Working in schools these days is beginning to resemble working in a prison. Ironic, since I remember high school students of mine who would complain, "this is like a prison." In some ways, they were right. When you have to make the physical environment sterile because you can't have nice things, institute lockdowns, train the kids for active shooters, arm teachers, and institute strict dress and other codes....it does start to resemble one.

Schools got this way for a simple reason: lack of funds. Whenever I hear a parent or politician scream, "You can't just throw money at the problem!" I know exactly what they mean: we can't fix this by funding it.

With schools, funding fixes nearly every problem. More teachers=smaller classrooms=better-behaved kids. As the writer points out, problem kids have always existed but now, their numbers are growing. You reach a point in a classroom of 30 kids when you have too many hooligans (five, six, eight, ten?) and they overrun the teacher's ability to maintain order. This has nothing to do with how "great" the teacher is, but simply crowd control. Imagine you are at a large family gathering and 20% of your family are A-1 assholes.

I find it unbelievable that any student, anywhere, has the right to show up to class armed with a gun. I guess we're back in Tombstone days.