine and a scattered episode since them,
we're still at about half the level of school-related deaths that we had five
years ago. The situation is improving. High schools are very safe places on the
whole. Only about one per cent of all the murders of adolescents takes place in
high schools. So, we need to keep this in proportion.
And I've been
concerned to see magazine covers like Newsweek and Time has a similar one that
shows Dangerous Teens - Heading off Trouble. The real picture of today's teens
is shown in this mood of American youth issue, which was a poll result from the
National Association of Secondary School Principals. It shows that today's kids
are extremely upbeat about their prospects, they're positive about their own
generation. There's one extremely point to make and I mentioned my suggestions
in my prepared comments and they parallel a lot of what you're saying. We
absolutely have to enlist the kids in this conclusion. They do not have a very
high opinion frankly of government. Zero point three percent of America's youth
name a public official as their hero.
Two and half times as many kids
believe that young people can solve problems as believe that the federal
government can solve problems. They are very, very confident in their own
ability. And it's critical that we keep a positive tone in our comments about
American youth because if we derogate them, we are going to create an
us-against-them attitude where they are not going to feel as though the problem
is really being solved. Now, if we do involve them, the results can be
astonishing.
And I'd like to mention two things in closing. One was my
favorite comment coming out of Columbine was from a student named Jennifer
Pierce (sp) and she said no matter where those guys fired, they would have hit
somebody who had high hopes for the future. And that really is the state of
American youth right now. They are not increasingly violent and it is wrong to
say that they are.
The other thing that I would like to indicate just to
show you what can happen if we unleash our youth is there was a letter recently
published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and let me quote from that. "Our class
is starting a campaign to help stop violence because of the terrible things that
happened in Colorado last week. Students at our school are bringing in any
violent games they have and putting them in a box in the office. We plan to mail
them back. We did some estimating with game costs and the number of students in
our town and then the number of students in just 10 other cities in our state
that are larger than own. We started to see how we could make a real difference
if we got a lot of kids involved. Some of us had the idea to tell newspapers and
TV stations about it so we could get the message out to other students in the
state and maybe all over the country. Together we can stop the violence and
sorrow." The letter was signed by three girls in Ms. Masheika's (sp) 5th grade
class, Orchard Lake Elementary School, Lakeville, Minnesota. All I can say is
you go girls.
The Millennial Generation is America's future and
they should be America's pride. They're well worth protecting and I commend your
efforts to do that. Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you. We have a vote on
now but I think we'll try and get through the introductory testimony here.
Dr. Gottfredson.
MS. DENISE GOTTFREDSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm
pleased to have the privilege of being here today. I'll briefly summarize my
research on safety in the nation's schools and describe what I believe can be
done to make schools safer.
To reduce the likelihood of school crime and
violence, we need the answers to a number of questions.
We need to know
what kind of students is most likely to engage in these crimes. What kind of
schools and communities are most likely to experience these crimes. To what
extent these predictors can be successfully manipulated to reduce the
probability of future occurrences of these crimes. And whether those changes
once demonstrated to work in a research setting can be translated into a regular
school setting. We have partial answers to these questions.
I expect that
during these hearings others will describe the characteristics of individuals
most likely to commit acts of aggression, so I'll focus on the other question.
We know that certain characteristics of schools and communities contribute to
the level of crime and violence that schools experience. Although the recent
school shootings have occurred in middle class suburban and rural communities,
the fact remains that schools in urban settings experience far more violence
than do others schools. Also, the research shows that school environment vary
considerably from school to school. And that this variability is important for
explaining different levels of crime and violence across schools.
Specifically, schools are safer when drugs, alcohol, and other weapons are
not available to students. Smaller schools are safer than larger schools.
Schools are safer when they're characterized by a sense of community and when
norms and expectations for behavior are clearly articulated and consistently
enforced. Strong administrative leadership is also important. The research
provides a roadmap for understanding some of the precursors of school crime and
violence, but the more interesting question is whether or not we can actually
reduce levels of school crime by manipulating these precursors.
My
colleagues and I at the University of Maryland prepared a report to Congress on
what works, what's promising and what doesn't work in crime prevention in 1997.
And this report found several school-based strategies that are effective for
reducing crime, using a pretty high bar for our standard of evidence. We also
found that several popular prevention strategies do not work. One type of
prevention strategy alters the school environment by involving students and
teachers in long-term efforts to improve their schools, establishing clear
school rules, improving the consistency of their enforcement, rewarding
appropriate behavior and communicating pro- social norms. These strategies
promote a sense of community in the school. A second type directly targets
student behaviors and attitudes. These strategies include comprehensive programs
that teach students self-control, stress management, responsible decision
making, special problem solving and communication skills and that are delivered
over long periods of time and continually re-enforce those skills.
These
strategies also include efforts that identify students at an early age who are
at high risk for developing problem behaviors and provide intensive training and
coaching to teach those same skills. The evidence does not support the
effectiveness of several of the most popular prevention strategies. So
strategies such as midnight basketball and DARE are among the strategies that do
not work well enough to be counted as useful.
Although the existing research
can direct us towards more effective strategies and away from less effective
strategies, what we know is a small fraction of what we need to know in order to
effectively alter small practices to reduce crime and violence. The research on
school based prevention has mostly been of too poor quality to yield confident
conclusions and it has focused disproportionately on instructional programs
rather than on broader changes to the school and classroom environment.
In
another study of delinquency prevention in schools that my colleague Gary
Gottfredson and I are conducting, we're finding that schools are not using much
of what the research suggests work. Schools are doing a great deal to try to
reduce crime and violence. The typical school has 14 different unique prevention
programs or practices in place at any one time. But their efforts appear to be
spread too thin, because the quality of nearly half of the programs is too low
too reasonably expect that they would make a difference.
Also, about 40
percent of the activities implemented by schools don't map very well into what
research indicates will work. So to summarize I suggest that the Federal
Government can be most helpful in creeping in and keeping our understanding of
how to prevent school crime and violence by encouraging schools to focus their
practices on strategies for which evidence of effectiveness is available.
United States Department of Education is taking a step in that right
direction by attempting to tie Safe and Drug Free School Funds to the research
on effectiveness. But a major hindrance in this effort is that the body of
evidence is not as extensive as it should be to effectively guide schools.
Schools are frustrated because the menu of research based strategies from which
they can choose is narrow. So, accordingly a second rule for the Federal
Government is to encourage more high quality research on a broader array of
prevention strategies.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'd be pleased to respond to
any questions.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you doctor.
Dr. Fox.
MR. FOX: Thank you very much.
I'm honored to be here, I would say I was
pleased to be here were it not for the tragedy that brings us here today. You
have my prepared testimony, I'm going to depart from it somewhat because of some
of the things I've heard today and feel compelled to react as opposed.
The
timing of the latest episode of school violence actually is somewhat ironic.
Serious violence among teenagers as Mr. Strauss has said is down considerably,
homicide is down by 50 percent, thank you. On a guess of matter of whether the
glass is half full or half-empty, yes it's down 50 percent but it's down from
record levels. Comparing today's level of violence among kids to say the mid
1980's, the rate of homicide is significantly higher, about 70 percent higher
since then. So we have a long way to go before we can start claiming victory
over violence.
I encourage Mr. Strauss' positive take on things, yet, we're
not out of the woods. Certainly two kids from Jonesboro came out of the woods to
assault their classmates, but we're not out of the woods in terms of our efforts
to deal with youth crime. Now a closer examination of some of the downward
trends we've been celebrating really show that the largest declines have been in
large cities particularly among minority youths, cities like Chicago and New
York and Boston that have directed intensive enforcement efforts against gangs
and drugs, crack.
Again at the same time that the city levels are way down,
we're beginning to see increasing levels of gang affiliation and gang
identification in many smaller communities, rural areas and suburbs. So the
acute conditions associated with the crack market of the late 1980's that have
drove crime levels upwards may have been short term in fleeting. Yet we still
must deal with long term difficult issues in our country from television to
supervision, too much of one and too little of the other, from alienation of our
kids to access to guns.
So the shootings in Jonesboro and Littleton and
elsewhere may have been unusual and extreme, but they are the tip of a much
larger iceberg of increasing levels of violence experienced by kids. So the
recent outbreak in school violence has also heightened concern in America over
guns and kids with guns. In fact the entire growth in teen homicide and the
entire decline in the last 4 years in teen homicide has been with a gun. We
might even call this generation the I-Generation, actually it's always been the
case that kids are impulsive, impatient and imprudent. But now they're better
armed and that's what's different today.
So I hope we'll continue
to see emphasis on firearm restrictions for juveniles, gun tracing, gun
confiscation, firearm safety approaches such as smart guns and trigger locks. At
the same time we have to deal with the casual attitude that our kids have
towards violence, which has been foster and linked to the popular culture
saturated with violent images particularly in which revenge is a dominant theme.
You know there's been lots of attention today already and the past few
months about violence in the media, television, video games and that's
appropriate. Yet the fundamental problem is not so much what our kids are
watching, but who is watching our kids. It's not so much what our kids are
playing, but who is playing with our kids. And unfortunately it's often times no
one or at least the wrong people. Negative social and cultural forces have
become more threatening because the positive forces of family, church,
neighborhood and school have grown weaker.
Now it would be very
unfair to do like many people have done, to place the full blame on parents for
unruly and unsupervised youth. Yes, some parents are ill prepared and
unmotivated for the important task of raising their kids. But most parents are
well meaning and would like to have a greater role in the up-bring of their
kids, they just lack the support to control and guide their kids. Often times in
some neighborhoods peer and gang influences over power the best efforts of
dedicated parents, parents like Kip Kinkle who were the first to die when Kip
Kinkle went on a rampage in Springfield, Oregon.
We should assist parents,
not assail them. Indeed children spend -- the problem is much larger than just
parents. Children spend far too little time with positive role models, too much
time hanging out, bored and idle they have literally too much free time to kill.
And I'm glad to say that this Congress and this administration are bringing back
after school programs. Because the statistics are quite clear that the prime
time for juvenile crime is not during school, it's after school from 2 until 8
p.m. when the school bell rings and then kids are unsupervised until about 8
p.m. when parents start getting home to make dinner and supervise.
Now
there's been lots of quick fixes and easy solutions that have been proposed, I
want to run a couple that really concern me. In the wake of tragedy's we want to
act, we have to understand that these problems took years to develop and they'll
take years to fix. V-Chip and ratings, all ratings really do is to make violent
media more attractive to kids, it's the media version of the forbidden fruit and
the V-Chip will fail. Screening for the Internet, the worldwide worry for
parents every where. It will give parents a false sense of security, it should
not be in local parentheses.
