AP Security guard in Chicago's Clemente High School oversees students. The issue of school safety has been blown way out of proportion by the media, said Irwin A. Hyman, professor of school psychology at Temple University. There have been more than 110 articles in The New York Times on the Columbine shootings. That's far more than the number of students who were killed. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education says that crime in schools decreased 20 percent over the last three years, and one-third fewer students were expelled for bringing guns to school in 1998 than in the previous year.
Schools are, by all accounts, the safest places children can be.
Temple University's Irwin A. Hyman contends that heavy-handed school security measures are counteractive. What We Can Do About the Physical and Emotional Abuse of Our Children . Hyman believes that schools should be a bastion of democracy where children should be free to express their views and to dress the way they choose. He also disagrees with schools asking students to forfeit their rights in the name of safety. He has an ally in ACLU spokeswoman Amy Weil.