Violence in America's public schools.

As part of MetLife's series of annual surveys of U.S. public school teachers, the latest survey examined the perceptions of teachers, students and law enforcement officials about violence in their respective schools during 1993. Members of each group recognized violence as a problem in their schools, but the perceived magnitude of the problem differed among the three survey populations. Students reported seeing and fearing violence more than the teachers. Although the majority of teachers and students reported feeling safe in school, 11 percent of teachers and 23 percent of students had been victims of violence. The level of violence reported by teachers and the proportions who reported that weapons were regularly brought to school increased as the perceived quality of the education provided in the school decreased, as the proportion of minority and/or low income students increased, and in urban versus rural/suburban schools. Lack of parental supervision at home and lack of family involvement in school were considered major factors contributing to school violence by at least two-thirds of the teachers and 83 percent or more of the law officers. Sixty-six percent of students reported that guns/knives were carried to school primarily to impress friends or to increase feelings of importance; 38 percent of teachers thought self-protection and/or attempts to impress friends explained why students carried weapons to school.