ABSTRACT
During 1996-97 approximately 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual battery were reported in United States public schools. Weapons were used in about 11,000 incidents of physical attacks or fights and 7,000 robberies occurred in schools that year. Approximately 190,000 fights or physical attacks not involving weapons also occurred at schools in 1996-97, along with about 115,000 thefts and 98,000 incidents of vandalism. In all, approximately 1,466,000 such incidents were reported in public schools in 1999-2000. One or more serious violent incidents occurred in 20 percent of public schools. Since the 1950s, American education in high schools has been dramatically influenced by the vision of educational administrator James Conant. In the modern school situation, the aim of education has become the development of rational mind, namely the acquisition of scientific knowledge and objective reasoning. In the 1960s, along with the birth of the Cultural Revolution and counter-culture, demands for political and economic democracy extended to public schools.