Metal detectors and school patrols, what make
our schools seem like armed camps. They will destroy the learning environment
and in fact what it will do is increase the level of fears of our kids by
reminding them on a daily basis of how vulnerable they are. School uniforms,
with or without bulletproof armor underneath. Concealed weapons for teachers
that the NRA is now supporting and many states have as well. We should remember
let's not confuse the NRA with the NEA. Marksmanship in school should be a
matter of A's and B's, not guns and ammo's. These inflexible zero tolerance
policy's that are applied automatically, they've already resulted in the
suspension of kids in Georgia for making a list of people they didn't like,
which included Barney and the Spice Girls. And a girl out west who brought the
wrong lunch to school, which happened to have a paring knife and an apple, it
was her mother's lunch, she got suspended. Early warning systems that will tend
to flag about 900,000 kids who fit the image of the outcast, but definitely will
not kill anybody, parental responsibility laws, juvenile waivers and the like.
Even with -- and I know my red lights on here --
SEN. JEFFORDS: It's not
your red light, it's my vote that I'm worried about.
(Laughter.)
MR.
FOX: I agree with what was said earlier about, investing. Senator Campbell said
pay now or pay later, it's really pay now, or pray later. Pray for the victims
that might occur. Even with the desire to do something programmatically or
legislatively, lets keep this thing in perspective. Schools are the safest place
to be, I think Mr. Strauss you indicated that, schools are safer for our kids
than the playgrounds in their neighborhoods, even in their homes. The chance
that a child gets killed at school is about one and a million, far less from the
chance he gets killed on a bicycle going to school or in a car going to school.
So let's keep it in perspective, not go overboard make our schools into arms
camp. At the same time we can learn much about the more ordinary forms of
juvenile violence by focusing on the extraordinary cases. Cases like Littleton
and Jonesboro, we need to have a whole wide range of public, and private sector
responses, and if places like Littleton encouraged to do something that's
wonderful. We may not be able to identify and prevent the next Jonesboro, West
Paducah or Pearl or Littleton, we can not totally eliminate the problem, but in
the process we can totally certainly enhance, and help the lives of many
children, millions of children while we try. Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank
you very much, we will recess until somebody arrives to take my place, and I'll
be back as soon as I can.
Thank you.
(Recess.)
(Gavel.)
SEN.
ENZI: I'll call the hearing back to order. I left quickly to go vote, so that I
could spell the chairman, and we'll continue with the hearing with the
information being properly recorded, and it gives me an opportunity for some
additional questions probably. I'll start with Mr. Strauss. In your book the
Third Turning, you referred to a new set of the three R's, and on the context of
the citizen training, you mentioned rules, respect, and responsibility. Would
you explain what our responsibility as a community is, to teach our children the
three R's? How does this get accomplished?
MR. STRAUSS: I think we as
adults, the older generations have a responsibility to be better role models
than we are at times. I would disagree with my colleague here Dr. Fox, when he
referred to today's Millennial as the I-Generation, I think that probably most
aptly refers to us boomers. Because the trend towards self has really been
driven by older generations, not by today's kids at all, they are stepping into
it, in youth. And while it probably is true that boomers are bowling alone,
today's teenagers are playing soccer in teams. And I think that there's much
more of a since of community really, among today's teen's than there is among a
lot of adults. It's interesting to note that the youth survey show that they
share, many of the values that the parents are trying to instill in them.
The number one value that today's kids point to is honesty, and what happens
in generational change, is that kids tend to look at the biggest mistakes being
made by their older parent group. Our generation here at this table and with you
Mr. Chairman, and they want to fix that, and they are convinced to be the
anti-boomers to solve some of the trend towards self, and away from some of the
core traditional virtues, that they think we have come to personify. And I think
if we give them some help, they will be a corrective, this is how change happens
in generations.
SEN. ENZI: And use the reaction.
You also said, and I
quote "Millennial teens will proof false the consensus prediction, among today's
criminologist, that America's in for a big new wave of youth violence, to the
contrary youth crime will decrease," end quote. Would you explain why you think
this is true?
MR.STRAUSS: We're already doing it. It's partly because of the
way in which we are raising them. The simply fact that we are reacting so
strongly in society to Columbine, shows the difference between how we approach
the Millennial Kids, and what we did with Gen X-ers. There were many more
murders in the last ten year cohort of the Gen X-ers, then there were in the
being now of the Millennia's, in their teenage years, but we react to it far
more sharply, as we should.
And the very fact that we are expressing our
concern here, and across America, about these Columbine killings, will help us
make these kids better, it will help keep these trends going in the direction we
would like them to go. I agree with Dr. Fox, we have a long way to go, but we
are making progress, and the kids themselves are making progress. They didn't
create the culture their stepping into, a lot of them don't like that culture, a
lot of them would be the first ones to cheer if that culture could be fixed. And
if we enlist them, I think we're going to find that a lot of these problems will
be fixed over time, and that the kids who are now in elementary school will be
better behaved even in today's high schools are.
And the youth crime wave
Dr. Fox is not going to happen.
MR. FOX: May I respond?
SEN.
ENZI : Okay.
MR. FOX: Being one whose predicted this youth crime wave here,
and elsewhere. Lets not get laud into complacency about the decline we seen
since 93'. I mean things are down, but compared to what? Compared to record
level. There not down compared to levels we had decade or two ago, so things
aren't all back together the way they use to be.
Also when you start looking
separately at the black and white crime, you see very different patterns.
Basically what happen in the late 80's and in terms of the increase, and now the
decrease essentially has to do with the crack market and guns. If you'd look at
white homicide, we didn't have the big up-shoot that we had among black homicide
in the cities, there's been an increase a slight decrease, I don't think we're
over the problem. And yes things have came down, and it's partly also, because I
think of the baby boomers, lets also give us some credit because I think that to
quote a colleague of mine, Jack Levin, talks about the cultural revolution in
our country regarding youth crime.
I can't remember any time -- well, I'm
not that old -- but I still can't remember any time where there has been so much
energy and attention paid to the issues of kids. And a lot of it has to do with
alarmists like myself and John Delulio (ph), who have been, you know, blamed for
talking about doomsday.
Well, maybe we need an alarm. Maybe all the alarms
have been sounded. Littleton is an alarm to get us to do something about
reinvesting in kids. We're seeing after school programs coming back. We're
seeing adults getting involved with kids like we haven't seen for decades. We're
seeing recreation programs returning.
So, I think there is a lot of good
things going on that adults are doing, and maybe we, too, should have some of
the credit. As far as the future, you know, we will have more kids at risk.
There's absolutely no doubt about it. They've already been born.
Where there is no guarantee is whether this next generation of kids is any
more or less violent than their predecessors. They may be less violent. We shall
see, but it also depends on us adults investing in kids, at least as much as we
do in the stock market, and taking a lot of the responsibility on our shoulders.
MR. STRAUSS: I think it's true that we boomers, since we bear a major
responsibility for what has happened to the culture, and since when we were
adolescents the youth crime rate skyrocketed rather than coming down, as is true
with today's Millennial kids.
I think it is important for us now to exercise
responsibility and to set good positive role models in government and elsewhere,
and to do what we can to make our culture and our schools as safe as possible
for these kids.
I think, as parents, there are a lot of ways in which we are
doing a good job, but the problem in fixing the culture is mainly a boomer and
X-er problem. It's not a Millennial problem. They would like to get out from
under this culture, too.
SEN. ENZI: To switch directions a little bit here.
With the previous panel, there was some discussion on school uniforms being
embraced as a part of the solution to violence and other peer distractions in
school. That phenomenon began right here in Washington.
Would each of you
like to comment on the pros and cons of school uniforms?
Dr. Gottfredson,
you haven't had a chance.
MS. GOTTFREDSON: Everybody has an opinion about
school uniforms. I'd just like to suggest that school uniforms would be
something that we could easily study. And I'd like to see a good study of the
effect of school uniforms. It really wouldn't be that large of an investment.
I think that uniforms are probably a superficial fix. There are more basic
things about the school. The way the school is organized, the way people
interact in the schools that are at the root of the problems. And I think school
uniforms are unlikely to get to those real roots of the problem.
SEN. ENZI:
Mr. Strauss.
MR. STRAUSS: I think it's interesting that the day the
Columbine students went back to high school, the photographs and news stories we
saw showed them wearing blue jeans with white shirts that had their school name
on it, Columbine, and they seemed very proud of that.
I'm probably going to
get in trouble with my daughter here, who will report back to all my other kids
what I'm going to say for sure. I think that it is time for stricter dress
codes. School uniforms do work. It sounds a little odd for us boomers, including
our President to say, we should put kids in school uniforms because I remember
when I was in college and we were ripping ourselves out of whatever assemblage
of uniform there was, but this, again, is how generational change happens.
We understand that there has been a problem. This is one way that we can
have the kids thinking in terms of community. It is a way that the outcasts can
feel brought in a little bit. And I think that a movement towards improved dress
codes and where a community decides to do it, school uniforms is positive.
I
actually was just at a middle school in Tennessee, where the elected student
body officials initiated discussions with the school administrators themselves
about having school uniforms. Those school leaders thought they would be a good
idea at JT Moore (sp) Middle School in Nashville.
SEN. ENZI: Dr. Fox.
MR. FOX: Well, I would agree with Dr. Gottfredson that we really don't have
any evidence that school uniforms work.
Yes, there is an anecdotal cases of
schools that claim that things have improved ever since they put in school
uniforms. But it is often that they put in school uniforms a long with a whole
range of other initiatives. And it's just that the uniforms are just the most
visible part of it.
There's also something called the Hawthorne Effect.
Oftentimes if you make a change, there is an impact. But that impact will tend
to erode over time, once people find that change no longer being something
different or special. So, I question whether your school uniforms really are the
trick.
What school uniforms also do sometimes is take away energy from other
ideas. People say, oh, we're doing something. We're putting in school uniforms.
We don't have to try all those other things because we got school uniforms and I
read in Newsweek that they work.
And if kids really want to form their own
little groups and cliques and show their individuality, even with a school
uniform, they can certainly do it in terms of their hair, jewelry, the way they
wear the school uniform, whether they roll a sleeve up or down. You can't stop
kids from trying to show their identity through clothing. And if not clothing,
they'll find other ways to do it.
MR. STRAUSS: Mr. Chairman, just to respond
to that. Dr. Fox said there is no evidence to show that it improves behavior. I
have an article here about the Long Beach Program. They had 1,135 incidents of
fighting in the 1993-94 school year. They then instituted school uniforms. And
the following year they had 554 fighting incidents. So, -- MR. FOX: And what
else did they do?
MR. STRAUSS: By over 50 percent.
MR. FOX: And what
else did they do?
MR. STRAUSS: Well, I am sure there are other things --
MR. FOX: Okay, exactly.
