Since 1998, the NYPD has assigned more than 5,000 school safety agents and at least 200 armed police officers to NYC public schools. Reports claim that school safety agents often abuse their authority, act belligerently and disrespectfully, and provoke students into confrontations.

NYCLU’s Criminalizing the Classroom (PDF)

The NYPD has received more than 2,700 complaints since 2002 about police abuse in schools. Dennis Rivera’s mother is suing for $15 million in damages. Alexa Gonzalez and her mother are suing for $1 million.

I agree that teachers have very few options since corporal punishment has been banned. I’m not sure there is a solution to this problem the way schools are restricted in their actions now. If schools were not controlled by the government, but by private organizations or local parent groups, they could set their own disciplinary measures that everyone in the school would agree to.

A study from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), shows that nationwide, 40.6 percent of 9th graders, 49.7 percent of 10th graders, 50.9 percent of 11th graders, and 61.7 percent of 12th graders reported current use of alcohol.

The peer pressure to join in and fit in is more than most students can handle, as evident in the preceding statistics. I’m not saying no home school students ever drink, but if such a study were done, I’m sure the percentages would be very low. With more parental interaction and supervision, as well as interaction with other adults, the environment is just not as encouraging of harmful behavior.

You’re right — as I reread my comment, I was unfairly judging your post, and I apologize. It is a factual article, and I would probably agree with your comment that it probably happens more often than we hear about. However, my comment on “cherry-picking your data” is valid (but I didn’t explain it well enough): The news media reports on BAD THINGS all the time, so it is easy to find these snippets of data to support a preconceived notion that public schools are bad places. For every bad thing that I hear about in the news, I can think of ten times as many good things that happen on campus (I work closely with students every week). As believers, we should be genuinely concerned with preaching the truth, which gives adequate consideration to BOTH sides.

My kids have never faced a drunk teacher, nor have any of their friends, nor have any of the students that I work with. I have never faced one growing up, none of my friends have, nor hundreds of others that I have personally come into contact with. Drunkenness is a problem of society, not of the public school system.