Students' School Murder Plans Not Surprising

People would be stunned to realize just how often students fantasize about killing their worst enemies -- fellow students who pick on them at school, and teachers who try to discipline their classes and draw nothing more than hatred.

Schools in America have become lethal snakepits. The story about some Alaskan students' alleged murder plot might be more typical than you might think.

In California and Arizona, the recent mass walkouts of Latino students who railed against Congress' failure to come up with a reasonable immigration policy were scary. Though most school districts tried to treat the hysteria as a "real-life civics lesson," the hostility from a normally placid Hispanic community was astonishing.

Over the years, it has become a celebrated cause to support "students' rights" which include a gradual reduction in student punishment. The only recourse for most teachers is to give these students poor grades, but that flies in the face of efforts to improve school performance and student achievement.

So what is the solution? Police aren't going to be as lucky as they were in Alaska, and another Columbine-style attack might be just around the corner.