MR. STRAUSS: But --
MR. FOX: They
don't tend to put school uniforms, they think, well, hey, we have school
uniforms and the entire drop is because of uniforms. Oftentimes this can comment
with other things, more effective things, that they are doing.
MR. STRAUSS:
Well, it will be interesting to see in New York City when the whole school is in
uniform how the people of Manhattan feel about school kids looking that way. As
I suspect, it will make the whole city feel good.
SEN. ENZI: I think I'll
try to get assemblage of control here again.
(Laughter.)
And I'll change
the topic completely.
Dr. Fox you spoke about who is, quote, "watching our
kids", (end quote). Would you comment on how families are expected to cope with
two parents working, suggestions?
MR. FOX: Well, I think that's certainly
where Congress has tried to play a role and continued to play the role. It
doesn't necessarily have to be parents home. We do know from statistics now that
60 percent of kids do not have a parent home full time. That is, 63 out of five
kids either live with a single working parent, who works full time or in a two
career household where both parents work full time, not part time, but full
time.
Now, of course, lots of kids, although parents may not be home, do
enjoy suitable substitute supervision, in terms of daycare, and neighbors, and
relatives, but far too many do not. We know that about 6 million kids in this
country don't have any adult supervision of any kind in their lives. It doesn't
have to be parents.
I'm a big supporter of after school programs. I think
that data shows that it gives kids the attention that they don't get at home.
Even the worst schools in America provide kids with structure, and supervision,
and monitoring that many of them don't get at all at home.
What I would like
to however, see with after school programs is be sure that we do it in the right
way. Lots of communities have been bringing back after school programs, but have
placed a lot of restrictions upon them.
But in order to be in the after
school program, some schools say, student school districts, say you have to have
at least a B average. See, the kids who get C's and D's, they're supposed to go
home and study. Whether they do or not is another question.
Some school
districts for the after school programs require that the child is not a
discipline problem because the discipline problems they go to the other after
school program, which is called detention. Some school districts require that
you pay tuition for the after school program and even others require that
parents provide their own transportation because the school doesn't want to pay
for a late bus.
So essentially the kids who most need the after school
programs because their parents aren't home, they're marginalized kids, they need
some attention supervision cannot participate. So it's bring back after school
programs, do it in the right way and maybe even integrate all of these
activities. Not to after school when they're sort of like after thoughts, but
within the school days.
We have turned our schools into -- this whole idea
of back to basics no frills education, we've taken a lot of the fun out of
school for many kids. We've taken the drama and the music and the sports and put
it all in the afternoon, so what the school itself is for many kids is a pretty
negative place. Bring back those extracurricular activities integrate it within
the school day, lengthen the school day, kids will have the supervision and it
will also be that schools will have something for every kid.
SEN. ENZI: Some
of the reading I've been doing on this -- I mentioned communitarianism earlier
and I saw a study that had been done, not a scientific study, but a study that
had been in St. Louis. It was a survey of the community, they looked at the
students and asked them what was needed to be done to help their community?
Making that distinction as opposed to asking the kids what new programs or what
things they need because if you ask kids depending on their age group they'll
probably say teen centers, they'll all say more activities.
But St. Louis
when they went after it said what does your community need and if you're
interested in helping on it please sign the form, and they expected a few dozen
kids to sign. They didn't expect most of the surveys to be returned and most of
those that were returned to be signed by the kids who were then enlisted in the
community. And the community went ahead and followed through on it and let them
participate in the projects, which were for other people. Would any of you care
to comment on this different approach between concentrating on themselves, which
is what the games and the television does or concentrating on their community.
MS. GOTTFREDSON: I'd like to comment. I think that that's very important and
we have -- there's pretty good research that suggests that when kids do get
involved in meaningful roles either in their community or in their schools then
it has positive effects on the entire school and on the individual kids
behaviors.
It doesn't have to be community service kind of activity, there
are plenty of ways that the school can be restructured to involve kids in
meaningful roles in running their school and making their school a better place.
And when schools do involve kids in those ways then things do improve.
SEN.
ENZI: Thank you.
Anyone else?
MR. STRAUSS: Well there actually is less
free time that a lot of kids have now and to some degree that reflects a
diversioned experience of kids in different school settings. A great many
teenagers are extremely busy and extremely heavily scheduled now, that's not
true for the entire generation of course. To the extent that's true that's
positive I think and that's one reasons we're seeing better behavior and a
greater sense of community, that there is so much for a lot of kids to do.
That's what the soccer mom, soccer dad phenomenon is, always taking kids around
to computer class and to soccer and the like. Again it doesn't happen all the
way across, there's a lot more to be done. But by and large a lot of communities
across America are doing a pretty fine job of arranging activities for kids.
SEN. ENZI: I've more than used up my time so I'll turn the gavel back to the
chairman and -- Senator DeWine?
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you, Senator Enzi.
That was an exciting vote a hundred to nothing, so I was glad I got there.
(Laughter.)
SEN. ENZI: You cast the deciding vote.
SEN. JEFFORDS:
Dr. Gottfredson you mention in your testimony that the federal government should
encourage more research in the effectiveness of prevention strategy. How should
this be carried out? What agencies should oversee the research and should some
of the demonstration models that you mentioned in your testimony be supported so
that they can be replicated through out the nation? MS. GOTTFREDSON: Absolutely.
There are several agencies that should have a role in directing the research
efforts, National Institute of Justice is one, NIMH and IDA. There's so many
different aspects of this problem that all of those different agencies can have
a role.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Mr. Strauss in your testimony I think you were very
accurately -- that you know, we should not get too carried away without looking
at the total of the school population, and yet there are some things that seem
not to change in that respect.
Starting in 1983 as you stated, that we
set goals in '88, '94 to reduce the drop out rate and to try to make sure that
we improve standards, et cetera.
The statistic that bothers me probably the
most in that regard is the drop out rate, which still hangs in about the same
amount and the correlation between the number of incarcerated individuals in the
drop out rate with 80 percent of the people are being incarcerated are drop
outs. We don't seem to have been able to impact that statistic to any great
degree. And yet also I think the Littleton -- two individuals involved there are
very atypical, I mean it's not a drop out situation, nothing related to that.
But I'd like your comments on the relationship of crime and the kids
incarcerated and how we can make an impact on that. And from any of the three of
you, what kind of knowledge do you have about what goes on in the youth
detention facilities and the jails as a whole on trying to provide some
educational help in these institutions?
MR. STRAUSS: The incarceration is
certainly a concern as that population keeps rising. Generation X is the most
incarcerate generation in American history and probably in the history of any
global democracy and we don't want this to happen to the millennial's. It is
true that we are punishing them more harshly than we punished Generation X at
the same age.
In Fairfax County, where my wife Janey (sp) is on the school
board, the number of expulsions has increase 10 fold in the last 12 years. And
that's not because the kids are 10 times worse, it's because the rules are 10
times more strict. So we're holding them to high standards, which is a very
positive thing. There's one factor that's going on here because these shootings
are different from the kinds of crime that we had before and I would agree with
my colleagues at the table about that.
And I mentioned in my written
statement some things that I think are going on. You have a new generation that
is arriving with a different attitude and it's one of the reasons why there
seems to be a rise in cliquishness. You notice how in Columbine these two
students who did the killing were taunted about improving their appearance and
there was this difference between them and the core popular group that was
involved with athletics and other school activities. Ten years ago kids like
these two would have not felt quite as much like outcasts, I believe as they
would now, in their dress, in their attitude. The teen population is less
alienated today as a group, than it was 10 years ago. Surveys show this. And so
the kids who are on the outside really do feel even more on the outside. And
that puts pressure on parents and teachers and civic leaders to try to identify
these kids and bring them to the mainstream or find some way in which high
school life can matter to them.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Anyone else comment, Dr. Fox.
MR. FOX: Well, the original question about dropouts and prisons and
education, I certainly -- Mr. Strauss rightly indicated that we are sending so
many more people into prisons. One point eight million now in prison and what
people aren't really talking about is what happens down the road when the
increasing numbers of people who go into prison eventually do come out? The more
going in the in door, the more coming out the out door later on. And a lot of
them of course having inadequate skills and bad attitudes.
And one thing we
certainly need to do is to make sure that all these releasees do get the kind of
education that they didn't get perhaps beforehand. But then we deal with the
narrow minded public view, popular public view that why should we spend money
educating prisoners when we can't even have money educating our own children
who've never committed any crimes.
I can sympathize with that point of view,
but it is short-sided. We have to make sure that kids who are in facilities and
young adults that are in facilities do get the kind of services they need which
definitely includes education. No one should be leaving prison being illiterate
for example, but far too many are.
SEN. JEFFORDS: In addition to research
where can the federal government be helpful in regard to prevention and
intervention strategies. For example, what are your thoughts as to how the Safe
and Drug-Free Schools Program can be improved. Dr. Gottfredson.
MS.
GOTTFREDSON: The Safe and Directories School Program is moving in the right
direction. For years there was absolutely no accountability for the way the
monies were spent. But this year the Department of Education is attempting to
look at the research on what works and eventually to tie the money to that
research. So, I think that is a step in the right direction. And I think that
the program will improve as a result of that.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Any other
comments, yes Dr. Fox?
MR. FOX: What's interesting in this case of course is
with the other school shootings we heard lots of talk in the aftermath about
trying juveniles as adults. Which of course is a mute point here since the
perpetrators at least the two that we clearly know already aren't around to be
prosecuted, which indicates further the inability of sanctions to deter kids,
because these kids weren't deterred by the prospect of penalties. But in this
case we don't have that kind of debate about trying juveniles as adults. And I
think that's wonderful, because there has been far too much debate in this
Senate and in the House over the past couple of years about punishment. I would
say that the new three R's are really retribution, revenge and retaliation.
Because oftentimes they get many people reelection, which is the fourth R.
So, I'm pleased that we're seeing a much more balanced discussion
post-Littleton, maybe it's only because they're not alive. But we're seeing a
more balanced discussion, only a few people talk about trying kids as adults.
And many, many more people talking about intervention and prevention. We
certainly need that balance. The balance has been out of whack or absent in the
past few years and hopefully the Littleton tragedy will help us restore some of
the healthy balance between punishment on the one hand and prevention in the
other.
MR. STRAUSS: I think we could use greater effort sin tapping the
resources of the kids themselves, I'm not talking about in the case of serious
crimes, but peer mediation, peer counseling and even peer justice in schools is
very positive. You can look say at the anti- smoking campaign, which has not
been working very well. This is a generation that is smoking more,
unfortunately. That's one way in which we're not making progress for a variety
of reasons.
