I have been doing a lot of thinking about school violence. The whole story smacks of the kind of themes which will keep Oprah and Montel going for weeks, if not months. But, I kept wondering, why do we never hear about such incidents in the private school sector. Do they only occur in the public schools? Can anyone shed light on the truth here? Do independent schools maintain such good discipline and focus that nightmarish incidents like Jonesboro simply don't occur? 

My opinion is that they only do occur in public schools for reasons which have to do with the public education system and its much broader mandate. Public schools have to take in every student who lives within their boundaries. Private schools pick and choose their constituents. If you mess up in a public school, it's extremely difficult to get rid of you. If you blot your copybook in private school, you're history! Just look at the honor codes and discipline codes in independent school handbooks to see what I mean. Of course the bottom line is that a private school generally can enforce its rules promptly and with surgical precision. A public school has to go through much bureaucratic red tape to try to achieve a similar result.  In sum, private schools are governed by contract law in most instances, while the public schools must observe a host of constitutional mandates. This slows down the pace at which the public institutions can react to outbursts of violence.

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Rob