Public school insanity: Column

Glenn Harlan Reynolds | USATODAY

In The K-12 Implosion, and also in these pages, I've noted that goverment-run public schools are facing a problem: There are more and more alternatives. It's not so much that the public schools are getting worse, I've argued, as that the alternatives are getting better and more attractive.

But now I'm starting to wonder. Maybe the public schools are getting worse. At least, to judge from recent news reports, they seem to be getting crazier.

Exhibit One: A seven-year-old boy who was suspended because he chewed his Pop Tart into the shape of a gun. Now, really, why would you suspend a kid for that? A gun-shaped Pop Tart isn't a threat to anyone. Nor does chewing a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun suggest violent tendencies.

Meanwhile, a 5-year-old girl was charged with "terroristic threats" for talking about her pink toy gun that shoots . . . bubbles. The school suspended her for 10 days and required a psychological evaluation.

And in Maryland, boys were suspended for playing cops and robbers and using their fingers as imaginary guns. Who is frightened by this sort of thing? People who can't distinguish between fantasy and reality.

In Alexandria, Va., meanwhile, a 10-year-old was arrested and hauled off by the police for bringing a toy gun to school, according to a report in the Washington Examiner:

" 'The safety of our students is always our first concern,' Morton Sherman said. 'We appreciate the quick response and action by our police.' 'The toy resembled a semi-automatic handgun,' said police spokesman Jody Donaldson. It was silver and had a black handle. It also had a orange tip that went into the barrel, showing that no ammunition was coming out of it."

Of course, the safety of the students was never in question -- because it was a toy gun -- but the mental abilities of the school and police officials are now in considerable doubt.

And that's the problem with all of these cases. Our justification for putting massive amounts of taxpayer money into public schools is that they're supposed to teach critical thinking. But stories like these -- and they're legion -- suggest that the very people who are supposed to be teaching our kids how to think are largely incapable of critical thought themselves.

A Pop Tart gun, a finger gun, or a toy gun -- even a pink one that shoots, gasp!, soap bubbles! -- isn't any danger to anyone. Nor is playing with toy guns a sign that a kid is mentally ill or dangerous. It's a sign that a kid is a kid.

When schools and teachers react hysterically to such non-threats, they're telling us one of two things: Either that they lack the ability to respond realistically to events or that they recognize that there's not any sort of threat, but deliberately overreact in order to stigmatize even the idea of guns. The first is educational malpractice; the second is educational malpractice mixed with abuse of power. Neither inspires confidence in the educational system in which they appear.

Happily, my kid is past the public-school stage. But if I were the parent of a young child, I'd think twice before enrolling him or her in public schools today. When innocent behavior can get a kid hauled off by the police, and subjected to God-knows-what sort of pyschiatric interventions, the dubious reward isn't worth the risk

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee. He blogs at InstaPundit.com.

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