The one place where it does seem to be working is in Florida,
which has used a very aggressive and energetic program of involving the kids
themselves in developing the slogans and using positive peer pressure. Which
again is associated with this cliquishness which we see as in some ways part of
the problem with Columbine. You have to enlist this generation, get the core of
the kids who want to do something, listen to them, energize them, give them the
tools they need and then step aside and watch them work.
MS. GOTTFREDSON:
Can I just emphasize that the Department of Education is moving in the direction
of encouraging research based strategies, but programs such as what Mr. Strauss
is suggesting that involved kids in solving the problem. There hasn't been
enough research on those programs to get them onto the list of effective
programs that will guide the Department of Education. So, I think it's very
important to broaden this scope of the research so that programs like that are
recognized as effective.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I want to agree with you on that.
Also I find that we rarely evaluate any programs that we start. So, we don't
really ever know whether they work, because we don't have any way to evaluate
them or haven't used any way --. Senator DeWine.
SEN. DEWINE: Mr. Chairman,
thank you very much. Dr. Fox, let me just congratulate you on your comments. We
always congratulate witnesses when we agree with them. So, I want to do that,
but your comments about the need to get services into out detention facilities,
into our prisons it is not very politically popular, but it is the right thing
to do. If you had to pick a group of people as I try to explain if you had to
pick a group of people who are potentially likely to cause society the most
problems in the future you'd probably start with the people we have incarcerated
right now.
They all -- 80 percent of them we think have some sort of
substance abuse problem, they have other problems.
And we already are
paying as a society to feed them, and to house them, and to clothe them. And
when we do sort of have their attention it's probably a good opportunity to do
something positive in regard to drug treatment or whatever the particular issue
that we're dealing with or just education in general. And as this becomes a
bigger and bigger part of our population, and as we know that 99 percent of them
are coming out of prison at some point and are going to live among the rest of
us, it is only good common sense if not only the right thing to do to try get
more resources in.
Senator Campbell, I think made a similar point in the
first panel when he basically said that some of the politically popular reforms
that we talk about taking away prisoners rights to exercise and prisoners rights
to education or prisoners opportunities for education may sound good but it's
really is in fact counterproductive. So, I think you made a very, very good
point.
MR. FOX: Let me just add also to the public clamor about not just
education in prisons and wasted money for all the people who don't deserve it,
but also the issue about amenities in prison. We constantly hear, oh it's too
nice there. Get rid of the television sets, the TV sets and of course there are
many functions of the television sets and the amenities in terms of managing the
prison population. But for anyone who starts complaining about how nice prisons
are, perhaps they should be asked if they're willing to trade places. Most
people aren't.
Prisons although they may not be dungeons, I don't think we
want them to be dungeons, they're still not as nice as living free. And our
penalty is really depravation of liberties. So, I hope we can resist the
temptation to pander to all those people who want our prisons to be dungeons and
take away all the amenities and take away smoking in prison and other such small
pleasures, because I think the negatives could be far greater than the
positives.
SEN. DEWINE: Let me turn just on the brief time that I have
remaining to the issue of the Safe and Drug-Free School Act, Dr. Gottfredson
mentioned in her prepared statement and you responded to the chairman's question
about that. I think your point is very well taken that we have not really
focused enough on effective research to determine what works and what does not
work. We need to do that. The administration has started down that path. I think
we're doing a better job today. Frankly one of the things that we want to look
at as we reauthorize this bill this year as we discuss that is to see what else
we can do from a legislative point of view to really ensure that in the future
we have better data.
I think that's one thing. It's been my experience also
that there is a second problem and I think you alluded to that when you talked
about DARE in your opening statement. The other problem is that because of
resources usually sometimes because of knowledge, sometimes because of
commitment, but usually just because of resources we don't take a comprehensive
approach. And so we move in at the fifth grade and so something and we do
something at the 10th grade and we burn up the federal money that's allotted
which that about does it. And we don't do anything else systematically. And I
think that we really have to rethink this and figure out how we're going to
impact that child during the period of time that we as a society have them,
which is K through 12 and do something from a comprehensive point of view every
year. If one of you would comment on either one of those comments?
MS.
GOTTFREDSON: Yeah, I completely agree that we need to have more comprehensive
subvention programming. But we shouldn't get the impression that schools are
only doing one or two things. In fact, schools are doing an incredible, probably
too many things to try to solve the problems. But I believe that schools don't
have the resources to pull all these disparate things together to make a
coherent pull and that probably they need to have a dedicated professional
working to create a comprehensive and coherent package for a schools or school
district.
SEN. DEWINE: My time is up. Anybody else comment? SAFE and
Drug-Free Schools Act that's in front of us we're going to have to deal with it.
Anybody else?
MR. STRAUSS: One of the challenges that we boomers have is of
course substance abuse rose when we were young. And it will be important for us
through our national leadership and not just in government, but in business and
culture as well to set a good standard for today's kids is the number one best
thing that we can do.
SEN. DEWINE: Okay, thank you all very much.
SEN.
JEFFORDS: Thank you very much. You've been very patient and all the panels have,
but our first panelists as you know was a great help to us understanding from my
colleague and his life and experiences. And you have broadened that very
substantially and our understanding. So, thank you so much for your testimony.
MR. STRAUSS: Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Next we will hear from
Commissioner Paul Evans with the Boston Police Department, Dr. Karen Bierman who
is the director of the Fast Track Program at Penn State University and Jan Kuhl
who is a supervisor of school counseling for Des Moines Independent School
District.
Commissioner Evans.
MR. EVANS: Thank you, Senator for the
opportunity to address your committee on this very important issue to our
country. As Senator Kennedy indicated earlier, Boston has had some success in
reducing youth violence in the community and in the schools. For a period of
over two and a half years we went without a juvenile being killed with a
firearm. Out of the work that we have done we have learned some important
lessons. The three keys seem to be a comprehensive approach that features equal
amounts of prevention, intervention, and enforcement.
Secondly, targeted and
tailored responses that allow us to do focused intervention with high-risk
youth. And third, collaboration, we must reach out across jurisdictions and
disciplines with the goal of preventing the next shooting from happening. We do
our very best to make preventing violence everybody's business. We are bringing
these lessons from the street into our schools through a number of innovative
approaches.
Maybe if I can just show you a few of the programs that we run
in Boston. A program we call the Youth Services Providers Network, that's a
primary vehicle, it's a police ran program in partnership with the Boys and
Girls Clubs and a number of non-profit social and human service providers. The
work is coordinated by a licensed clinical social worker in our police station
and our Youth Violence Strike Force. They work with youth age nine to 16 and
their families who are referred by street cops. It gives the officer an
alternative resource for the troubled kids and families they meet on their
beats.
Three years ago a licensed clinical social worker in a police station
was a radical approach. We put them in our most troubled police station, four
years later we have five in our stations and I have five other police districts
that are clamoring for theirs. They have really become problem solvers that
allow our officers to access other non-profit social service agencies and get
families the crisis intervention, management referrals services and individual
and family therapy they need.
Another program we have is a Child Witness to
Violence Program. We work with pediatric clinicians at Boston's Medical Center
referring for therapy very young children who witness violence in the home or on
the street. Officers receive specialized training on how to handle and refer
children who witness domestic violence or other intimate violence in the home or
in their community.
Truancy centers, as you know the demographics being as
they are if we don't deal with our young people and properly educate them
they'll turn to crime. With police grant money from the Department of Justice
and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation we have established attendance panels in
our middle schools and truancy centers in inner city YMCAs. The panels are a
collaborative group of school, human service, and criminal justice partners who
assess each truant child's case and develop tailored treatments. The centers
serve as a place we can take truants who are picked up by police. Here too the
idea is to create tailored programs for truant children and their families.
The community based justice round tables in our schools they're somewhat
like the attendance panels in cooperation with the district attorney and the
attorney general, other criminal justice and human services.
We have
established round tables on a regular basis, police sit down with high school
principals, district attorneys, social workers in the middle and high schools,
discuss what's going on, what young people we're seeing, are having problems and
what can we do to tailor programs to deter and prevent offending.
Another
program, our Operation Nightlight has been running for a number of years. This
teams police officers and probation officers they go out into the community
supervise high-risk juvenile probationers enforcing tailored curfews and area
restrictions. That program has been running for a number of years. We target and
actually make home visits to the high-risk young people. When we started the
program compliance with the terms of probation in our inner-city courts was
around 20, 25 percent; it's now closer to 70 percent. Probation means probation.
In many of the instances it gives the officers both probation and police a good
understanding of what's going on in that home and how do we properly intercede
and it supports particularly single families.
Another intervention program
we've used is collaboration with the clergy. When we have problems in our
schools, last year we had gangs going in, recruiting very young people. We
brought clergy members, school officials, street workers and police, sat young
people down, explained the dangers of belonging to criminal gangs. And then
later those same partners went to the homes of one of the gang members and had
the same type of discussion with their parents. And finally we are now in the
implementation stages of a program in which a young service officer assigned to
the Youth Violence Strike Force visits the homes of first time offenders to look
at what's going on at home, to discuss problems with the families and make sure
that the youth have the necessary resources to avoid continual criminal
problems. Thank you, Sir.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you very much, commissioner.
Dr. Bierman.
MS. BIERMAN: Thank you, Chairman Jeffords for your interest
in this vital topic and for convening this hearing to explore effective methods
for providing safety for our children's schools. I would also like to thank
Senator Kennedy and his staff for making it possible for me to present this
testimony today. I applaud this committee for seeking solutions to an immensely
difficult and complex problem. I'm a professor of psychology at the Penn State
University and director of the Children Youth and Families Consortium there as
well as a member of the American Psychological Association. For the past nine
years I have been working with a team of researchers across the country to
develop and evaluate the effectiveness of the Fast Track Prevention Program.
Work that has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the
Department of Education, the National Institute Drug Abuse and the Center for
Substance Abuse Prevention.
Prevention programs are most effective when they
are based on basic research, which identifies factors that contribute to the
cause and course of the disease. The successful prevention campaign aimed at
reducing coronary risk is a case in point. By reducing the risk factors of
smoking, changing diet habits and altering exercise patterns the rate of
coronary risk has been reduced substantially in the American population. The
Fast Track Program takes a similar approach to the prevention of anti-social
behavior and related adolescent problems. The Fast Track Prevention Program is
based on longitudinal research that has identified the key factors involved in
the development and escalation of aggressive, defiant and anti-social behavior
problems. The developmental model is complex. It includes child, family, and
school peer group and community factors.
Low income, high-crime communities
place stresses on children and families. That increases their risk level. In
such context, it is difficult to have family stability and to create effective,
non- coercive parenting, particularly with children, who may have difficult
temperament.
When children enter school poorly prepared for the social,
emotional, and cognitive demands of the setting, problems begin to escalate. For
example, problems that might begin with oppositional or irritability behaviors
in early childhood may escalate in the school setting to include rejection by
peers and academic failure.
These problems then begin to snowball into
further anti-social outcomes in adolescence including stealing, vandalism, early
and risky sexual behavior, and violence. For children between the ages of five
and eight, who display diverse acting out behavior problems in multiple
settings, we know that approximately half of them will maintain the problematic
pathway throughout adolescence.
This developmental research has very
important implications for our design and prevention programs. First, it does
suggest that prevention is possible because we can identify children, who are at
high risk, very early in the developmental sequence.
Second, it suggests
that prevention must be multi-faceted. It must be designed to build resilience
by boosting child social skills, academic achievement, and their emotional
behavioral control. It must include all the key socializing agents -- parents,
teachers, and peer systems. And it must start early and be sustained over time
in coordinated efforts that are sensitive to developmental, cultural, and
individual differences.
In the Fast Track Program, we'd conduct a risk
assessment in kindergarten and then integrated prevention activities begin in
first grade and continued through tenth grade. At the elementary school level,
the program combines the best strategies in classroom prevention curriculum,
parent training, child social skills training, parent-child relationship
support, academic tutoring, home visiting, and home school partnership building.
Later in middle school, there is a Transition Support Program to help
children with the adjustment. There is further academic tutoring for students
who need it and additional components involving mentoring and support for
identity and vocational development.
At all phases in the program, the
degree of service depends upon youth family needs. The end result is the
seamless network of integrated prevention activities that bridge school and
home, serve all youth, with the degree of service reflecting the degree of need.
The research design used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program
involves two matched sets of schools in four, diverse, high- risk areas of the
country -- Durham, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington,
and rural Pennsylvania. In each area, we're comparing children at one set of
schools where they are receiving regular school services and the Fast Track
Prevention activities, with those in another school who are receiving all the
regular school services, but no additional Fast Track activities.
All
together, we have a group of high risk children, children who scored in the top
10 percent of the risk factor in kindergarten; 448 of them receiving the
intervention, 450 of them who are our control comparison group. So far, the
results are very promising.
After the first year of intervention, we found
lower levels of aggressive-disruptive behavior, more friendship, higher reading
achievement scores, games and social emotional skills, greater parent
involvement and more positive parent-child relationships based on a number of
different kinds of measures.
Even more encouraging are results that look at
change over time. These have shown that for children in the comparison sample,
we've seen the escalation of school behavior problems at school during the
elementary years. Whereas in contrast, children receiving prevention have shown
either no gains or actual decreases in ver hapum (ph) (sp).
Even more
impressive are the results on Special-Ed. By fourth grade, 36 percent of the
high-risk children in the intervention group are receiving Special-Ed. But in
contrast, in the control comparison group, 48 percent require Special-Ed by
fourth grade. This amounts to a 25 percent reduction in the need for Special-Ed
services when children receive this kind of comprehensive, sustained, prevention
support. This finding reflects a substantial saving, both in terms of child
potential and in terms of the dollar spent on Special Education. These results
show the promise of early sustained and multi-faceted prevention programs.
We are continuing to follow the children in the Fast Track Program, as they
move into adolescence. If the positive finding are maintained Fast Track and
this approach to prevention has an excellent chance to reduce long term levels
of anti-social behavior and related problems, including school drop outs,
substance use, and risky adolescent sexual behavior.
Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you.
Ms. Kuhl.
MS. JAN KUHL: Good morning,
Chairman Jeffords and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to
be with you today to talk about the important issue of school safety. As a
supervisor of a K-12 guidance and counseling program in an urban setting, I
daily witness the impact of violence and threats of violence on the lives of our
students, our staff, and our parents.
To begin to look at strategies to curb
school violence, I think we first need to define violence. I'd like to ask you
to look at the violence continuum to the left -- the blue chart. And I'd like
you to think how severe must a behavior be to warrant our very best efforts to
eliminate it.
I'd like you to find a point on that continuum where you,
personally, would say stop, you've gone over the line; I'm not going to tolerate
it. And what point would you like that to be in elementary buildings around our
schools today, around the country today.
The first critical task facing
school staff that want an effective violence prevention program is to agree
collectively at what point they are all going to consistently say stop, you've
crossed that line, and then put all their best efforts toward consistently
enforcing that.
In Des Moines public schools, Smoother Sailing Counselors
have agreed that their point on the violence continuum is at the very lowest
level, eye rolling, stopping rumors, gesturing, staring, glaring, spitting,
pushing. They are really trying to address the very lowest levels of violent
acts. And research supports that when you address those low-level violent acts,
you'll get very good results and prevent the higher level acts from happening.
I'd like to briefly tell you how Smoother Sailing came about. We're in the
10th year of our program. Smoother Sailing's integration into the Des Moines
school system began in a very unique way drawing its initial support, design,
and financial resources from community leaders.
They wanted to address
social issues that were having a negative impact on Des Moines children in the
late 1980s, specifically violence and drug abuse. Community leaders hosted a
think tank in DC, and we invited 25 nationally recognized child development
specialists to help us determine how to help our children in Des Moines cope
with the stresses they were experiencing.
The overwhelming consensus was to
create an elementary school counseling program that was based on three
components -- a low counselor student ratio, of one counselor to every 250
students, a balanced structure, where one-third of the counselor's time would be
spent in classroom guidance, one-third of their time would be spent facilitating
small group counseling sessions with all children in the school, and one-third
of their time would be spent individually counseling and working with parents
and consulting with staff and community agencies.
That part of their program
would also have a heavier balance on prevention activities than price
activities. And the third component was the need to hire very skilled elementary
counselors, Master level counselors, and provide ongoing training to them. I
think people today would agree that elementary school is a time when students
are developing attitudes about themselves, friends, peers, family. This is the
best time to help children learn valuable life skills, and develop positive
character values like stability.
Our research shows that early indicators of
violent adolescent and adult behavior translate really into specific skill
deficits, lack of empathy, lack of the ability to solve problems, and lack of
the ability to handle anger. Smoother Sailing counselors teach all children
these skills daily in classrooms. Children can learn pro- social behavior as
simply as they can learn anti-social behavior. They do that through modeling,
practice, and reinforcement. Students in Des Moines, in the Smoother Sailing
program are fortunate because these curriculum are not only taught in the
classroom, but students can reinforce those positive behaviors in small groups
and individual counseling sessions.
Counselor's goal in that area is to
decrease impulsive aggressive behavior in all students, while increasing
student's level of social confidence. Research also shows the need for a
positive relationship with a caring adult is one of the very most critical
factors in preventing student violence. School counselors can be that caring
person, a person that students can trust and feel safe with. To quote an
elementary principal, "The sensitivity our Smoother Sailing counselors displays
in dealing with all students sends the message that they are heard and cared
for." That's the most important message we can give our children and families
today.
We have struggled -- a lot of the talk this morning has
been on research. We have struggled for ten years to evaluate Smoother Sailing.
But I think our research demonstrates that we are positively impacting students
and families. Students are developing strategies for improving their academic
learning. And we know learning is a vital form of violence prevention. Students
learn and improve their relationships with peers, students are learning coping
skills to deal with stressful situations in their lives, students are
demonstrating a higher knowledge of personal safety, they're making good
choices.
Our counseling activities are reducing the number of office
referrals to the principal and the number of student suspensions. Counselors are
successful in coordinating the efforts of teachers and parents and community
agents to create a large safety net so students don't fall through, and we don't
lose them. Perhaps we are most proud of, our program satisfaction surveys
demonstrate that teachers, parents, and administrators are very happy with the
program. Administrators rank counselors highest in their ability to help
students cope with stressful situations. Ninety-five percent of our parents said
that they would gladly with a counselor if their child was having trouble in the
educational, personal, or social area.
In closing, the need for highly
skilled counselors, I think is undeniable. At all levels the counselor student
ratio needs to be low, the American Counseling Association recommends a 1 to 250
ratio. Nationwide, the ratio is more 1 to 650. Ratios at the elementary are also
two, three, four times than the same ratio at the secondary level, and I would
hope that you could look at supporting the Elementary Counseling Demonstration
Act that could reduce those numbers at the elementary level, too.
I'd like
to thank Senator Harkin for his continued support for Smoother Sailing, and his
commitment to Iowa children. Thank you for allowing me to talk and for hosting
this stimulating forum this morning on violence. I am going to take a lot the
discussion that was shared this morning home, and continue to discuss that with
people I work with.
REP. JEFFORDS: Well, thank you very much.
The
testimony you have presented is very helpful. All of you have touched on this
point, but I would like to discuss it in greater detail. In your programs, how
are you working with teachers, school administrators and other personnel to be
more helpful and aware of students who may have behavioral problems which are
not necessarily obvious.
Dr. Bierman?
MS. BIERMAN: I think it's really
critical that teachers be very actively involved in the prevention effort. So,
for example, in the Fast Track Program, the teachers are trained by our staff to
use the prevention curriculum that we use, it's called the (PAS ?) program, and
it basically involves a lot of the same kind of skills that sounds like it's
used in your program where the teachers are taught how to teach conflict
resolution skills and actually manage conflicts more effectively in their
classrooms.
I think that training process of, many teachers do not get that
in their training experiences, so that their ability to sort of understand what
the social world is like for children, how they can facilitate that, how they
can identify problems. Many very well meaning teachers simply don't have those
skills. We found many teachers in our classrooms originally handled behavior
problems by basically yelling at children. A very punitive attempt. And often
with training, they are really able to understand kind of the complexity of the
home situations of many of these children to find better alternatives for using
consequences in the classroom, but in a more supportive way. And also teaching
the kind of skills that these children badly need to do better.
So,
I think the involvement of teachers seeing them as a potential resource, but
also recognizing that these are the areas of identification and how to support
high risk students, that's not an area that many of them have preparation on.
And they can certainly benefit from this sort of training and then the tools to
do that in our classrooms.
REP. JEFFORDS: Mr. Evans.
MR. EVANS: Thank
you.
Senator, regular communication, sit down a process in place where you
bring people together and you discuss what's going on in the school problems
experiencing, the district attorney, school police, local police, social service
agencies, sit around a round table and all exchange information as to what's
going on and how do we make an impact on some of these young people that are
causing some problems, and actually focus.
I think communication is actually
critical of getting the various components of the different agencies together.
And then actually targeting tailoring programs to address the individuals are
troubled.
REP. JEFFORDS: Ms. Kuhl.
MS. KUHL: I think one strength of
Smoother Sailing is that counselors work collectively and very closely with
parents and teachers. And so, we're able to identify those signs, those students
that are at risk. In fact, I think we really try to take all the deficits that
you see all the characteristics in the pamphlet that Senator Kennedy talked
about, the warning signs. And we look at them as deficits and try to see what
skills we can teach children to address that deficit.
I don't think many
kids fall through net because of that close relationship, they're working with
those kids in classrooms, they're having an opportunity to talk with them in
small groups, they meet with them individually, they talk with parents, they
communicate with parents closely. So, I think we're doing a good job of
identifying. I think when our students go into middle school, and lose kind of
that significant person in their life or move out of that setting from the small
classroom to a larger setting, sometimes those students are lost. And that's why
at the middle school level, we're trying to look at more teaming, where you have
100 students assigned to five teachers.
So, someone still continues to be
connected with those students, so those signs and those warning things that
you're talking about can be caught.
SEN. JEFFORDS: How should professional
development activities be improved in both pre-service and in service levels of
all school personnel regarding interaction with school behavior in recognition
of problem? What is being done, anything being done, say, in Boston, as far as
making the teachers aware how they can cooperate and alert the possible
problems?
MR. EVANS: I think that just a round table, the constant exchange
of information has been helpful. I mean, they see a lot of young kids that are
acting out. And I think historically, there's been almost that smokestack
approach, well, that was their problem. I think more and more, the exchange of
information has created processes where those young people can get help, and I
think that that has been very beneficial. I'm not aware of the professional
development. I think certainly it's something that's being looked at right now
of you know, how can we do a better job of identifying those young people. But I
still think what we hear in corridors, school police, continues to be the best
way to identify those troubled kids.
REP. JEFFORDS: Dr. Bierman, or --
MS. BIERMAN: I think one of the biggest gaps that we see is that teachers
are often not sure how to connect with parents who are what's easiest to connect
with in the school setting. So that many of the parents of children who are
coming from more disadvantaged circumstances or often if their child is having
difficulty in school and in a lot of trouble at school, parents are very
hesitant to come in. Teachers often feel very upset about that, and they feel
blocked, they don't know how to establish the kind of partnership and
collaboration.
I think that the function both of training as well as the
kind of role that other agencies can play and that community is trying to build
that sort of bridge, so that as children are having difficulties, parents and
teachers are really working in partnership, as opposed to getting into sort of
altercations around who's at fault here and who should be taking care of this
student's problem.
MS. KUHL: I agree, I think we need to look at ways to get
all the parties impacted at the table like you're doing in Boston, to get
parents that are in service training, you know, to give community folks to get
the legislators, to get everyone there at the training so that together, we can
decide strategies that will work, because everyone needs to be involved with it
if it's going to make a difference.
I also think training, we were very
fortunate to receive two federal drug free school training grants, school
personnel training grant, and the school counseling training grant, and a
critical piece of that that helped our program when Smoother Sailing expanded
from ten counselors to 46 counselors, 48 counselors, was that the training
provided us an opportunity not only to receive the knowledge, but we also had
moneys to have counselors practice those skills together, peer coaching
opportunities, to have mentors to work with at risk students during the summer
and then observe each other, video tape and, you know, work on those skills and
reinforce the knowledge that they had received in the didactic part of that
training.
I think so often times we don't have time to really practice those
skills or strategies, you know, teachers definitely don't have time to do that.
Also, I think with counselors working in classrooms, demonstrating, having
students demonstrate empathy skills, teaching kids how to be more empathetic,
working with children on how to solve problems, and working through those steps.
Teachers are part of that, so they're picking up those same skills or they're
team teaching that, and I think that's an excellent way to have --
SEN.
JEFFORDS: But what I'm referring to, we're taking a look at professional
development, not only in-service, but also the kind of education that young
teachers get as they come in to teaching, and wonder whether they are ignoring
areas where it would helpful, and that some of these very serious nation
problems, if they had some way just to be alerted to send somebody to a
counselor, rather than necessarily counseling. I'm wondering, is that something
we should pursue?
MS. BIERMAN: I would really encourage you to pursue that.
I think that one of the things we're finding in working with high risk children,
it's very important to move across disciplinary bounds, to really look at law
enforcement working with psychology counseling, with education, and I think this
is something we need to model in the training of teachers, that there is this
sort of cross discipline training where they do get more information about the
developmental processes and how a community works, and to really understand both
the community agencies (situation ?) and also the developmental progression of
children.
MR. EVANS: Mr. Chairman, I think that's the next excellent area to
pursue. I know that, you know, police officers out on the street, they can
identify young people, and they can point to those people. And unless somebody
successfully intervenes, that person will be either in state prison or dead by
the time they're 20. I think they are very, very identifiable, certainly by
police officers, and I think certainly teachers are in a far better position to
see their behavior on a daily basis. So, I think that would be an excellent area
to pursue. MS. KUHL: And I concur. And I think that the university setting
should be looking at some of the new data out there, there's a lot of new,
exciting information on brain research and multiple intelligence and all those
kinds of curriculum. And sometimes you see the same textbooks being taught that
are 20,30 years old. And I just would challenge them to look at the current
information on brain research, especially in the area of violence, because I
think there is research that would really be helpful for them when they get out
in the field of teaching.
REP. JEFFORDS: Thank you. I stole a little extra
time here.
Senator Murray.
SEN. PATTY MURRAY: (D-WA): Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all of the witnesses today. This has really been an
excellent hearing, and I appreciate it. I have to say, as a former preschool
teacher, I too could pick out those kids who were disconnected or angry or don't
know how to deal with what was happening in their lives. But I can also tell
you, as a teacher, you didn't know who to turn to, and I think we have to
provide those kinds of resources.
I really appreciate this panel's
testimony. I do talk to young people a lot, and I'm sorry that there weren't any
here today to talk to us and give us their perspective of what's going on,
because I think we would hear exactly what I hear all the time, which is, I
don't think adults care about me. And I would like to submit for the record some
of the information that's been given to me from some of our (youth-led ?) groups
over the last several weeks since Columbine on this, to submit for the record
for this hearing. I think the other members of this committee would find it very
instructional. But I think what I hear from all of you in the success of your
programs is that you do have adults who are paying attention to young people,
especially at the earlier ages. And it's not just one person, it's not just a
counselor or a police officer or a teacher. It's a combination of adults who are
listening and paying attention to young people.
Now, when I go out to my
communities right now, what people are coming up to me and saying, and I'm
appreciative of this, is what can I do? And I think maybe one of the good things
that has come out of the most recent tragedy is that people are now more awake
than they ever have been, realizing they can't wait for somebody else to deal
with this problem, every adult in this country has to participate in some way in
turning this around, even if it is to just smile at a seventh grader who walks
by you in the mall, rather than pretending like they don't exist.
But from
each of your perspectives, what do we tell people in our community that they can
do to help change this around? What is the best way for them to make a
difference in young people's lives today?
MS. KUHL: Even your comment about
smiling at an adolescent at a mall. I think there are many, many ways, whatever
group that they're involved with, I think they could begin to have dialogue,
have dialogue listen to their children. Children are not listened to. They're
craving that attention. Any opportunity that they can engage young people in
dialogue is probably the first thing I would recommend.
MR. BIERMAN: I think
because our communities are so much more fluid than they used to be, the school
is really emerging as sort of a central place for many communities that pulls
people together. And I think that parents investing more in school, as well as
other community members really seeing that role as a locus where lots of
community agencies can gather and really invest in youth is really critical. I
think the kind of programs we've talked about do demonstrate it can make a
difference, it can make a huge difference in the lives of children to have that
sort of involvement, but it does need to be a number of people and it does need
to be sustained over a long period of time, and sort of titrated to those
children who need it the most.
And I think we can help with model programs
of how to do it, but it being done in each community really takes people at the
school level, I think, being interested in orchestrating and organizing, and
then the support of agencies as well as community members to make it happen.
MR. EVANS: I think our role can be to convince people that preventing youth
violence is everybody's business, not just police officials or school officials.
And I think everybody can be part of a network that deals with it. You know,
just a simple suggestion of, you know, volunteering at a boys and girls club
where there are young people coming in all the time. You know, the nonprofits,
we've tried to make nonprofits in integral part of our strategy, you know, when
we deal with young people in trouble, funnel them to nonprofits, funnel them
into mentoring programs.
All of those things, showing young people we care
about them, I think all of us can take a role in doing that, and certainly
there's a number of ways, particularly with the number of outstanding nonprofits
who are always looking for volunteers or mentors. I think that's all something
we can be doing.
SEN. MURRAY: I hope we encourage businesses to allow
employees to take time off, to do those kinds of things. There is nothing worse
than setting up softball in the spring and not having enough adults to be there
to do that, and all of us are guilty, we're busy, I'm at work. But if we don't
have adults there, they're not successful. But again, Mr. Chairman, I hope we
listen to young people, too, because they're really telling us what we need to
do.
So, thank you very much.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you.
Senator DeWine.
SEN. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This panel has been excellent, very helpful to us. I think you just
reinforced what we all intuitively know, maybe we don't express very well, and
you put some expertise behind it, and that is that there's really no substitute
for adult involvement with children, whether it be in the family, with your own
children, whether that be in the school, whether that be in the community, and
that we just have to have more of that, we have to listen, we have to talk, we
have to have that interaction. And it takes time, some time commitment. It is
the quality of the contact, but it's also how long that contact is and how
frequent that contact is. And so, I think this panel has certainly brought that
out.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Well, thank you
all very much. And we reserve the right to pepper you with some further
questions as we move along. I want to thank you, it's been very, very helpful
this morning. And thank you for coming.
Our final panel will be Ken Trump,
who is president and CEO of National School Safety and Security Service in
Cleveland, Ohio. And Robert Eagan, who is the vice president of Energy and
Critical Infrastructure at Fandia (sp) National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New
Mexico.
Senator DeWine, I think you would like to introduce --
SEN.
DEWINE: Well, I just would like to welcome both our witnesses, Mr. Trump is from
Ohio. He's the president, as you said, and CEO of National School Safety and
Security Services, based in Cleveland. It's a consulting firm that specializes
in school security assessment and crisis preparation training. Mr. Trump has
extensive experience in the whole issue of school safety. He has served over
seven years with the Division of Safety and Security for the Cleveland Public
Schools, and has worked with schools and law enforcement officials in 30 states
and Canada. He is also, as you can imagine, Mr. Chairman, been extremely busy
over the last few days, and has been constantly on the phone with calls from all
over the country, and we are just delighted Mr. Trump, that you and Mr. Eagan
are both here to testify.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Please proceed, Mr. Trump.
MR.
KEN TRUMP: Chairman Jeffords, distinguished committee members and staff, I'd
like to thank you for allowing me to be here. It's probably the utmost
professional compliment having been in school security on the front lines of
this on a day to day basis for 15 years to come before you.
I'd
also like to thank Senator DeWine from Ohio for his leadership and his
willingness to allow me to share a new perspective that I think this committee
and probably many others here in DC have yet to here from a career school
security specialist. In addition to the information that Senator DeWine
provided, I'd like to give you some quick background on what we do, so you
understand the perspective I'm coming from. School districts contract with us to
provide training for staff members, teachers, counselors, principals, central
office personnel, superintendents, board members, support staff such as
custodians, bus drivers, secretaries, and people who are mentioned very on early
in the hearing here, and is extremely important, as well as law enforcement and
school resource officers.
I think many people would be surprised as
we move to put police officers in the school, another initiative, that even
those personnel haven't had as much exposure and training in juvenile area of
law enforcement and school safety as might suspect. Some of the issues we cover
are lessons learned from national tragedies, managing student threats, what I
call new times, new crimes, including homemade bombs, bomb threats, technology
offenses and different types of threats. We've been talking about homemade bombs
for the past two years to the school personnel, so to some extent, this recent
incident wasn't totally new, except for the extent and severity.
Drugs and
concealed weapons, gang awareness, security assessments, crisis preparedness
planning, reducing staff victimization, access control and other issues. We also
provide security assessments with school personnel, and working with educators
hand in hand through the buildings, looking at policies and procedures, school
operations, crime and discipline procedures, physical facilities and related
issues, and give recommendations on how, if you can't prevent an incident, you
can at least reduce the risks and be prepared to manage those should they occur.
I'd like to also share with you in addition to the Cleveland school security
experience as an investigator, an officer in the buildings and gang units
supervisors where five of us handle all gang activities for 127 schools and 73
thousand kids that I also served several years as a suburban school security
director in a 13 thousand school district, while also working most recently in
consulting with rural districts and urban and suburban.
I chair the K
through 12 subcommittee of American Society for Industrial Securities Education
Institutions Committee and also I authored the book that was mentioned by
Senator Kennedy earlier on Basic Guidelines for Safe and Secure Schools. So, I
appreciate again this opportunity to present a new prospective. And I'd like to
start out by talking about how we frame school safety issues and posit some new
ways of looking at things that possibly could explain how we could do a better
job in improving safety in our schools.
Number one, schools have
traditionally approached school safety through prevention and intervention
programs alone, often failing to provide reasonable, consistent, and
professional risk reduction measures from a security and crisis prospective.
Final prevention curriculum, conflict resolution, peer mediation, mentoring
counseling, psychological services, and other initiatives are appropriate and
necessary. When we have one counselor per 600 students and one school
psychologist for 10 to 20 schools, I think it's real clear why we have some of
the issues that we have in terms of mental health needs.
My wife was also a
former prohibition officer, social worker, and here with me today and works in
our business has testified while you hear the testimony today, I've heard her
for our whole relationship on caseloads for prohibition officers and social work
needs.
Those are important. However, with the programs that are dealing with
shaping long-term behavior, we also seem to have forgotten that we need to deal
with the safety of the immediate environment -- your counselors, school
psychologists, educator, and other program deliverers are not going to be very
successful. Your 9:00 prevention curriculum and 11:00 your mediation program
won't be very successful if you have an 8:00 multiple shooting in the hallway
that could have been prevented by some basic risk reduction measures.
Point
number two, progress in improving school security has been hampered historically
by politics, denial and image concerns within school districts and communities.
Many times school officials have falsely perceived that they'd receive adverse
media attention and be perceived by parents and community members as poor
managers if they dealt with security and crisis issues for the immediate
environment. Issues underlying that include fear of failing to pass school
levies, elect board members, and get other community support. And some of these
influences have ultimately led to the fact that we lack even some of the most
basic measures in terms of security. When we can walk into a fast-food country,
a fast-food restaurant in this country through a limited number of doors and
have one say, good morning can I help you faster than we can in some of our
schools, we don't have baseline security in our schools. We don't need to talk
about a fortress mentality but we do need to have a heightened awareness and if
we protect hamburger better than our children than it's a real statement as to
what were doing with school security.
I'd like to say the input -- we hear
schools are the safest place for children in the community. I agree -- but the
question is, safer than what. If we have 20 kids killed in the community and 15
in our schools, are we actually doing a decent job in security and is violence a
community problem -- certainly. But the ultimate question is what are we doing
to reduce the risks in our schools. From a private prospective I'd like to say
to you that some of the things that we have to contribute, we provide
professional expertise to districts that lack in-school resources and school
resource officers, security personnel. We offer assistance to those districts
that have that but want some additional expertise. We're independent of local
politics so we can be more independent and not be tied to grant funding or other
type of issues in our organization that sometime prohibit how we focus to remain
on the cutting edge and be professionally oriented.
One of our concerns with
the overnight experts and charlatans that are popping up in the violence
prevention area, of course, but we need to realize that's not just insecurity
that's in all areas, not only violence prevention businesses but others around
the country. We can look at consultants in terms of quality consultants of
having school security specific experience, independent and non-product
affiliated, knowledge of the real world, not just having read a book or written
an article on it, verifiable credentials and cutting edge knowledge in the
field.
What can Congress do? Number one, work to incorporate professional
development and training into higher education programs for educators and
in-services within the district for all personnel. Senator DeWine's expressed a
sincere commitment to this and should be supported.
Number two -- balancing
research prevention and intervention tools with resources for dealing with the
safety of the immediate environment so that the other programs can be
successfully delivered.
Number three -- building in a mechanism in safe and
direct these schools to allow districts to use an increase amount of funds for
security and crisis preparedness along with prevention and intervention. Having
some regulations and guidelines for security consultants and ensuring at the
federal level as well as state and locally, school resource officers, security
professionals, and related people have input like we are here today on a more
consistent and regular basis.
Just to close, two other points on funding
issues -- many school districts have to use a cut and paste approach to funding
security and crisis preparedness and compete with other educational budget line
items, which really they shouldn't have to pit safety against other pieces of
education.
In conclusion, I'd like to thank Senator DeWine and this
committee for again allowing me to be here. I would advise anyone from here, as
well as our leaders up at the White House, to come out and spend a day with us
in our in-services with school personnel and hear the whole A through Z. And
remember that while we should be preparing our school officials, we should
consistently prepare our school officials to be informed, alert, and proactive
in preventing incidents and being prepared to manage them if they occur. And the
real question as we've heard over and over here today is not whether the
Littleton, Colorado or other incidents should be a wakeup call. The real
question unfortunately is are we going to simply hit the snooze button and go
back to sleep?
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you, Mr. Trump.
Mr.
Eagan.
MR. ROBERT EAGAN: Mr. Chairman, distinguished members, thank you for
inviting me here to testify today. I am as you heard earlier from Sandia
National Laboratories. Sandia is a DOE laboratory operated for the government by
Lockheed-Martin Corporation.
Part of the mission of this laboratory for its
entire lifetime of 50 years has been to protect nuclear weapons and other
sensitive materials from attack or diversion.
In the process of doing
that, we've developed both technologies and methodologies that have been applied
by other federal agencies such as the Department of State, Department of Defense
and most recently the Department of Justice.
What I'd like to share with you
today is how we've been applying those technologies and methodologies in schools
and you may well ask the question, how does the school compare to a nuclear
weapons depot and how can the technology transfer. And the answer really lies in
the methodologies that are used as well as some of the technology.
I think
the best way to address that is to provide the example that we have from working
with the Belene Public School System. Belene is a small school, small community
30 miles south of Albuquerque. Their high school is typical of schools. That is,
they have fights on campus; there's theft, vandalism, and other forms of
misbehavior that are disruptive to the learning environment. At the request of
the school's principal and the commissioner of education in the district, Sandia
was invited in 1996 to start working with them to see if we could improve the
security of the campus.
One part of our methodology is to involve all of the
people involved, the community, the police, the students, and the faculty. I
want to share with you the results that occurred just one year after we worked
with the school system in the spring of 1996 and during the summer installed
about $40 thousand of equipment. There was a 90 percent decrease in vandalism
and theft, a 35 percent decrease in truancy, a 95 percent decrease in false fire
alarms, and virtually no outsiders on campus. That's important because outsiders
are often the source of trouble on a campus. One of the concerns of course is,
is that the campus looks like a compound surrounded by barbwire and bright
lights. That's not true. In fact, the campus of Belene High School doesn't even
have the entry procedures you have to come into this building. But there are
other technology measures that have been implemented and as these data show,
they have been remarkably successful.
The four factors that we've developed
in doing any security activities involve the people, that is in this case the
students, the faculty, and the community; the facilities themselves, making some
modifications that do in fact include some fences or in the case of Belene
reconfiguring some of the parking lots; procedures and policies that are
implemented and well known to the students and the faculty; and finally and
importantly technology. There are a lot of technologies from metal detectors to
Breathalyzer to drug detectors and the list goes on and on. That in fact is a
major problem for school districts because there are literally hundreds of
manufacturers and suppliers of technologies, so it's extremely difficult for a
school district, especially a small one, to make an informed choice and develop
the appropriate set of equipment to go into their facility.
The National
Institute of Justice has recognized this and has been funding Sandia for the
last year and a half to develop guidance that can go out to these schools. And
this is a draft of a manual that is Phase I, volume 1, prepared for the National
Institute of Justice on the appropriate and effective use of security
technologies in US schools, A Guide for Schools and Law Enforcement Agencies.
Volume 1 looks at video surveillance, metal detection, entry control, and duress
alarms. This volume is about to be released and will be widely disseminated to
schools throughout the country.
The implementation of strategy also follows
a pattern that we've developed and slightly modified to be used in schools and
it has five basic principles. One is deter, that is to discourage students or
others from doing things on a school campus; detect, that's the monitoring
system that allows us to understand what's happening; delay, this would be
something as simple as bolting computers to a tabletop so it's difficult to
remove items of value; respond or investigate, the response might be by putting
an alarm on the fire alarm so that when somebody pulls it they immediately draw
attention to themselves; and finally follow up, and follow up is very important
because there needs to be consequences associated with misbehavior.
The next
steps in our approach are to make this more broadly available to schools around
the country. To date we have visited over a hundred schools in nine states.
Belene has received the largest focus by far. We're about to implement a program
with NIJ support in Odessa, Texas.
This morning, Senator Hutchinson drew
attention to the bill that he and Senator Bingaman are co-supporting, that's
Senate Bill 638, the Safe School Security Act that would establish a cooperative
center to broadly disseminate these technologies that have worked so effectively
in Belene to schools throughout the country. We believe that affordable
technologies and methodologies are available and should be applied to schools
around the country. Our staffs are very proud of the interactions and impact
they've had so far. In fact, I was delighted when I met Mr. Trump this morning
to find out that he's acquainted with our lead staff member who works in this
area of school technology safety. And we look forward to working in the future
with Mr. Trump and with many others around the country to improve the safety and
security of our schools.
I should add one more thing about the
Belene schools that we can't document it as carefully as we documented the data
I shared with you earlier. But the principal recently shared with us that after
two years of this enhanced performance, the performance of his students are
rising as well. Perhaps that's the bottom line of creating a safer environment
where students can perform and educators can educate.
Mr. Chairman, thank
you for inviting me this morning; I'd be happy to answer questions.
SEN.
JEFFORDS: Thank, you both, for very, very helpful testimony. This is an
extremely important area and it's something that it seems we can do something
about. Many of the other areas are more difficult to try and get your hand on.
But I think you've been very helpful in your testimony.
I have to leave.
Senator DeWine will take over the interrogation.
SEN. DEWINE: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Let me also thank this panel. You've had to wait a long time to
testify and we appreciate your patience. Your testimony's been very, very
helpful.
Mr. Trump, I wonder if you could summarize, what's the most common
safety threat you see in schools and what's the most common mistake that schools
make -- if you had to pick one thing?
MR. TRUMP: Well, the most -- first of
all the threats have changed tremendously over the years. Historically, we're
dealing with kids, who may have stepped out of line, cut class, or been defiant.
Twenty or 30 years ago, the past 20 years or so rather, we've been dealing with
gangs, drugs, weapons, and other issues. Today, we're dealing with the new
crimes. So, the point is that these things are changing and I think the mistake
has been as we haven't been able to catch up with the times. We have sent our
educators in to work basically unarmed in terms of training, awareness, on basic
issues. I had an electronic-mail message just this week asking we how should we
close our doors in our building? So while the times have been changing --
SEN. DEWINE: What was the question?
MR. TRUMP: The question was should
we close the doors in our building, in terms reduce the number of open doors in
our building? And I say when you have 40 doors in a school and all 40 are wide
open where anybody could step in, we haven't taken the most basic baseline
security present. So, that would be my answer to your question. The most common
mistake is that we haven't focused appropriately on violence prevention and
intervention, but we have dealt with the safety of the immediate environment
itself, where these are being delivered by having baseline basic security
presence, training, and awareness, policies, and procedures and crisis
guidelines.
SEN. DEWINE: Is this more in the physical area or is this more
in the training of teachers deal with people?
MR. TRUMP: I think --
SEN.
DEWINE: Because the example you just gave was a physical, more of a safe campus,
more of a closed campus. We close off the doors, we make sure the access is
totally controlled. I mean it's a basic security issue that is certainly not
just applicable to schools, it's applicable to any place where you're trying to
control the environment.
MR. TRUMP: And, Senator, that's an excellent point.
Because it shows even a more basic underlying problem -- even when you
do have the doors secured, I've walked through one designated entrance for 20
minutes. We've had reporters across the country who've gone in with hidden
cameras and tested security in schools, where there's been designated entrance
and people don't say good morning, can I help you. I think the first basic step
is training and awareness for our personnel and as we mentioned earlier not just
teachers and administrators but bus drivers, secretaries, custodians, and then
you can look at the other issues. What we've done is we've jumped in the country
to steps two through 10 in dealing with school safety. And we've forgotten
number one which is training and awareness and a consciousness among our staff
on a regular basis of what really is security. And the fact that many teachers
tell me, Senator, that they feel that they don't have a right to stop someone. I
think we really need to have to reshape how we're dealing with, we not only have
right we have a responsibility to address these in a fair, balanced way.
SEN. DWINE: Mr. Trump, though the threats that we have seen played out on
our horrible graphic detail on our TVs has been sometimes an internal threat.
And these are students who are many times who commit these acts internally. So,
it's not always a question of stopping a stranger walking in.
MR. TRUMP: Oh,
yeah.
SEN. DEWINE: That's part of the problem, but --
MR. TRUMP:
Absolutely, Senator. That's a part of it and possibly in the big picture a small
problem. If you look at, not only in national tragedies, but on a day to day
basis the real threat comes from within. Even at the elementary schools we see
strangers and non- custodial parents come in and more non-custodial parents who
actually know come and abduct kids. And that's the real extent many times of our
stranger danger, but on a day to day basis at the secondary level, you're
dealing with the threat from within, gang members. I have homework assignments
we use in our training where kids used an English class essay on how he's going
to assassinate the school resource officer. And the kid got a B-plus for good
grammar and structure because we haven't trained our educators to look a little
bit closer at these and the meaning. I have homework assignments of gang
graffiti that have received A-pluses, training for concealed weapons while one
gun is one too many, the most popular weapons in school across our country today
are box cutters, knives, and razorblades. And I did a recent in-services with
250 school principals, and I said how many of you have ever had to search a
student. Everyone raised their hand.
SEN. DEWINE: How many of you have had
what?
MR. TRUMP: How many of you have ever had to search a student for a
weapon? Two hundred fifty people raised their hand. I said how many of you have
ever been trained in recognizing concealed weapons, lipstick containers that
twist open into blades, the fact that kids are carrying blades under their
tongues sometimes even through buildings that have metal detectors and other
equipment. I didn't have one hand in the room, Senator. Not one person had
received training.
SEN. DEWINE: Mr. Eagan, you've talked about some of the
things that you have been involved in. Translate this for me though for anyone
who might be watching and for this committee who might be struck by the, or
might have the impression that this is going to be an unrealistically, horribly
expensive endeavor that you are talking about. You're talking about high tech;
you're talking about taking us into the 21st century in school protection. What
does this cost? If I've got a typical school building and I'm the principal or
I'm the superintendent or I'm the parents, what's this going to cost?
MR.
EAGAN: Affordability is a real issue and of course all of the materials that we
talked about are commercially available ones because they're widely used to meet
the cost a little better. But let me share with you one cost effective implement
that we use is a badge. This is a visitor badge, on this side its white, you
write a name on it, eight hours later it turns into expired so that you can
monitor then visits of people to the campus and control access which is as Mr.
Trump pointed out very important. Other monitoring systems are relatively
inexpensive. The hardware that was invested in Belene School is $42 thousand.
That's major for a school but not out of sync out perhaps with the benefits that
come with it.
There are two aspects of affordability, one is buying the
equipment; the other is maintaining it. And the guidance that I showed you
earlier in the NIH a document we prepared help schools understand both the
purchasing costs and the application costs, the operation and maintenance. What
we find it that the approach -- in fact I agree completely with what Mr. Trump
has been saying. In our jargon of systems analysis that we look at controlling
access, having procedures, working with the people, and adding the appropriate
security, some of it is high-tech, much of it is not, total cost per building is
moderate in most cases, but it's highly dependent on the circumstances.
SEN.
DEWINE: So, you gave a $40 thousand figure?
MR. EAGAN: Yes.
SEN. DEWINE: And would that be typical?
MR. EAGAN: It would be typical
for a modest size school. Again, it's hard to be typical because it is so
dependent on the design of the campus and the environment.
SEN. DEWINE: I
understand. Let's stick with that a figure for a moment. So, for $40 thousand
how is my security enhanced? How is my child's security enhanced? What do I
have? Don't tell me the hardware; tell me what it does.
MR. EAGAN: Yes. The
hardware would allow observant people to go and use a handheld metal detector to
look at students, includes Breathalyzers so that one could do analysis of
students coming back after lunch. It does include surveillance cameras in areas
that don't have people in it and surveillance of the entrance ports in and out
of the school. In this particular case, we look at the data, which I shared with
you earlier and the cost and the tradeoff seems to be very good. The violence is
down very significantly.
SEN. DEWINE: And as I think you've pointed out and
you've both have pointed out the key to that though is that you have to have
trained people that work with it.
MR. EAGAN: Absolutely.
SEN. DEWINE:
For example, you're talking about the monitors, that's wonderful, but yet you
have to have someone watching those monitors or someone who is that's part of
what they do is deal with that. I mean that's sort of state the obvious, but
it's not just the 40 thousand (dollars) we invest it we go on our way. It's a
continuous process.
MR. EAGAN: You're absolutely right. One example that we
cite is a school in New York that wanted to protect the building from graffiti
and intended to install monitors. The monitors would have to be then monitored
around the clock. What we recommended to them is in fact, judicious use of a
fence, some graffiti resistant paint, and replacing windows that could get
broken easily was a far less expensive solution.
SEN. DEWINE: Right.
MR.
EAGAN: The monitors could be used somewhere else in an area where they could be
monitored during the day and have higher payoff.
SEN. DEWINE: You both
touched on this a little bit but what is your opinion for a typical school for
the effectiveness of metal detectors that are actually with the idea that you're
going to use them every day? I mean, you did not, Mr. Eagan, you were talking
about the ability to go up to somebody who you suspect has something on them and
use some equipment. But we're talking about now you know some schools are saying
they need this, some schools already have this obviously. But what's the
effectiveness of that? How well does that work? Can people get around it? Do
people get around it? Is this an effective tool, is this a good investment --
MR. EAGAN: In the Belene school, we chose --
SEN. DEWINE: -- of our
money?
MR. EAGAN: -- not to install them because they are again expensive.
Someone has to be there to maintain it and to move students in and out and the
volume requires multiple detectors so it becomes very expensive. Detectors can
be fooled. We just heard an example of a razor blade under your tongue or using
some sort of non-metallic instrument to bring into the offices. I don't have the
data about how often the security system is used.
SEN. DEWINE: Mr. Trump,
your opinion?
MR. TRUMP: Senator, I think I can sum it up best in that any
type of equipment is a supplement to but not a substitute for all of the other
strategies that we've talked about. I was in one high school that had 25
cameras. I asked the principal who monitors them. He said no one. I asked how
long they keep the tapes? And he said what tapes? The equipment wasn't there.
So, I think we're both saying, I think it's important to realize that awareness.
And we also have a Catch-22 that I didn't get to mention and I'll ask that we
include my full testimony in there, is that we heard a lot about research and
evaluation and safe and drug free school funding of programs requiring that. We
really haven't had that in terms of just the awareness and the training and the
crisis preparedness piece in our school security. So, right now we're kind of
hanging it, it's a Catch-22 we haven't really looked and talk. We don't look and
talk about these components of assessments and crisis planning and training as I
talked about today so we typically don't see it funded. And I think we have to
look at this as a comprehensive issue. Any single strategy is not going to solve
this problem, but again as I've said throughout, we have to deal with the safety
of the immediate environment and the balance in a multifaceted way. And again
the equipment is a supplement to but not a substitute for a comprehensive
approach.
SEN. DEWINE: Well, I want to thank both of you for your testimony.
It's very been very helpful. We've had four panels today. Each panel has had a
different angle, different point of view as far as their expertise. But I think
all the panels have been very helpful and so we appreciate your testimony, and
we appreciate your patience.
This will conclude today's hearing. Thank you.
END
LOAD-DATE: May 11, 1999
